Parasha Pinchas (Num. 25-30)

Listen here and here.

Wikipedia: “Pinchas…is the 41st weekly Torah portion (פָּרָשָׁה‬, parashah) in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the eighth in the Book of Numbers. It tells of Pinchas’ killing of a couple, ending a plague, and of the daughters of Zelophehad’s successful plea for land rights.”

* Rabbinic commentator Kli Yachar places the blame on Israel for consorting with Moabite women, not on the Moabite women. The Israelites prostituted themselves to the Moabite chicks. If a man has an affair, it is not usually the case that a naked woman knocked on his door. He pursued somebody. (Dennis Prager)

* The Moabite women brought the Israelite men over to worship the Moabite gods because they believed more strongly in their gods than the Israelites believe in their God.

* The Jewish tradition considers moral threats more serious than other threats. Thus, the Torah antipathy to Midianites is stronger than it is to the Egyptians.

* There’s a big difference between public and private sin.

* The only reason we know Pinchas did the right thing was that God announced that.

* JF loses patience with Emily Youcis, mutes her, before deleting the stream:

Emily keeps talking about nuking Africa. JF: “No, you can’t keep saying the n-word. You can’t keep talking about nuking various countries for fun.”

Emily: “I really tried, JF.”

Emily was texting during the stream because she was so frustrated.

* The feel good crowd who don’t care about building anything and accomplishing anything, but only want to act out against the rules and get banned because it feels heroic vs those (JF, Frame Game) creating change by working within the rules.

* My stay in your lane advice primarily applies to addicts aka those who habitually have bad judgment. Such advisement is unnecessary for the healthy.

* Are people who abide by Youtube’s rules part of the status quo? Not necessarily. America’s free speech status quo, for example, was overthrown by people such as the ADL working within the rules.

* All those women who set down rules on their partner not to publicly associate with the Alt Right — were they wrong?

* Steve Sailer writes: “It would be interesting to see an objective evaluation of what Presidential skills Trump has proven adept at and where he has proven weakest. Comments?”

Posted in Alt Right, Torah | Comments Off on Parasha Pinchas (Num. 25-30)

23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang

From Amazon.com:

The acclaimed Ha-Joon Chang is a voice of sanity-and wit-in this lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists have spun since the Age of Reagan. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism uses twenty-three short essays (a few great examples: “There Is No Such Thing as a Free Market,” “The Washing Machine Has Changed the World More than the Internet Has”) to equip readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works, and doesn’t, while offering a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.

Praise for 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism:

“A lively, accessible and provocative book.”-Sunday Times (UK )

“Chang, befitting his position as an economics professor at Cambridge University, is engagingly thoughtful and opinionated at a much lower decibel level. ‘The “truths” peddled by free-market ideologues are based on lazy assumptions and blinkered visions,’ he charges.”-Time

Posted in Economics | Comments Off on 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang

LAT: Aspiring rapper turns L.A. commute into nightmare

Los Angeles Times:

The worst qualities of Los Angeles — endless traffic and shameless self-promotion — collided in exasperating fashion Wednesday on the 110 Freeway in downtown.

It happened about 8 a.m. when a husky, shirtless man in underwear scaled an exit sign near 3rd Street, unfurled several banners and began vaping, dancing and shouting through a bullhorn as thousands of motorists looked on in various states of amusement, anger and resignation.

The spectacle shut down the freeway’s packed southbound lanes for roughly two hours and paralyzed much of traffic downtown as police officers and firefighters attempted to coax the man from his perilous perch.

By 10 a.m. officers had convinced the man to end his performance. He stood up facing the sign and did a backflip onto an enormous inflated cushion firefighters had placed below. As police escorted him away, he yelled to bystanders: “I love you all!”

Soon after, the man was booked on suspicion of delaying a police officer, trespassing on state property and failure to obey a regulatory sign. It was also revealed that the whole exercise was a publicity stunt.

Alexander Dunn, 29, an aspiring rapper who goes by the name Dephree, had been planning a big splash in advance of a music video that was supposed to come out Wednesday evening.

Footage of Dunn’s traffic sign antics will be featured in the video, according to his close friend and manager, King Graint.

Graint, who declined to give his actual name, told a Times reporter the act wasn’t all about self-promotion though. The performer also wanted to deliver a message about the environment.

“Dephree is truly, truly passionate about the environment,” Graint said. “He became a rapper and wanted to be a rapper to get a platform to talk about it.”

Among the banners Dunn hung from the sign were one that read “Fight pollution not each other,” and another that said “Give a hoot, don’t pollute.”

A third banner with graffiti-style writing simply had Dephree painted across it.

Initially, Dunn had wanted to scale a traffic sign at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland, but Graint said that was a non-starter.

“Dude there’s no way you’re going to fit,” he said he told Dunn. “You’re going to be too big. You’re going to break the thing.”

Then Graint was driving down the freeway and was struck with inspiration. The metaphor of shutting down the freeway — with all that smog —he said, was perfect.

Witnesses said Dunn was alternating between yelling about himself, love and God, and freestyle rapping. He also took breaks and would sit down and vape.

Posted in Los Angeles | Comments Off on LAT: Aspiring rapper turns L.A. commute into nightmare

From Adventism To Judaism

Background.

Posted in Adventist, Christianity, Christmas, Conversion, Judaism | Comments Off on From Adventism To Judaism

The Right Tonight With Kevin Michael Grace

* Los Angeles Times: “Before his death, 10-year-old Anthony Avalos came out as gay, official says. Authorities are investigating whether homophobia played a role in his death.”

MP3 MP3.

* The latest on Milo.

* Supreme Court upholds Trump’s travel ban. The right keeps winning.

* Japanese blogger stabbed to death after internet abuse seminar

One of Japan’s most prominent bloggers has been stabbed to death minutes after giving a seminar on how to resolve personal disputes on the internet.

Media reports said Kenichiro Okamoto, better known by his blogger name Hagex, died on Sunday evening after reportedly being attacked by a man he had argued with online.

The suspect, Hidemitsu Matsumoto, allegedly followed Okamoto into the toilets after he had ended his talk at a venue in the south-western city of Fukuoka.

Okamoto was stabbed several times before staggering out of the toilets after his assailant, who fled on a bicycle, according to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper….

Moments before the fatal stabbing, the 41-year-old had shared advice at a public event on how to deal with online disputes.

According to reports, the suspect had posted messages containing personal abuse directed at Okamoto and other commenters on the blog. The Mainichi quoted a source as saying that Okamoto “had got into trouble before with internet users over the content of the blog”.

In a message purportedly written immediately after the stabbing, Matsumoto said he had continued to abuse Okamoto by opening a new account every time his existing account was deleted.

He added: “I am going to go now to my neighborhood police box to voluntarily surrender and take responsibility for my actions.”

Matsumoto, 42, reportedly confessed to stabbing Okamoto, telling police he had grown to “hate” the celebrity blogger and wanted to kill him.

Regarded as a leading expert on cybercrime and the dark web, Okamoto worked for an IT security consulting firm and made regular TV appearances.

Japanese Twitter users paid tribute to the blogger, with many voicing disbelief over the violent nature of his death. “Rest in peace, Hagex,” one user wrote.

The IT journalist Daisuke Tsuda said he was shocked to learn of Okamoto’s death. “How could this have happened?” he wrote.

Online personalities and journalists are often victims of online abuse in Japan, where attempts are being made to crack down on hate speech.

Posted in Alt Right | Comments Off on The Right Tonight With Kevin Michael Grace

How Do You Stay Sane While Streaming?

How do you stay sane while moderating a lively Youtube discussion? How do you balance the competing needs of your audience, your ethics, and your guests? We can’t control other people, and yet we all exert a force field. We can’t force people to do what we want, but we influence others. Dennis Prager, for example, emits a strong moral force field. When Dennis walks into a room, people stand up and pay attention. They are profoundly affected by his presence. My force field, however, is weak.

Tehrani comments: You should be bloody proud to have created a channel where the audience gets to hear from so many diverse, strange & bizarre people.

It’s one of the weirdest, thought provoking channels I’ve ever encountered on YT.

I hope I don’t come off too stalkingly admirable, but I think the the lyrics to Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ come to mind when ever I listen to your streams.

As a fan, I don’t think I’m alone in relating to the following lyrics when listening to your streams, shows & ‘driving while advising’ vids:

“CREEP” – RadioHead
When you were here before
Couldn’t look you in the eye
You’re just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
And I wish I was special
You’re so fuckin’ special
But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here.
I don’t care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice
When I’m not around
You’re so fuckin’ special
I wish I was special
But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here.
She’s running out again,
She’s running out
She’s run run run run
Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want
You’re so fuckin’ special
I wish I was special
But I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo,
What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here.
I don’t belong here.

Posted in Personal | Comments Off on How Do You Stay Sane While Streaming?

Loneliness

I was inspired by this webinar by Alex Katehakis.

Far West comments: “I’ve asked myself the same question while feeling lonely at parties – “does anyone here care about me?” I like your therapists response. People will naturally begin to feel a connection with you when you take an interest in them.”

Claire: “There’s something deeply therapeutic about Luke’s musings.”

Posted in Addiction, Personal | Comments Off on Loneliness

Trump attacks ‘filthy’ Red Hen restaurant for turning away Sarah Huckabee Sanders

From The Independent:

Donald Trump has described a Virginia restaurant that refused to serve White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as “filthy”.

