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"Luke Ford reports all of the 'juicy' quotes, and has been doing it for years." (Marc B. Shapiro)
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff) LATEST POSTS:
- Jim Goad (1961-2026)
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- Robert Oscar Lopez: The Inconvenient Witness
- Two Ledgers: Decoding the Gurus and the Price of Talk
- The Pervert’s Progress: Costin Vlad Alamariu and the Making of Bronze Age Pervert
- Curtis Yarvin: A Life Against Democracy
- Mark Helprin: Against the Current
- Mark Brandt: The Man Who Asked Who Else Is Prejudiced
- John T. Jost: The Psychologist of Acquiescence
- Strange Bedfellows in the Academy: Alliance Theory and the Straussian Schism
- Tournier on Desmond Ford
- The Fence and the Blessing: How Jews Have Thought About Gentiles
- Tournier on Luke Ford
- Tournier on The Nostradamus Kid
- An Alliance Theory of Antisemitism
- Tournier on Cinema Paradiso and Desmond Ford
- The Self-Hating Jew
- The Alliance Theory in the Academy
- The Borrowed Robe: How Antisemitism Dresses in Each Age’s Virtue
- A Place For You
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- * The Enlightenment Wasn’t Enlightened (6-23-26)
* Mr. Burge Draws The Line (6-23-26)
* 'Improving on Democracy' (6-17-26)
* People Leak To People Who Are Fun (6-11-26)
* Why Does Australia Produce So Many Great Journalists? (6-11-26)
* Steve Wynn and the Press: Power, Litigation, and the Contest Over Las Vegas (6-3-26)
* Sheldon Adelson and the Journalists (6-3-26)
* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
* The Cost of Refusing the Misunderstanding Myth (6-2-26)
* Show Me How It Travels (6-2-26)
* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
* Centering Marginalized Voices (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Washington Post put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What would it look like if the Financial Times put its reader first? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for the Los Angeles Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* What It Would Mean for The New York Times to Put the Reader First? (6-1-26)
* Why Wembanyama Lives on the Perimeter (5-31-26)
* The Emotional Palettes Of San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco & Sacramento (5-27-26)
* The Administrative Capital: Sacramento Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* San Diego - The Quiet Republic (5-27-26)
* The Quiet Bar: San Diego Legal Culture (5-27-26)
* SF v LA Legal Culture (5-27-26)
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* San Francisco and Los Angeles as Rival Models of Urban Access (5-27-26)
* Social Cliques in New York, 2026 (5-25-26)
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Category Archives: Islam
Michel Houellebecq: A Life
On September 17, 2002, Michel Houellebecq (b. 1956) sat in the 17th chamber of the Palais de Justice in Paris, the courtroom France reserves for press offenses, and faced four Muslim organizations, the Mosque of Paris among them, plus the … Continue reading
Posted in France, Islam, Literature
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The Jurisdictional Wars: Alliance Theory and the Battle for Islamic Authority
Islam does not present itself as a system of competing factions. It presents itself as a unified submission to God grounded in revelation, prophetic example, and the community of believers bound by a common law. The unity it claims is … Continue reading
Posted in Islam
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‘The battle for the soul of Islam’
Moshe Dann is credited by the Jerusalem Post as a “PhD historian, writer, and journalist.” He writes: Without an alternative to Islamism and Palestinianism, we will drown in what Hamas calls “The Al-Aqsa Flood,” the Islamification of the West, and … Continue reading
Posted in Islam
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But It Violates A Canon!
I feel like I’m getting ripped off when an expert explaining religion or politics points out how this or that manifestation violates the canon of this or that, as though canons are universal, transcendent, and global rather than post hoc … Continue reading
Posted in Epistemics, Islam
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Decoding The Middle East Studies Network
To decode the academic Middle East studies network through David Pinsof’s Alliance Theory, it helps to see universities as a separate prestige market from the Washington think-tank world. They interact constantly, but the incentives are different. First is the coalition … Continue reading
Decoding Islam
ChatGPT says: Islam sits structurally between Christianity and Judaism, and that explains why it treats theology, law, and practice as an integrated package rather than privileging one. Islam emerged as a rapid-expansion coalition that still needed strong internal discipline. It … Continue reading
Posted in Islam
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Populist vs Elitist Moral Signalling
Animals signal. People signal. We all signal. Why? Because signalling is adaptive and virtue signalling is virtuous. ChatGPT says: Elite moral signaling is procedural and sanitizing. It produces roles, committees, standards, funding streams, and a public performance of care. It … Continue reading
Posted in Australia, Bondi Beach, Elites, Ethics, Islam, Journalism, Populism
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Decoding Islam
Gemini says: Alliance Theory suggests that political Islam functions as a strategic network of supportive and antagonistic relationships designed to manage social threats and mobilize power. In this framework, religious belief systems are often “patchwork narratives” that shift to advance … Continue reading
Posted in Alliance Theory, Islam
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How Will The Bondi Massacre Rewire Australian Jews?
ChatGPT says: Alliance Theory would predict three layered reactions, driven by how the massacre reorders ally and rival maps for Australian Jews. Boundary hardening and in-group consolidation A public act of violence against Jews sharpens identity. People who were loosely … Continue reading
Posted in Anti-Semitism, Australia, Islam, Israel, Jews
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The Rise Of Jihadism
ChatGPT says: The version of Islam that is in open, sustained conflict with the West is best described as Salafi-jihadism (with variants like al-Qaeda’s global jihad and ISIS’s caliphate project). It is not “Islam” as a whole, nor even “political … Continue reading
Posted in Islam
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