I do not subscribe to Anglosphere solidarity

 I do not subscribe to Anglosphere solidarity.

 ---

The idea that since the US government has supported Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau's allegations against India in murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the allegations must be credible is not logical.

 

Among the allegations that Trudeau has raised against India, there is one that can be readily checked.  

 

In stripping 41 diplomats of their diplomatic immunity, Trudeau claims that India is in violation of international law and in violation of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations. [1]

 

"Trudeau made the remarks in Brampton Ont. a day after his government confirmed that 41 Canadian diplomats had left India after New Delhi threatened to revoke their diplomatic immunity."

 

"This is a violation of the Vienna Convention governing diplomacy," Trudeau said. "This is them choosing to contravene a very fundamental principle of international law and diplomacy. It is something that all countries in the world should be very worried about.

 

The US government supports Canada on this [2]:

 

"Resolving differences requires diplomats on the ground. We have urged the Indian government not to insist upon a reduction in Canada’s diplomatic presence and to cooperate in the ongoing Canadian investigation," the U.S. State Department said, adding that it expects "India to uphold its obligations under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations."

 

Fact of the matter is that the Canadian mission in India is much larger than the Indian mission in Canada. Around September 20th,  India asked Canada to reduce its mission to parity and gave Canada up to October 10th to do so. [3]

 

This is perfectly fine per the Vienna Convention [4], Article 11, specifically Article 11.1.

 

Article 11

 

1.In the absence of specific agreement as to the size of the mission, the receiving State may require that the size of a mission be kept within limits considered by it to be reasonable and normal, having regard to circumstances and conditions in the receiving State and to the needs of the particular mission.

 

2.The receiving State may equally, within similar bounds and on a non-discriminatory basis, refuse to accept officials of a particular category.

 

Canada did not comply by October 20th and so India withdrew their diplomatic immunity.  That is perfectly fine per Article 9 of the Vienna Convention.

 

Article 9

 

1. The receiving State may at any time and without having to explain its decision, notify the sending State that the head of the mission or any member of the diplomatic staff of the mission is persona non grata or that any other member of the staff of the mission is not acceptable. In any such case, the sending State shall, as appropriate, either recall the person concerned or terminate his functions with the mission. A person may be declared non grata or not acceptable before arriving in the territory of the receiving State.

 

2. If the sending State refuses or fails within a reasonable period to carry out its obligations under paragraph 1 of this article, the receiving State may refuse to recognize the person concerned as a member of the mission.

 

The above thus establishes:

 

1. The Canadian Prime Minister made a patently absurd allegation against India.

2. The US, UK and the Anglosphere nevertheless supported the Canadian Prime Minister on this patently absurd allegation.

 

The only plausible reason for the US Department of State to do such a thing is Anglosphere solidarity.   But if they would do so an easily demonstrated absurdity, then it places in doubt the "credible allegations of a potential link" of Indian agents to the murder of Nijjar, for which no information has been provided at all.  It could simply be Anglosphere solidarity.

 

The Indian Minister of External Affairs, Dr S. Jaishankar has said, while in the US and elsewhere , that such foreign operations are not India's policy. [6]

 

The Canadian Prime Minister's unsupported allegations are credible only to those who share an Anglosphere solidarity.  I am not among those, and in addition, I have shown you how threadbare is the Anglosphere's charge of "violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations" by India.

 

[1] India making life 'unbelievably difficult' for millions by ordering diplomats out, says Trudeau, CBC News, Peter Zimonjic, Posted: Oct 20, 2023 12:56 PM EDT

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-india-making-life-difficult-1.7002961

 

[2] US and UK back Canada in dispute with India over diplomats, Reuters, By Kanishka Singh and Costas Pitas, October 20, 20239:13 PM EDT https://www.reuters.com/world/us-backs-canada-dispute-with-india-over-diplomats-2023-10-20/

 

[3] Diplomatic row escalates, India asks Canada to downsize missions, pauses issuing visas, The Deccan Herald, Anirban Bhaumik DHNS,  Last Updated 21 September 2023, 11:18 IST 

 https://www.deccanherald.com/world/canada-asked-to-downsize-diplomatic-presence-in-india-2695819

 

[4] Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, United Nations, https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf

 

[5] India withdraws immunity from 41 Canadian diplomats, EFE, 20 October 2023,

https://efe.com/en/other-news/2023-10-20/india-withdraws-immunity-from-41-canadian-diplomats/

 

[6] ‘Foreign ops not part of govt policy’: Jaishankar in US, Hindustan Times, By

Prashant Jha Sep 28, 2023 04:26 AM IST

https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/foreign-ops-not-part-of-govt-policy-eam-in-us-101695839606336.html

Snakes in the backyard

“You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors. You know, eventually those snakes are going to turn on whoever has them in the backyard.” ― Hillary Rodham Clinton, addressing the media in a joint press conference with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, October 21, 2011.

If Hamas was permitted to flourish by Netanyahu and the right-wing in Israel, as a prophylactic against a two-state solution, it is time someone had the same joint press conference with them.

There is no choice but to kill the snakes.  This is going to involve enormous losses of people.

The question is whether there is going to be a change in course, or will the cultivation of snakes  continue after this particular battle is over.

-----

 Hamas’s attack shows Benjamin Netanyahu failed Israel - Vox

https://www.vox.com/23910085/netanyahu-israel-right-hamas-gaza-war-history

Second, a columnist at Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-09/ty-article/.premium/another-concept-implodes-israel-cant-be-managed-by-a-criminal-defendant/0000018b-1382-d2fc-a59f-d39b5dbf0000) unearthed evidence that Netanyahu has intentionally propped up Hamas rule in Gaza — seeing Palestinian extremism as a bulwark against a two-state solution to the conflict.

Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” the prime minister reportedly said at a 2019 meeting of his Likud party. “This is part of our strategy — to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”

These exact comments have not yet been confirmed by other sources. But the Times of Israel’s Tal Schneider wrote on Sunday that (https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/) Netanyahu’s reported words “are in line with the policy that he implemented,” which did little to challenge and in some ways bolstered Hamas’s control over the Gaza Strip. Moreover, Schneider notes, “the same messaging was repeated by right-wing commentators, who may have received briefings on the matter or talked to Likud higher-ups and understood the message.” Some Netanyahu confidants have [said the same thing ( https://twitter.com/DanielSeidemann/status/1711338210679304483 ), as have outside experts.

The first link above in Ha'aretz is to Gidi Weitz, who precedes the Hamas quote with: [Another Concept Implodes: Israel Can’t Be Managed by a Criminal Defendant - Israel News - Haaretz.com](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-09/ty-article/.premium/another-concept-implodes-israel-cant-be-managed-by-a-criminal-defendant/0000018b-1382-d2fc-a59f-d39b5dbf0000)

His {*Netanyahu's*} life’s work was to turn the ship of state from the course steered by his predecessors, from Yitzhak Rabin to Ehud Olmert, and make the two-state solution impossible. En route to this goal, he found a partner in Hamas.

The second link, to Tal Scheider, includes: [For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it's blown up in our faces | The Times of Israel](https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/)

Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015. 

According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2018, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. 

While Netanyahu does not make these kind of statements publicly or officially, his words are in line with the policy that he implemented.

The third link is to a tweet: https://twitter.com/DanielSeidemann/status/1711338210679304483

Gen.Gershon Hacohen, emphatically rightwing and confidante of [Netanyahu], said the following: "Truth be told, Netanyahu's objective is to prevent the two-state option and therefore turned Hamas into his closest ally.  Openly, Hamas is an enemy, beneath the surface, an ally".

Gen. Gershon Hacohen refers to Hamas: [After evacuating Gaza, a lonely general of faith struggles for Israel's salvation | The Times of Israel](https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-evacuating-gaza-a-lonely-general-of-faith-struggles-for-israels-salvation/)

This is also why, he added, “I prefer Hamas to Abu Mazen.” Because Hamas “helps me prevent a two-state solution” and is, covertly “an ally, because neither it nor I want a final solution and neither in my terms nor in its is there something that is everlasting.

Four talks

External Affairs Minister of India at the Hudson Institute:

External Affairs Minister of India at the Council of Foreign Relations:

External Affairs Minister of India at a Press Conference:

The National Security Advisor:

The Future of The University in India

On Audrey Truschke

 

The best short takedown of Audrey Truschke's lies that I have come across so far.

About Free Speech in India

J. Sai Deepak is a lawyer, self-described 85% commercial litigation, 15% Constitutional Law. He is also an author and public speaker; his detractors call him an Ultra-Nationalist and so on.

