“In many cases we were requiring 72 jabs for our beautiful, healthy, lovely, delicate little children“ — DT, 10 Aug. 2026
“[Autism] is many, many times what it used to be years ago, and it gets progressively worse. And we had progressively more and more vaccines” — DT, 10 Aug. 2026
“A vaccination looks like the size of the bottle of soda poured into a little child’s body“ — DT, 10 Aug. 2026
“Decades ago, children received only a small fraction of the vaccines required today. In those times, people were much [healthier], and of course, the high rates of autism now observed did not exist” — DT, 10 Aug. 2026
“When you and I were kids, everybody got measles, and measles gave you … lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that. The vaccine is effective for some people for life, but for many people, it wanes” — Robert F Kennedy, March 2026
“Those agencies are going to do everything in their power to make the Amish vaccinate. Because they cannot stand the fact that you are healthy.” — Robert F Kennedy, 10 Aug. 2021
“The communities that are suffering from measles are almost all religious communities that just don’t vaccinate” — Robert F Kennedy, 2 Aug. 2026
Archive for quotes
and it is getting worse… [verbatim]
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures with tags Agent Orange, Amish communities, antivaxers, autism, baby Trump, BBC, cliffs, Derailed Trump, Donald Trump, measles, populism, quotes, religious communities, US politics, vaccines, WHO on August 19, 2026 by xi'an
Thucydides 2.0
Posted in Statistics with tags antiquity, Athens, baby Trump, France Inter, History of the Peloponnesian War, Mark Carney, Melian Dialogue, Melos, political realism, political science, quotes, Sparta, Thucydides, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping on May 24, 2026 by xi'an
Last weekend, I was listening to one of my favourite (France Inter) radio shows, Quand les dieux rôdaient sur la Terre (when gods roamed the Earth), and the story was about the siege of the tiny island of Melos by the Athenians and the subsequent massacre, based on the report given in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War and in particular the Melian Dialogue. I was unaware of this episode, but the modern tone of the dialogue excerpts was striking and made me think they equally applied to modern leaders… To wit,
“The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.” — Melian Dialogue, Book V
“Most people, in fact, will not take the trouble in finding out the truth, but are much more inclined to accept the first story they hear.” — Book I, §20
“Men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them.” — Book III, Cleon’s speech
“It is a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end — to act first, and wait for disaster to find out what to do.” — Book I, §78
“Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice.” — Book III, §8
and it is getting worse… [verbatim]
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel with tags Agent Orange, autoritarian, baby Trump, Bahrain, BBC, cliffs, Derailed Trump, designators, Donald Trump, European Union, humanism, Iran, Israel, Kuwait, nationalism, populism, Qatar, quotes, Saudi Arabia, The Guardian, The New York Times, theocracy, UAE, US elections 2024, US politics, war crimes on April 3, 2026 by xi'an
“It’s a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon.“ — DT, 28 Feb. 2026
“I might have forced [Israel’s] hand. If we didn’t do it, [Iran] were going to attack first.“ — DT, 03 March 2026
“We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough“ — DT, 08 March 2026
“There will be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender.“ — DT, 06 March 2026
“I think there’s a very good chance we’re going to end up in a deal. And so we’re giving it five days and then we’re going to see where that takes it.” — DT, 23 March 2026
“I don’t want to do a ceasefire. You know you don’t do a ceasefire when you’re literally obliterating the other side” — DT, 20 March 2026
“[The Iranian Government] want very much to make a deal. We’d like to make a deal, too.”— DT, 20 March 2026
“This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it.” — Pete Hegseth, 02 March 2026
“So they hit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait. Nobody expected that. We were shocked.“ — DT, 16 March 2026
“[NATO countries] don’t want to help open the Strait of Hormuz, a simple military maneuver that is the single reason for the high oil prices. So easy for them to do, with so little risk. COWARDS, and we will REMEMBER!” — DT, 20 March 2026
and it is getting worse… [verbatim]
Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel with tags Agent Orange, America, autoritarian, baby Trump, BBC, cliffs, Denmark, Derailed Trump, Donald Trump, European Union, global warming, Greenland, humanism, Kyiv, nationalism, NATO, Nobel Peace Prize, Norway, populism, quotes, snowstorm, The Guardian, The New York Times, theocracy, truth social, US elections 2024, US politics, war crimes, xenophobia on February 1, 2026 by xi'an
“The United States [of America] needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security. (…) NATO should be leading the way for us to get it (…) [and] becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the United States [of America]. Anything less than that is unacceptable” — DT, 14 Jan. 2026
“Yeah, there is one [limit to my ability to use American military might]. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me. I don’t need international law.” — DT, 08 Jan. 2026
“We have subsidized Denmark, and all of the Countries of the European Union, and others, for many years by not charging them Tariffs, or any other forms of remuneration. Now, after Centuries [sic], it is time for Denmark to give back — World Peace is at stake!” — DT, 17 Jan. 2026
“Considering your Country decided [sic] not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS [sic bis], I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the US. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland” — DT, 19 Jan. 2026
“Record Cold Wave expected to hit 40 States. Rarely seen anything like it before. Could the Environmental Insurrectionists please explain – whatever happened to global warming?” – DT, 23 Jan 2026
“I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week, and he agreed to do that. It was very nice. A lot of people almost didn’t believe it, but they were very happy about it because they are struggling badly.” – DT, 29 Jan 2026
more dough
Posted in Books, Mountains, pictures, Travel with tags Canada, Canmore, gold rush, Klondike, Mount Rundle, poem, quotes, Robert W. Service, Songs of a Sourdough, The Spell of the Yukon, Three Sisters, Whitehorse, Yukon on December 24, 2025 by xi'anIn a recent thesis I reviewed, the author had included the following poem as a quote—in connection with the Klondike Gold Rush, when miners kept a live sourdough starter in a tin box—:
There where the mighty mountains bare their fangs unto the moon,
There where the sullen sun-dogs glare in the snow-bright, bitter noon,
And the glacier-glutted streams sweep down at the clarion call of June.
There where the livid tundras keep their tryst with the tranquil snows;
There where the silences are spawned, and the light of hell-fire flows
Into the bowl of the midnight sky, violet, amber, and rose.
There where the rapids churn and roar, and the ice-floes bellowing run;
Where the tortured, twisted rivers of blood rush to the setting sun…
The Heart of the Sourdough (1907)
by Robert W. Service
