Facts. Women need the skills of a baseball scout. Read the fundamentals, assess the upside, project a ceiling, make an offer.

When my wife married me I was unemployed with a bachelors degree. Anything I’d say about our life now will sound like a fake internet flex. BL: better

This is quite funny. Women who wish to be successful in their family life, almost have to have the ability to predict success. All the successful men with reasonable personalities are taken, before they are successful. Those who are successful and coming out of no-fault divorce and wish to find another long term partner are quickly snapped up.

It would be very much in women’s interest to have a more equitable distribution of wealth, much better nutrition, active sports program. Faint chance of that happening, Stateside, though.

It was a relief to escape to Europe in the nineties, where positive male attributes were appreciated and prized.

Yet anyone who imagines female politicians will help build a warmer, kinder world has not been paying attention.⁷ The yelping vixens in Sweden, Finland and the pre-Baltics can’t seem to start a world war fast enough. The issue is probably not that women are more inclined to war, but rather that when creating puppets or, more neutrally, implementors, women are more suggestible. Hence the female WEF young leaders are more likely to follow instructions closely and comply with the program, whether foolish or wise. It’s not their business to judge the program but to implement that program, down to the dotted “i”.

There are no shortage of dotted “i” in Europe and all children are trained from an early age to be fastidious in complying and implementing extensive regulations. European women are extremely good at keeping these lists and enforcing them. While WEF is not responsible for human nature, their leadership does not hesitate to exploit humankind’s weaknesses. There are compliant men too, sticklers for rules, but men seem to have more independent thinkers among us. A good man has principles he won’t violate, regardless of what the rules of the day say.⁸

The current program is more war, less diplomacy, maximum destruction. Here’s a rogue’s gallery of the current European female politicians braying for war and more war:

• EU Commissioner Ursula von der Leyen. Ringleader of new austerity. High priestess of lockdowns. Mistress of empty promises for immediate Ukraine EU membership.
• Foreign Secretary UK (and rumored future Prime Minister), Liz Truss. Declared war with Russia off her own bat 28.4.2022.⁹ Fortunately few pay much attention to Truss after geographical gaffes.
• German Foreign Minister (and rumored future Chancellor), Annalena Baerbock. Endless drang nach Osten pressure, even before Russia started its military operation.
• Prime Minister of Finland Sanna Marin. Advocate for NATO membership for Finland without a plebiscite.
• Finance Minister of Finland Annika Saarikko. Unwilling to pay for Russian gas, pulling Norwegian gas out of British pipes to go to Finland instead. Keen to start a wider NATO war against Russia.¹⁰
• Prime Minister of Sweden Magdalena Andersson, pushed Sweden into NATO despite over two hundred years of neutrality and split public opinion.
• Foreign Minister of Sweden Ann Linde.
• Prime Minister of Lithuania Ingrida Šimonytė¹¹: “We must continue, increase and expedite lethal aid to Ukraine. We must disconnect all Russian banks, not just some, from swift…And all the economic sanctions we impose on Russia must be imposed on Belarus.”
• Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas. “more NATO fighters in our skies ready to switch from peacetime air policing to wartime air defense. And it would mean more NATO ships patrolling the Baltic Sea.”

Most of these WEF protegés are very young and unusually photogenic. More to the point, most of them are WEF disciples (“young leaders” or “members” is far too neutral language for World Economic Forum engagement). In 2020, Baerbock and Marin were officially ordained. Annika Saarikko was inducted in 2019. Ingrida Šimonytė attended WEF in 2020. Ursula von der Leyen is a member of the Board of Trustees of WEF and keynote speaker. 2020 was also Magdalena Andersson’s debut as a featured speaker. Ann Linde spoke at WEF 2020. While Liz Truss does have a WEF page, there’s no info on it. It appears that Truss does not meet the intellectual minimum requirements to join WEF, unless she’s catapulted to Prime Minister of the UK.