The first eleven minutes of this Youtube has some remarks of J. Sai Deepak from a public debate. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q-UIVvWHyg 

 

 

{lightly edited and annotated Youtube transcript}

 

J. Sai Deepak:  

 

This is the Shri Ram College right, Jai Shree Ram! 

 

So first of all, thanks to the organizers for putting together such a fantastic event and the audience for turning up in such brilliant numbers as usual.

 

I think the aisles have been converted into pathshalas {traditional India school where students sit on the floor}

 

Thank you so very much!   You know, I was wondering - I was just going through the e-mail that was sent to us on the topic.  The topic was "Can western narratives and Indian narratives or western media and Indian media co-exist?"

 

If I were on the other side, I would have stuck to the topic.  This is a textbook instance of

Aa Bail Mujhe Maar {literally, "'Come bull, do hit me!", figuratively , "invite trouble upon oneself"}.  You've opened the Pandora's box by speaking about freedom of speech when instead the topic was slightly different. A good can of worms has been opened,  so,  let the flood gates open.

 

Democracy in Crisis

Once upon a time, to board a domestic flight was almost as easy as getting onto a bus at a bus terminal. Global terrorism put an end to that.  Is this a reduction in freedom?  Absolutely.  The requirement of the right kind of government-issued ID to board a flight is an intrusion into individual liberty. 

 

Is it a reduction in democracy?  Absolutely not.  The people remain free to make the government change the regulations, repeal them altogether, or as is more likely, to make obtaining the required ID and the security checks less onerous.  

 

Professor Salvatore Babones, an American sociologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, uses this kind of distinction, and argues that India remains a democracy, though less free than Australia or the United States, for instance in freedom of speech.  Watch this debate between Salvatore Babones and Anand Rangarajan.  (Trigger-alert: Anand Rangarajan is boorish; and Salvatore Babones loses the audience because he acknowledges learning about India from a trio of journalists whom the audience happens to despise.)   But Babones' arguments are sound.   

 

Let's examine this further. In one of the many "India's Democracy in Crisis" panel discussions,  there is the criticism of the Modi government that it does not do enough to curb hate speech.  On the other hand, district authorities have been given the power to simply shut down the internet, and in 2022, of 187 shutdowns of the internet world-wide, 84 occurred in India, and the Modi government is criticized for this, too.

 

It does happen in India that social media is used to spread "hate-speech" and start a riot or lynching.  It may be rare on a per capita basis (1.4 billion people in the denominator!), but it does happen.  The district authorities can nip this in the bud by simply turning off the internet for a period.  "Hate speech" is poorly defined, there are no standards, and asking the district authorities to selectively censor social media will bring in their bias.  Turning off the internet makes sense.  Whether this is a good strategy requires research into its effectiveness in keeping the peace, and not some theoretical notions about freedom.

 

Regarding the disruption to life by an internet shutdown, India is prone to "rasta roko"/"rail roko" -- people block roads or railway lines - and city-wide or state-wide bandhs, where the entire area is coerced into shutting down business.  This kind of protest is part of India's political culture and has a history.  Lack of internet is yet another disruption to add to this.  

 

But it is up to the Indian people to decide whether all this is acceptable or not.   Right now, perhaps the safety of life and property, and the avoidance of disruption of life by violence outweighs the loss of the internet.   Maybe some time the balance will change and then the voters will make a political issue of it and force a change.

 

Which leads to another observation - the Indian Constitution is relatively easy to change, with the Supreme Court on guard to preserve the basis structure of the Constitution.  From January 1950 to October 2021, there have been 105 amendments.  America's Constitution has had 27 since 1789.  It is much more difficult to amend, and popular causes such as regulating money in politics, or making the Presidency be determined by the popular vote rather than the Electoral College which overweighs states with tiny populations are stuck.  That is, the American people remain free to change their Constitution, but in practice, it is very hard.  

 

Freedom of speech is virtually absolute in the United States; the restrictions that can be placed by law are very limited.  We thus get the situation where e.g., Fox News can knowingly, even maliciously, propagate a democracy-damaging falsehood, and the only recourse is for a private party who suffered economic damage by the lies to take them to court.  If the situation gets unbearable, Americans will no doubt try to change this, but the barriers to change are enormous.   

 

Does comparing among countries the ease of amending the Constitution make any sense?  I don't think it does, any more than the freedom indices and such.  India's Constitution and America's Constitution were written to meet the needs of their respective people with their histories and circumstances.  The ease or difficulty of amendment was also decided because of history and circumstances.

