No matter where you live, war in Europe is guaranteed to hurt you and your interests, not just those of us who live in Europe and the West. Attacking people for supporting Ukraine, or else even taking the side of Russia, is cutting off your nose to spite your face, wherever you live. Support Ukraine.

It is often posited in media that the West is in trouble due to the state of its universities and that major rival China will outpace the West due to its own advances in higher education. The West, we are told, teaches nonsense to students, while China teaches practical skill. Western universities do of course teach much which can be classed as impractical or even as nonsense, but this does not mean the West will fall behind its rivals.

Fractional reserve banking, and leverage based paper loans where the cash doesn't have to exist.

From Evergrande, to the ill maintained and now unprofitable high speed train network, to rising authoritarianism, not all is well in the Middle Kingdom, and that could hurt the global supply chain and your own pocket.

A sense of security, perhaps accompanying security theatre, can result in such risk taking that despite preventative precautions, danger still stands, but without an awareness of it.

South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola has said that the country will pass legislation to expropriate land without compensation, after spending several years attempting to amend the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, in order to be able to pass legislation to expropriate land without compensation. The hitch in their plan is, the attempt to amend the constitution failed. They are still going ahead.

A different reading of the famous story in genesis, based on the Hebrew root word for the word translated as knowledge in the term: fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

An argument for a created universe.

The law of equity, not to be confused with the American ideological concept of equity, is a fascinating and necessary source of English law, one which looks at the truth on the ground, not just formal legal definitions of where parties stand in the common law.

What makes freedom so prolific, and quality of life so good in the west, at least comparatively speaking, when citizens of other less successful nations often have better standardized test scores, or more access to natural resources? And what does gratitude and a respect for the past have to do with this success?

Diversification of shares works on the premise that the stock market, because of the rules and regulations, with some effectiveness, weeding out the very financially unhealthy from public company and listed status, will generally, by the aid of the law of large numbers, as a whole, rise slightly, and bring diversified portfolios a slight return of perhaps the famous 10%.

However, there are cases where a diversified investment can lose a lot of money, such as where the fundamentals of a country's economy, or stock market, are bad. Is diversified investment in Zimbabwe or Venezuela or China a good bet? Probably not? What about stock market bubbles, say one created by the simple advice of 'diversify and you can't lose money, but will make 10% a year'? Could it be time for investors to start to look at the fundamentals of companies they invest in, such as their financial statements and market forces, instead of blindly betting on diversification in stock markets which are increasingly reaching record prices, prices which are often well in excess of companies' annual earnings and dividends?

South Africa's economy is an example of the effects of price's law amidst decades of capital and skills flight. (The riots referred to are 2021 riots. The Irish embassy in South Africa is the embassy referred to with reference to passports.)

The great Western defeat of 2021, Joe Biden's Saigon, and a great human tragedy unfolded over recent weeks with Afghanistan.

Of the recent riots in South Africa, and the multiple factors which could have made them more likely to have occurred.

I extend upon my previous arguments and continue to the logical conundrum that convinced me to remain Christian when I decided to investigate whether God existed and if so, what we could discover about him from just that fact.

Science is about disproving things which are falsifiable. Science is designed to find error, by experimentation, and evolves gradually as more bad ideas are disproven.

Science is about doubt. A hypothesis is thought up by a scientist, and a way to disprove it, and if falsifiable, he sets about attempting to disprove his own idea. Philosophy is about seeking truth, rather than error.

However, science is able to put forward hypotheses about things such as individual claimed miracles, or answered prayers, and attempt to debunk them.

Many falsifiable medical or other miracles have been put under the microscope, and not debunked by the scientific method, as yet, and that is all science can do, it cannot prove positive, only debunk, and fail to debunk what is believed falsifiable.

Saints tend to be declared due to medical miracles. Exorcists tend only to do their hidden art when there are cases of what might be deemed dark or evil miracles that doctors, etc, it is claimed, can't debunk as yet. Personal experiences of God or The Gods answering prayers are often why most people have a religious life.

Science's job is to doubt and debunk, even as that is not inconsistent with religious life, as most top scientists in history have belonged to a religion in some form or other.

My wife put out fresh birdseed and already the crows have arrived for their fill.

What the administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' bad jobs results can tell us about the dangers of UBI.

They watered its white petals with reddest blood,
And partied, drank, danced, and ate, with modern legend, well past midnight,
The flower of good success,
Its petals absorbed the blood, not their own,
And bloomed with such beauty,
Cannot be forgotten or unseen.

With words, which shimmering pictures made,
Smiles, champagne, limousines,
And flowers in flowing manes,
And they threw blood upon the flower,
An oblation to its infusion of beauty.
And unreality, they made, any fantasy enforced, And blood gathered from the believers of their very pretty lies,
The goodly gospel of good good good success.
And it delighted the eyes, the stomach, and the smiles.
And to its haunting melodies, we danced until sunrise,
But I could not deny the colour of grass or sky,
Or pretend clear skies were grey, and grey skies blue,
Or that the sun was but the moon.

And it flowered and bloomed,
And folk songs followed the flower,
And sought its wisdom and counsel,
And showered it in beautiful words and hopes,
And showered it in human blood.

Panglosses cheered and smiled, and danced,
And smoke like a machine consumed the scene,
And flames, like Roman candles did celebrate,
And around the flower, they danced,
And unlike the ancient living candles of Rome,
They did not go to a better place,
But their blood sparkled upon the petals,
And there they worshiped and rejoiced in the beauty,
Of the flowering flower, the flower of good success.

And as their many sacrifices, ordinary fools but armed with glitter and mascara, mirrors, and pyres of smoke, sparklers in their hands,
Flowers in their flowing long curls,
They danced into the flames, and smoke, and sacrificial beautifully spinning blades they themselves erected,
And their blood, too, hit the beautiful white flower,
Ingratitude their position of every bit of pride,
The flower of good success, full to excess,
But to me, it seems they never had lasting hope or real success.
Their blood spattered upon its petals,
And as the sun rose, it faded, and died, as all flowers eventually do,
And I watched from my spot a distance away,
As blood turned to dust and fed the soil.

As blood turned to dust and fed the soil.
A poem by Marc Evan Aupiais

Today much of Europe celebrates Saint Stephen's Day as a public holiday, as the UK and Anglosphere celebrate Boxing Day. Saint Stephen, like Socrates and like Christ, was killed for telling people things which offended their honour culture at the time. He was the first Christian martyr, the first person to die for Christ. He prayed that God not take revenge on his killers and their accomplices, among whom was Saint Paul, the later apostle. Saint Stephen held to a dignity culture encouraged by Christ, and which has found fertile ground in Europe over the millennia.