Curiously, the stunningly beautiful Kaja Kallas is not a WEF Young Leader nor does she seem to have any past affiliation with WEF. Kallas is a member of the European version of the hawkish Council for Foreign Relations and graduated from an American university closely associated with the US Navy. Kallas’s anti-Russian bent is more easily understandable as her mother was deported to Siberia as a baby in 1949. What the accounts don’t usually include is that Kallas’s grandfather was a past head of the Estonian Secret Police. Paradoxically, Kallas expresses her anti-Russia policies in more reasonable language and more realistic goals.

None of the calls for an unlimited war and cutting off Europe from their natural energy partner seem to have anything to do with “Building back better” or green infrastructure. The end result is Russian oil and gas travels farther to India and China, while US oil and LNG travels farther to Europe. The amount of pollution and environmental damage done by freighters rivals the military of the world.

These diverse green ladies and their parent organisation WEF under the guise of green infrastructure and green energy are lobbying for more and larger wars (more petroleum required), and an exponential increase in long distance ocean transportation of oil and gas.

Is there nobody awake at the top in Europe? This article is not to suggest that men have done a wonderful job in running the world, as to mourn the at least equally destructive swath female leaders are cutting across the planet. As a progressive man and equal opportunity employer, I had great hopes that with more female participation in political leadership, we could build a more peaceful world. Even that we would do more to preserve and protect the planet. Hélas, Charles¹², all wolves don’t wear trousers or show large teeth. Many wear lipstick and sensible heels.

Americans are very worked up about a family friendly nudist swimming event in the Canadian city of Calgary.

An American, Frank (who for some reason feels the need to keep his comments private) equated the event to a “kiddie porn palace”.

” the Calgary Nude Recreation group released a statement saying: “There are no nude beaches anywhere near Calgary”. WOW! THAT took some real rocket science to figure out. I doubt there are many kiddie porn palaces in Calgary either. So, is the solution to create one, open to the public? I doubt there are many kiddie porn palaces in Calgary either. So, is the solution unto create one, open to the pubic?

It’s a private event held by committed nudists. Nudists approach is to de-sexualise the human body via familiarity. It works. Nudist beaches run pretty well throughout most of Northern Europe and as pointed out in Vancouver. Most are family friendly.

Uncomfortable with nudism?

The only people who would have real reason to be uncomfortable in a nudist environment are pubescent girls (they are very uncomfortable with their bodies at that age due to change, with or without clothes it’s just part of nature) or stunningly beautiful women. A really beautiful woman will often attract excessive attention in a traditional nudist environment. All that attention is less of a problem with the clothes on (a beautiful woman either gets used to it or has to sit at home) but can be a bit disturbing without any clothes. Even with the clothes on, many beautiful women deliberately underdress, wear almost no makeup and hide their long hair to try to get away from the attention. Radiant pulchritude is not just a nudism issue.

Everyone else gets along just fine (i.e. about 85% of adults, teenagers and children) with no clothes on, as if normal. Adolescent girls are probably better to avoid nudist events and stunning beauties generally have better things to do. Nude or thong swimming off of expensive yachts or on Costa Brava, the Côte d’Azur, the Italian Riviera, Croatia, Greece or the Caribbean. Auditions or acting classes. Theatre rehearsals. Modelling gigs. University libraries and parties.

Young and Beautiful Nudists Don’t Really Exist

When you are young and beautiful there are a lot of places to be and family friendly nudist events are not high on the list. In time, our hypothetical young beauty will be able to enjoy these events again (as a mature woman/mother).

A real pervert couldn’t go to a naturist event anyway as he’d be showing wood all the time and have trouble controlling him/herself. A nudist event is the last place most perverts would want to show up.

As Michael Petch of 2/35Infantry correctly notes the cancelled swimming event is far from the most significant nudist manifestation in Canada:

Canada has the longest public all age family friendly nudist beach in North America coming in at around 45 miles in length. That is Wreck Beach in BC. Thousands of people in the buff with their children are all along the beach.

We seem to be able to handle it just fine. If there’s a weirdo around, he’s warned off. If a group of weirdos turn up, they’ll be sent packing by a larger group of nudist males. If that’s not enough, nudists in Canada are free to call the cops. Unlike in the US, the Canadian cops in large cities are not going to come in guns blazing, randomly shooting nudists and weirdos. Enough cops will turn up to make the weirdos move on and warn them off for the future.