With any democracy, what one can meaningfully ask is, are the people free to change their laws and regulations and do the laws and regulations that get made diminish that freedom in any way?  Only in the latter case need an alarm be raised (e.g, Hungary or maybe even Israel).  

When in the debate mentioned above, Anand Rangarajan feels patronized when Babones says India is less free in some respects than Australia or America and asks why he can't be as free as an American, he is asking for India to be America; but India's history and circumstances can't be so readily erased.  Nor is less freedom necessarily bad - in aviation, it keeps terrorists at bay.  

It is up to Indians collectively whether they want a perfect Jeffersonian Republic, or whether the trade-offs to preserve their way of life are acceptable to them; and Anand Rangarajan has the freedom to try to persuade them as to which would lead to their greater flourishing.

Man-made and hence a fairy-tale?!

Does the substance of what is called Pythagoras' Theorem remain true whether or not humans are aware of it? If yes, this is something not-found-in-Nature but not-a-fairy-tale; man-made but transcending man. There is thus no real problem with religious compositions having been created by man, apart from the claim that they were god-given, which by itself is not a problem (e.g., Ramanujan thought that his results in mathemetics came from Namagiri Devi). The real question is do they embody knowledge? The claim of knowledge cannot be simply because "it is god-given"; our usual methods of validating knowledge must be applied. Exactly like Ramanujan's results in mathematics have to be validated by the methods of mathematics even if the results originated with the Devi.

Supersymmetry vs QCD

Inspiring discussion - Dr. Peter Woit finds a declining trend in the number of articles on Supersymmetry (SUSY) since about 2015. See here. 

But what meaning can we draw from the absolute number?  I find it meaningful to compare with some other subject in particle physics.  I think "QCD" (quantum chromodynamics, the strong force) is a relatively stable subject of study, and it is about something real, unlike SUSY, which has proven to be quite speculative.

So here it is.  The data had to be collected by hand, so there might be transcription errors.

But the downward trend in SUSY relative to QCD begins around 1999.  Maybe particle physics is a bit healthier than expected.

The American Madness Journal

 The author of the American Madness Journal is taking a break, but, I hope will continue writing in 2023 his delightful, on-the-mark observations of what Tom Nichols described as the "infantilization of American life, in which we must accommodate and work around the behavior of grown men and women who not so long ago would have been pushed out of public life either by our collective political disgust or by responsible shareholders who would insist that their corporate leaders get back to work instead of making a spectacle of themselves". 

 Yes, I mean Shower Cap's Blog! Enjoy!

PS: it is too much to hope for that the American descent into madness would cease and deprive Shower Cap of material.  So accept in good humor any good that comes out of this.

Sri Ganesh

मुदाकरात्तमोदकं सदा विमुक्तिसाधकं 

कलाधरावतंसकं विलासिलोकरक्षकम् । 

अनायकैकनायकं विनाशितेभदैत्यकं 

नताशुभाशुनाशकं नमामि तं विनायकम् ॥१॥

The politics of health policy

A paper published in PLOS ONE, U.S. state policy contexts and mortality of working-age adults, results in this USA Today article: "More Americans die younger in states with conservative policies, study finds". 

What is the factual situation that the PLOS ONE paper sets out?

Americans die younger than people in most other high-income countries. With a life expectancy of 78.8 years in 2019, Americans died 5.7 years earlier than people in Japan, the global leader; 3.3 years earlier than their northern neighbors in Canada; and 2.5 years before their closest geopolitical allies in the United Kingdom. Shockingly, U.S. life expectancy falls between two middle-income countries—Cuba and Albania. 

Within the United States, life expectancy differs markedly across geographic areas such as states and counties. In 2019, it ranged from 74.4 years in Mississippi to 80.9 years in Hawaii. U.S. life expectancy has stagnated, largely because of higher mortality among adults 25–64 years of age. According to a comparison of U.S. life expectancy to the average of 16 other high-income countries in 2006–2008, deaths before age 50 accounted for 67% of the shortfall among U.S. men and 41% among women. 

Mortality rates provide another sobering picture of the early deaths among so many individuals in the United States. Based on rates from 2019, for every 100 babies born in the United States, two will not survive to their 30th birthday, six will not reach age 50, and 16 will die before they can enjoy retirement at age 65. Like life expectancy at birth, differences across states in mortality rates among adults ages 25–64 are striking.