The president hit out at the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington on Twitter, after it turned Ms Sanders and her family away last week because she worked for the Trump administration.

“The Red Hen Restaurant should focus more on cleaning its filthy canopies, doors and windows (badly needs a paint job) rather than refusing to serve a fine person like Sarah Huckabee Sanders,” he wrote. “I always had a rule, if a restaurant is dirty on the outside, it is dirty on the inside!”

On my show today, Kevin Michael Grace and company (Claire Khaw, Analytical Chick, Ecce Lux, and Dennis Dale) discussed this incident and the coming civil war.

MP3 of the show.

Claire Khaw blogs: I come in from the 14th minute.

56th minute  Why the Mexicans wouldn’t put up with an immigrant invasion the Americans have

On the average of a country affecting the National Character from 1:01

The feminine stratagem from 1:24 and Trump as alpha male of America and whether he is really in charge.

Trump backs down on migrant family separations policy

From 1:52 Kevin Grace quotes: “Privatise profits and socialise risks.”

We discuss Corporate America and the oligarchy. I was going to say the second American Revolution should abolish to oligarchy and have a one party state like China, but they started talking about Kevin’s avatar instead.

The US could become a one-party state without even having to change its constitution

Western democracy falters and looks to China

It was me who complained about Kevin’s avatar in a previous podcast, so I can’t complain now. I have previously suggested that his avatar should be a marijuana leaf.
After Analytical Chick and are removed, Luke invites the men to discuss women. Kevin complains about my Twitter behaviour and Secular Koranism then starts having a lovely time talking about his time as a thespian, bad British teeth and life goals.

Martin Amis novels discussed.

Muriel Spark and ageing is mentioned. Apparently, being old is better than growing old.

At 2:29 Kevin is asked if he is gay. There is a shocked silence and then ….

at 2:31 Kevin compares about being stalked by me and my tweets to him at https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=from%3Aminimumst8%20to%3AKMGVictoria&src=typd  which he says are like Another Tequila Sunrise.

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eagles/tequilasunrise.html

Is Kevin the hired hand? Am I the woman runnin’ round while Kevin is enjoying his tequila nights and sunrises? With whom am I runnin’ round? Dennis Dale?

2:39  Kevin thinks I am nuts and a Muslim.

2:40  Luke Ford says he likes my comments on his videos.

2:41  Kevin Grace [grandly and portentously]: “I have realised the full import of Claire Khaw!”

Dennis Dale: “She is so right. You just reject her message because she is a woman, and an Asian woman.”

2:48  Kevin tells us of his thespian past.

2:52  Kevin very sweetly white knights for me.

David Icke

Tom Selleck

Tom Cruise

Psychiatry

3:06  Kevin caterwauls.

Their favourite movies

From 3:34  They talk about being being bullied at school. Kevin calls motiveless malignity Original Sin.

3:38 Ecce is complimented on his voice. I think it is a bookish preppy New England aristocracy voice. I imagine the narrator of The Great Gatsby having a voice like Ecce.

They are basically talking about their Yetzer Hara without using the word.

Posted in Alt Right, America | Comments Off on Trump attacks ‘filthy’ Red Hen restaurant for turning away Sarah Huckabee Sanders

My Rage, Resentment And Despair With Technology

Come July 3, I’ll have been blogging for 21 years, but I’ve never been ahead of the curve with technology. I only started using proper blogging software (WordPress) in 2006. I only started my Youtube channel in 2007. I only got an iPhone in 2016.

I was not one of the first guys in high school to learn to use a computer. I never took a computer class at Placer High School. I had peers well ahead of me in this respect. I did learn some computer skills writing for the Auburn Journal in my senior year, and then when I became the editor of the newspaper at Sierra Community College in the fall of 1985, I learned how to use a Mac.

I’ve always had this fear about technology, or just anything technical and practical. And not just fear, but impatience turning to rage and resentment and then despair when I couldn’t make things happened as I wished.

I was talking to someone close to me about this. We decided we had inherited this pattern. It was modeled to us in childhood and those neural pathways got so well worn, we haven’t been able escape them.

When JF Gariepy appeared on my show a few months ago, he said I’d get a lot more views if I did my videos more professionally. I know he’s right. I’ve always been more willing to expend effort to produce quantity rather than quality. My work history is frequently shoddy. “Careless” is my middle name.

So I’m in recovery now. I’m determined to up my game because I know that my habitual ways of doing things don’t work for me as I’d like. So I bought everything he recommended (including the BEHRINGER XENYX X1222USB sound mixer and the Shure SM7B Vocal Dynamic Microphone, Cardioid as well as a few things in addition (such as a standing desk, a topo standing mat, the RODE PSA1 Swivel Mount Studio Microphone Boom Arm, a polo shirt, and two Van Heusen dress shirts).

When the standing desk arrived, I read that it was simple to assemble, and yet I couldn’t do it. For one thing, my computer monitor cord was too short, so I had to order a longer one. I searched for videos with instructions on how to assemble the desk and there were’t any, so I sat on the ground and looked at the instructions and thoughts about how I could approach or pay people to help me and then I did a bit and a little more and then I set it aside for a few days until the cord arrived and one screw was missing, but I still got the desk working but the 30″ monitor seems shaky, who knows what it will do in an earthquake…

The togo mat was simple. I simply removed the plastic and put it on the floor and went to town on it.

The sound mixer bedevils me. I’ve watched all these videos on it and read the instruction manual but I don’t have a clue except I know that when I plug it into my computer, I can no longer get any sound in my headphones. I downloaded the Banana Voicemeeter that JF recommended but when I installed it, I could no longer get any sound into my headphones or speakers so I had to uninstall it.

I watched video after video about using Streamlabs OBS but I hardly have a clue about how I am going to transition to that platform and so I’m asking around for help.

This is how I’ve long dealt with my frightened approach to technology. I ask for help quickly, and when necessary, I pay for that help.

Posted in Addiction, Personal | Comments Off on My Rage, Resentment And Despair With Technology

Parasha Balak (6-24-18)

Listen.

From Chabad:

Balak, the king of Moab, summons the prophet Balaam to curse the people of Israel. On the way, Balaam is berated by his donkey, who sees, before Balaam does, the angel that G‑d sends to block their way. Three times, from three different vantage points, Balaam attempts to pronounce his curses; each time, blessings issue forth instead. Balaam also prophesies on the end of the days and the coming of Moshiach.

The people fall prey to the charms of the daughters of Moab, and are enticed to worship the idol Peor. When a high-ranking Israelite official publicly takes a Midianite princess into a tent, Pinchas kills them both, stopping the plague raging among the people.

* Num. 22:3: “Moab was terrified because there were so many people. Indeed, Moab was filled with dread because of the Israelites. 4 The Moabites said to the elders of Midian, “This horde is going to lick up everything around us, as an ox licks up the grass of the field.””

Numbers matter. Demographics matter. Fearing a powerful neighbor is normal.

* Balaam has supernatural gifts. I am open to people having such gifts. Perhaps God reaches out to those who reach out to him.

* How much do you care about other people blessing or cursing you?

* Wikipedia entry on Balak.

* When Pinchas kills the fornicators, that’s an intense solution to an intense problem — the public desecration of Judaism’s laws. It is one thing to sin privately, that can be ignored, but if you sin publicly, you’re asking for a response. The more intense the public sin, the more intense the response. What was the proper response to the decadence of Weimar Germany? What is the proper response to the decadence of Weimarica?

* Most men will give up everything for the opportunity to have sex with a hot chick. I see no reason to waste time denying or bemoaning this reality. Instead, we should accept it and design policy around it.

Women are not superior creatures because they have a lower sex drive (when did you last see a female leader fired for her bad sexual choices?). They are superior in the narrow sense that nature enables them to make less impetuous sexual choices just as nature has endowed men with greater strength and intelligence and courage to make sounder choices in other areas of life.

* Richard Spencer talks about the lawfare against him and the Alt Right. He discusses how almost every fundraising platform he’s joined, has then banned him. Well, when your stated platform is to overthrow the existing order, you have to expect this level of opposition.

* CNN reports:

HHS official listed work for anti-Islam show, conspiracy website on resume

(CNN)A far-right political pundit who was appointed to a post at the Department of Health and Human Services listed on her resume her past work on a conspiracy website and YouTube show where she made anti-Muslim comments, according to documents obtained by CNN’s KFile.

Ximena Barreto was placed on leave at the department in April following reports from CNN and Media Matters that she spread conspiracies and made anti-Muslim comments. She returned to work after issuing a public apology but was moved from her job as a deputy director of communications.
“Comments I made as I private citizen before I was hired at HHS were brought to light by concerned members of the press,” Barreto said in her apology at the time. “In the heated and hyper-passionate political campaign environment, I made generalized comments regarding race relations and radical Islam. I fully understand that these emotionally-charged comments were hurtful, and I deeply apologize to members of both communities.”
A copy of Barreto’s resume, obtained by CNN on Thursday through a Freedom of Information Act request, shows she listed her previous conspiratorial work on her resume as a qualification for the communication position.
The resume noted her work from June 2017 through the present on “The Right View” and on the Halsey News Network — YouTube shows she co-hosted where she said Islam was “a cult” and said the Republican Party shouldn’t allow a Muslim to run for Congress.

Posted in Alt Right, Torah | Comments Off on Parasha Balak (6-24-18)