This is the great thing about the rule of law, the absence of legal handguns (turning up with a firearm on either side would be a crime) and a working police force. In Canada we struggle to keep our police honest and sober, as the example south of the border is so totally out of control. By and large we succeed, though sometimes we fail.

Some of these misinformed Americans made the argument that people are born to wear clothing. A kind of immaculate clothed conception.

There is a reason people wear clothing. It’s to protect against the elements. It’s to protect against predators. These stupid people must live in a bizarre make believe world where everyone is innocent and pure. It boggles my mind. It’s like every day I read something where it further challenges the question, how stupid can people be?

Anti-Nudism Often Has A Religious Angle: Nordic Nudism

When challenged by Michael Petch that opposition to nudity is more a religious issue than a health one, Crash suggested that in northern Europe (apparently some kind of gold standard for appropriate human behaviour) people must go clothed.

LOL. Yea okay. You’re telling me that people from Nordic countries used to wander around in the cold without clothing?

Strangely enough the Nordic countries (along with Germany and Austria) are probably the centre of family friendly nudity. Moreover this part of the world has warm summers with very long days (white nights).

Akseli Gallen-Kallela, In the Sauna, 1889, Oil on canvas, 120 x 81 cm, Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki

In particular Finland has a huge tradition of nudism, including family friendly naturism. You can see it even in their art work in the national gallery in Helsinki. Not sure about Sweden (pre-Muslim invasion, i.e. Ingmar Bergman heyday – fifties to eighties) but think the culture is similar there. Keep in mind Finns are a separate language group and culture from the rest of the Scandinavians so what’s true of one is not true of another.

Based on their reaction to nudity, it appears unsafe to let Americans out of the United States.

When asked what surprised him most about humanity, the Dalai Lama answered:

Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.

Apparently the Dalai Lama never said this. What a pity if he didn’t. This is our life. We lose our time pursuing matters of little consequence, preening before our peers and dreaming of irrelevant wealth. Long term stress-related cancer claimed Steve Jobs as surely as it will claim you or me, if we don’t live better and balance our lives better.

One of my best friends and my long term creative partner died in a car crash on his birthday a week after mine, just before he hit thirty. My life was changed, his was ended. This is mortality.

On the other hand, since we are all in an inevitable rush to the finish line, what does it matter if we labour out our existence and pushing to the top of the ant pile? If we are going to be dead soon we may as well work hard while you have the chance.

Or to pivot one more time. Since we don’t live long, what does it really matter what we think or feel in our nanosecond?

To put some perspective on matters, life on earth is 450 million years old and has been nearly snuffed out three times before our epoch. Those 450 million years are just a short day in the history of our solar system which is approximately 4.5 billions years old and has another 6 billion years to go before the sun extinguishes itself, burning through all the helium.

the core of the Sun will collapse, and the energy output will be much greater than at present. The outer layers of the Sun will expand to roughly up to 260 times its current diameter and the Sun will become a red giant. Because of its vastly increased surface area, the surface of the Sun will be considerably cooler (2600 K at its coolest) than it is on the main sequence.[45] The expanding Sun is expected to vaporize Mercury and Venus and render the Earth uninhabitable, as the habitable zone moves out to the orbit of Mars.

Make the most of your day takes on a heavily ironic tone in the proper context.

Even our concern about nuclear radiation claiming life on earth seems silly. Who really cares – what warms us every day and makes life possible is a giant thermo nuclear plant 150 million kilometers away. Blowing up the entire stock of nuclear weapons in a single go wouldn’t match the radiation generated in our solar system every single day by our sun. Can our solar system, let alone the universe absorb our radiation and move on? Surely.

The consequences of excess radiation will just be rapid evolution of life through much heightened rates of mutation and illness. Eventually nearly radiation proof live will evolve its way through, just as exposure to the same toxins makes cockroaches more resilient. Or microbes more penicillin resistant. Finally millions of years later, the radiation will fade. Another Eden will blossom with more than 5 billion years to go before earth must die with its sun.

galaxy’s largest nuclear plant

Wealth and perspective: I’ve always disliked Mark Zuckerberg. He’s always seemed to me like some kind of geeky liar who liked to spy on women with toilet cameras, the last person on earth with whom I’d trust my address book. Or the kind of guy who would steal from friends and renege on deals. On the other hand, I’m gaining a certain begrudging respect for the grown up Zuckerberg. With all the wealth in the world, a modern Midas at twenty eight years of age, he still goes to work, lives modestly in a reasonable house. With the choice of most of the Maxim Hot 100 available to him, Zuckerberg married his university sweetheart Priscilla Chan whom he began dating before Facebook. The grown up Zuckerberg still goes to work and lives his life as if he were the most junior staff member at Facebook and not the 66th richest man in the world (amazingly enough Steve Ballmer is ten places ahead of Zuckerberg: business software is apparently a better niche than social networking).

Zuckerberg has understood at the end of the day there is only your life’s work and not drugs nor yachts nor Ferraris will really make things any better. Zuckerberg still has his mid-life crisis ahead of him. Perhaps then he will acquire a taste for starlets and fast cars, as the ticking clock of pleasure runs its hour out.

Beautiful women make the world go round.
But never forget Helen whose beauty destroyed Troy

I remember back in Moscow a good friend from university (amusingly enough we competed for Head of Year at Trinity College where I won the election in my first and probably last exposure to democratic politics) was a devoted husband with his university sweetheart. He had nothing of which to complain: his (ex)wife is a beautiful and sporty intellectual herself, even if inevitably imbued with the tedious hardline Canadian feminist “reality” with which we grew up.

I’d never seen a more courteous and gallant husband. “What can I do for you dearest?” was the kind of phrase which just tripped off his tongue naturally.

In Moscow, my friend ran with the top politicians for years. Much later he started to hang with the big brokers, the guys you read in the paper, international junk bond stars and hostile takeover artists. One day he snapped. He started dating six foot tall blond Russian models and dropped his political responsibilities to become an international financier in a drugs and booze fueled orgy of laissez-faire capitalism. Understandably his incredible wife left him in short order.

Perhaps my friend decided to live out the Dalai Lama’s dilemma from the other side. From first year in university, he had not been living but had been following a roadmap laid down in university, enviously watching his friends cavort with the most beautiful women in the world.

Man does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived

The present of luscious red lips, yachts in the Mediterranean and careening with caviar in one hand and coke in the other from one long legged beauty to another loomed too large. A friend “took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. ‘All this I will give you,’ he said, “’if you will bow down and worship me.’ His moment to say yes to hedonism was there and if he passed it by it would never return. He would have remained a stalwart government functionary and diplomat, just a little bit hen-pecked, having made his way to the store windows of Babylon but remaining always outside.

Was it the right choice to abandon trust and security and fidelity for those torrid adventures? In the context of just those 450 million years, the truth is the choice was irrelevant. Yet another suffered, part of the perpetrator had to die inside, our human covenant was broken.

Was the heady musk of those nubile loins worth the sacrifice? Some day, we’ll see one another again and I’ll ask him. My own answer?

Last week, Daniela, Slavo and I walked past the well maintained cemetery in Kittsee. The headstones gleamed under the afternoon sun.

“We’ll all be there very soon,” I ventured cheerily.

“What do you mean?” asked Danka. “We have many years before we arrive here. I hope.” Peculiarly death seems to alarm women far more than men. Estrogen appears to be some kind of would-be immortality hormone.

“Maybe not,” I answered. “I’ve lost close friends to car crashes. The reaper can come suddenly for all of us.”

du bon vin bordelais

“What’s the point of living life with that kind of mentality?” Daniela dreams of marriage, a small house, a couple of children and a small business. What her parents have.

“As long as there are enough beautiful women and the wine has been good, one can say that one has lived well. Oh and some dance and music to go with the above.The rest is just colours passing on a screen.”

“Don’t listen to him Slavo,” she sternly admonished. “What time do we put on the barbecue? With the steak, would it be better to open the Cabernet or the Frankovka?”