Quick Abacus – Page 2 – Commentary and Critique

December 25, 2023 Culture and Religion

The Transmutation of the Jesus Baby into the obese Coca Cola Santa

This was what the Germans called “Christkind”. The Pennsylvania Dutch, who were not Dutch but Germans, called it “Christkindl”, which was misunderstood by English-speaking Americans as “Kris Kringel”, which later became one of the names of Santa.

If you can see any meaningful connection between the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God and savior of mankind, or the holy bishop of Myra and the fat Coca Cola drinking drumstick-eating Boyar-Father-Frost-Santa and his red nosed reindeer, which have by now almost destroyed the original religious content of Christmas, please let me know.

Because I can’t.

December 9, 2023 Culture and Religion

Just Who is a Palestinian?

The Hamas Covenant of 2017 says: “Palestine is the land of the Arab Palestinian people, from it they originate, to it they adhere and belong …”

Well, they do not. They conquered it. Islam proclaims a strange principle about land once conquered by Islam: once a piece of land has come under Islamic dominion, it is forever in the rightful possession of Islam. This is why Islam claims Spain and Southern France as their property. It is like saying: “I stole your car, therefore, I now legally own it.”

But who is a “Palestinian” anyway?

December 9, 2023 Science and Philosophy

The Red Wolf — A Red Herring?

Historically the red wolf (Canis rufus) ranged from southeastern Texas to central Pennsylvania. It is native to the southeastern United States. Today, the only place red wolves can be found in the wild is in eastern North Carolina’s Albemarle Peninsula.

Red wolves are highly adaptable and can live in a variety of habitats: forested areas, grasslands, steppes, tundra, boreal forests, and even deserts. They can survive in both cold and hot climates. However, like all other wolves, they prefer mountainous areas and prairies (steppe) over swamps. The best habitat for wolves depends, of course, on the availability of prey and the absence of human threats.

November 13, 2023 Culture and Religion / Political Ideologies

Who are the Nazis?

On October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel. They randomly killed over 2000 civilians and took several hundred hostages. They murdered partying teens, they murdered people in the streets, they murdered people in their homes, their beds, their cars. They raped women in public and murdered several dozen babies by gouging out their eyes and cutting off their heads. Vlad the Impaler appears like a true moderate compared to the atrocities committed by these bloodthirsty Islamic fanatics.

When Israel awakened from its shock and started to retaliate proclaiming that, this time, it would completely eradicate Hamas so as to make sure that something like this would never happen again, all hell broke loose. Demonstrations everywhere.

November 13, 2023 Political Ideologies

One Man’s Meat is Another Man’s Poison

True. We do live in a world of good and evil. The problem is that one guy’s good is the other guy’s evil.

In the world of values- everything is indeed relative. But such incompatibility of values will spell the downfall of the human species. If we cannot somehow soon agree on a global ethical code, we are doomed, since we are now no longer clobbering up on each other with swords and spears but with nukes. Even a marginal guy like Kim Jong Un has the capability to start a nuclear war.

Yet, we cannot hope to agree on anything as long as each group of people firmly and unshakably believes that what it believes is the exclusive truth and that everybody else is just a bunch of offensive non-believers. It is this mindset, the mindset of the faithful believer come hell or high water, that makes finding common ground so difficult.

November 13, 2023 Science and Philosophy

Moral Relativity, Absolute Evil, and the Survival of Mankind

When I was 22 years old, I developed a philosophical system that was based on the concept of relativity. Since everything is relative, I argued, there are no absolute values. Panta rei. Everything moves. There was no certain knowledge and there were no binding values. No absolute good existed and consequently also no absolute evil. Consequently, my system postulated skepticism. My motto was: “Always expect the worst.”

Looking back, I find that my juvenile philosophy was eerily similar to the way of thinking, which our so-called intellectuals are promoting today. The concepts of “good” and “evil” do not seem to exist for these folks. They are lost in total relativism and subjectivism – which is doubly strange, because the apostles of subjectivism are also the torch bearers of collectivism. The result of this toxic and illogical mix is total moral confusion.

October 24, 2023 Culture and Religion / World

Blame Israel

Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist anti-Jewish organization, has attacked Israel and committed numerous incredible atrocities, like decapitating babies and raping and killing women in public. They proclaim to be and fight for the “Palestinian People”. Anti-Jewish hate demonstrations have popped up everywhere in the so-called “civilized” world celebrating this new height of bloody barbarism and blaming Israel for it. These deranged minds have wrapped themselves in the “Palestinian flag” in solidarity with the “Palestinian People” and their alleged fight for freedom.

But is there really a “Palestinian People”? Palestine is not a nation or a nation state or a country. The term refers to a geographic region located in the so-called Middle East that includes parts of modern-day Israel, Jordan, territories of the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. The term is equivalent to terms like “Rhineland”, “Appalachia”, or the “Western Desert”. The region has a long and complex history.

October 24, 2023 Political Ideologies / World

Ukraine — Again

In recent discussions with TikTok and RT viewers I heard the following arguments against supporting Ukraine against Russia’s war of aggression. They are also repeated in Mr. Putin’s argumentation that Ukraine is an integral part of Russia.

Ukraine is not really a genuine separate nation state.
Crimea has Russia’s most important warm water seaport.
The Ukrainians are actually Russians.
The Ukrainian language is only a Russian dialect.
We are pumping billions into Ukraine while our own southern border is overrun.
Ukraine does not deserve to be supported because it is corrupt.

Let us analyze these arguments.

October 2, 2023 Political Ideologies / Science and Philosophy

A hard decision for a bad actor

Dylan Mulvaney, a biological man, insists that he is a woman. However, his rendition of a female strikes me mainly as bad acting. He is “giving” an infantile teen girl. His impersonation of femininity is an insult to females and a travesty of womanhood.

That aside, I assume that we all know by now that females have two X chromosomes while males have one X chromosome and one so-called Y chromosome, which does not look much like the letter Y at all. It looks more like a truncated X chromosome. These sex chromosomes are present in every body cell, and they determine in all mammals including humans, which sex an individual expresses.

September 7, 2023 Culture and Religion / Political Ideologies

The Government Cargo Cult

When I was preparing for my research among the Yebámasa Indians of the Piraparaná in Colombia in 1977, I was given a research permit by the Colombian Government for the Curripaco Indians of the Comisaría del Vichada. My first step was to fly to the jungle town Mitú to speak with the Apostolic Missionaries and to find out from them who else was doing research in Vichada.

When I mentioned the “Curripaco Indians” the missionaries fell silent as if I had touched on a taboo. “Not a place you want to go,” one of them warned. It took a bit of poking and goosing but I finally found out why they were so apprehensive.

There was a civil war going on among the Curripaco Indians of the Vichada. They were killing each other, the missionaries, anthropologists, and white Colombians; and the situation was one of violence, chaos, and mayhem. I asked what had caused the Curripaco Indians, who were known to be quite peaceful, to suddenly become so aggressive and violent and was told the following story: