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Patrick says

Very true Patrick, as read what Robert Downey Jr has said about this.

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There are some easy read books that are very helpful such as 7 Habits of Effective People, and How to Make Money in Stocks (written by the founder of Investors Business Daily).

If I am going to reach fiction, I like James A. Michener. I read his Caribbean book when I was stationed in the early 90's at Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico.

It gave an appreciation as far as the cultures around me especially when I traveled to different islands.

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I just finished vol 9 of "The Life and Works of Thomas Paine". I haven't read the previous volumes. I just happened to find this book on a book-exchange shelf near me run by the owner of this local used bookstore:

https://www.abebooks.com/feldmans-books-menlo-park-ca-u.s.a/69651/sf

I like old books, so this one caught my eye.





It was printed in 1925 and apparently never read through, since some of the pages needed to be sliced apart to open them.

I flipped through it and could feel the fire! Hoo boy, is Paine an unorthodox guy. He was a Deist, saying that the universe itself is proof of God, but denying all "revealed" religion and their books.

He was the OG memer, writing little tracts and distributing them. Some of the stuff is hilarious, as in speculating that angels must shit, since the bible says they eat, and comparing that to the way birds shit in flight.

I must read "Common Sense" now if I can find a copy. Our local library does not have it, amazingly. They do have a ton of books on how to be gay and why white people are bad though, all prominently displayed.

Still struggling through Ulysses, but the more I read it, the more I like Joyce and his unique style. Although I must say I am stumped after listening to The Dubliners sing about fighting against England, and comparing that to the stories I hear about Ireland today. What the fuck happened..?

Ireland got rich. Well, the Republic did anyway. That took the fight out of them. They became wussified.

NuttBoxer says

Still struggling through Ulysses, but the more I read it, the more I like Joyce and his unique style. Although I must say I am stumped after listening to The Dubliners sing about fighting against England, and comparing that to the stories I hear about Ireland today. What the fuck happened..?

The Soviet Union fell, drying up the majority of funding for the IRA. That prompted them to come to the bargaining table with the Unionists and largely end the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland.

Then Ireland was swept up in the whole EU thing, after that whole hiccup with the European ERM collapse caused by Soros in 1992. Later, EU money gushed into Ireland, and bought up everything, causing a real estate boom like Spain and the rest of the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain).

When the housing meltdown occurred, the Irish assumed about 50 billion pounds of the bad loans lent by the international banks under pressure from the EU. Unlike the Icelanders, who said "Fuck you!" to that bullshit, the Irish, to my and their shame, acted like the whipped cur that they are and knuckled under, nearly bankrupting their economy.

rocketjoe79 says

Highly recommend the Aubreyaid (Master and Commander Series) by Patrick O'Brian. Excellent on every front.

Finally saw the 2003 movie Master and Commander and it was really excellent. I recommend it.

https://archive.org/details/fasting-the-ultimate-diet-with-bonus-book-fasting-as-a-way-of-life

Fasting The Ultimate Diet by Alan Cott. Also available as paperbook on Amazon. Everyone should consider reading this one, imho

NuttBoxer says

Still struggling through Ulysses, but the more I read it, the more I like Joyce and his unique style. Although I must say I am stumped after listening to The Dubliners sing about fighting against England, and comparing that to the stories I hear about Ireland today. What the fuck happened..?

They cucked out. Don't even speak their native language anymore.

I agree.

The Irish should speak only in Irish to each other.

Iceland retains its own language even though everyone there knows English. So it can be done.

Patrick says

The Irish should speak only in Irish to each other.

This will serve as an anti-dote to wokeism

Patrick says

The Irish should speak only in Irish to each other.

Which "Irish" is that? In the old days, an "Irish" from County Cork spoke a language different enough from an "Irish" from County Kerry as to be mutually unintelligible.

HeadSet says

Patrick says

The Irish should speak only in Irish to each other.

Which "Irish" is that? In the old days, an "Irish" from County Cork spoke a language different enough from an "Irish" from County Kerry as to be mutually unintelligible.

There must be a standard Irish, methinks. Germans have many dialects but standard German is a thing.

There is a standard Irish which is taught in schools and used in official documents.

I threw a good five years into learning Irish, even studying a bit on Inisheer (Irish: Inis Oírr). The three main dialects are mutually intelligible and people converse across them all the time. The fourth dialect is Scottish Gaelic, which is not really a separate language from Irish, though the Scots would like to think so. It's further removed, but I've read that any Irish speaker needs only about a week to get a pretty good understanding of Scottish. I can get parts of it myself.

The Irish colonized Scotland about the same time that the Angles and Saxons were moving into England, like 700 AD. This is why Scottish Gaelic exists. The Irish brought it there.

Someone left this book out on the street nearby for free with other household items for anyone to pick up, so I've been reading it at night before going to sleep. I've been interested in Locke since learning that he was one of the inspirations for the American founding fathers. He even repeatedly refers to "Life, liberty, and estate", which is not exactly the same as the Constitution, but close.

His English is pretty long, twisty, and verbose, but then he was writing in about 1690. I have to read some things several times, but I can mostly get it.

This edition copyright 1937, printed in 1952.

Patrick says

And this cartoon came out decades ago.

Sort of finished the Locke, Berkeley, and Hume book above. Their English is so verbose and twisty that it was too painful to really read it all. Glad I tried though, because I got an impression of all three of them into my head. Locke was totally one of the founders of the US whether he knew it or not. The Constitution is clearly quoting him at times.

Found another interesting book at a free bookshelf around here, so I've started that now:



Heard about Plutarch many times, so it will be interesting to read his little biographies of many people of ancient history. He's said to be very entertaining.

Patrick says

Found another interesting book at a free bookshelf around here, so I've started that now:

Wait until you get into the Livia conspiracy or is that in Cassius Dio?

You'll LOVE The History of Rome podcast

AmericanKulak says

You'll LOVE The History of Rome podcast

@AmericanKulak

Do you mean this one? https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

Patrick says

AmericanKulak says

You'll LOVE The History of Rome podcast

AmericanKulak

Do you mean this one? https://thehistoryofrome.typepad.com/

That's the one. Then you can start the History of Byzantium podcast after that, which should cover you for QUITE a while.

Thanks @AmericanKulak

I finally started listening to them and they are very good.

It's nice that they are just mp3 files, so I can download them and listen to them later without a connection.

Patrick says

Heard about Plutarch many times, so it will be interesting to read his little biographies of many people of ancient history. He's said to be very entertaining.

https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/cost-of-glory-podcast-alex-petkas-interview

“Fill your souls with Plutarch, and dare to believe in yourselves when you have faith in his heroes. With a hundred people raised in such an unmodern way, that is, people who have become mature and familiar with the heroic, one could permanently silence the entire noisy pseudo-education of this age.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

Started reading the Arabian Nights tales. The whole book centers around a king who kills the girl he sleeps with every morning so she won't have a chance to cheat on him. Seems like patnetters have more in common with Arabs than many of you might think.

NuttBoxer says

Started reading the Arabian Nights tales. The whole book centers around a king who kills the girl he sleeps with every morning so she won't have a chance to cheat on him. Seems like patnetters have more in common with Arabs than many of you might think.

Shhhh!

Well, when he comes across Scheherazade, she keeps him entertained and he keeps letting her live.

Yes, but the opinion of women as whoring sluts who can't keep their legs closed, especially around black slaves is not subtle..

Lol, yes, I noticed that when I read 1001 Nights.

Re-reading Richard Grant's American Nomad. My family is definitely Scotch Irish. My friends have teased me that I dye my beard red. My surname has a town in Virginia. My great grandfathers were moonshiners, and one of them married a Cherokee. Name originally derives from Norse, who invaded England, especially in the north, where the Scotch Irish descended from. I hate the government, distrust authority, get surely when I drink, and married a Mexican. Her people are of course a combination of Spaniards(some of the earliest explorers), and Indians(earliest inhabitants). We've never lived in a house longer than 4 years, and for me that holds true for my entire life. I'm a domesticated version of the book's focus, living most of my life in the area most suited to travel.

Grant mentions many of the people he interviewed for his book are Scotch Irish, and still have the same traits as their ancestors. Governments have been kicking us for at least 600 years, but it never gets through, and they never stop under-estimating us. You think we're sitting out what's coming, think again...

I didn't know Nuttboxer was a Scandinavian name. Sven Nuttboxer does have a nice ring to it.

Floki Testikelboxer is probably more like it.

Norse, and the name changed a bit from there to England.

https://patrick.net/post/1322462/2019-02-18-political-humor-thread?start=36197#comment-2058179