In the PLOS ONE paper but not mentioned in the USA Today article are things like this:

Fig 4 demonstrates that, for women and men and across all lag times, lower working-age mortality from alcohol-induced causes was associated with more liberal labor policies and more conservative marijuana policies.

and

We examined four counterfactual scenarios in which all policy domains in all states were set to the maximum liberal score of 1 (Scenario 1) or the maximum conservative score of 0 (Scenario 2); the maximum liberal score of 1 applied to all domains except marijuana and health and welfare, which were set to 0 and 0.5, respectively, because conservative marijuana policies were associated with lower all-cause mortality, and no association was observed for the health and welfare score (Scenario 3, “Hybrid”); and domains trending in conservative or liberal direction were set respectively to their 0 and 1 extremes (Scenario 4,”Status Quo”).

Scenario 1 is "all liberal" and Scenario 3 includes conservative marijuana policy "because conservative marijuana policies were associated with lower all-cause mortality". These are the results:

In their simulation for 2019, Scenario 1 results in 86,181 fewer age-adjusted deaths among women and 84,949 fewer deaths among men, for a total of 171,030 lives saved. Scenario 3 results in 92,057 fewer deaths among women and 109,393 fewer deaths among men, for a total of 201,450 lives saved. So adopting liberal policies for essentially everything but marijuana results in 201,450 - 171,030 lives saved = 30,420. 

That is, the cost of liberal marijuana policy is 30K lives per annum.

 --- 

Now, suppose this above was well-settled science, with widespread validation of the results. How would this inform policy advocacy of the two political parties? 

Among the Republicans of today, there is no regard for science, and driven purely by partisan concerns, they would ignore all of this. 

More interesting are the Democrats, who are much more reality-driven, but who also have a strong faction in favor of liberalizing marijuana. Will they give up their pot dreams in favor of lives? Or will they argue that those 30K lives per annum is an acceptable cost to pay for whatever benefits marijuana liberalization provides (e.g., maybe less incarceration, or some measure of social justice)?

On Dark Matter

Some quotes from "New Directions in the Search for Dark Matter",(https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.03085 by Surjeet Rajendran, John Hopkins University.  

The paper is a good backgrounder on how we might find out what dark matter is comprised of; but there is also a philosophy of physics that has largely been forgotten in all the stringy revolutions.

The existence of dark matter proves that there is physics beyond the standard model. But, other than its existence, observational limits on its properties are extremely weak.

....

Given the vastness of this parameter space, how can we hope to make progress? When confronted with this vastness, there is a human tendency to artificially restrict it by focusing on “theoretically well motivated” dark matter - in this context, “theoretically well motivated” means particles that theorists have already written down for some other reason. While it is certainly possible that the existence of dark matter may be tied to the solution to some other problem in particle physics, such a connection is not a logical requirement. It is a fantasy to think that the particle spectrum of the world can be figured out entirely from first principles. I have not come across a physicist who has convinced me that their refined sense of theoretical insight would have allowed them to figure out (without experimental input) that the Standard Model is a SU (3) × SU (2) × U (1) gauge theory with the SU (3) confined at low energies, the SU (2) × U (1) broken in a weird way leaving an unbroken U (1), with three generations of quarks and leptons that have hierarchial yukawa couplings with only the top quark possessing a naturally large yukawa coupling while also containing nearly massless neutrinos and a highly fine tuned Higgs boson. Our job as physicists is to discover what nature actually is rather than attempt to constrain it from the armchair.

...

A skeptical reader may ask if we should actually care about technical naturalness. After all, we now have very solid evidence of at least two fine tuned quantities in our universe - the cosmological constant and the higgs boson itself. Neither of these terms are protected by symmetry and the absence of symmetry did not prevent their existence, creating confounding theoretical problems. Our job as physicists is to figure out what is out there in the world instead of imposing philosophies on it - especially philosophies that are already empirically known to be violated.

.... 

The identification of the nature of dark matter is pretty clearly one of the major problems confronting particle physics. It is exceedingly unlikely that humanity will solve this problem from the armchair by guessing a sufficiently pretty theory. Physics is an experimental field - the belief that we can figure out what is out there in the world without experimental input has always just been a silly fantasy. Given the vastness of the parameter space of dark matter, there is a tremendous need to dramatically widen the experimental program that has been pursued to detect its properties. Now, it could have been the case that this dramatic widening could only come at great cost - if every probe of a part of dark matter parameter space required billions of dollars and thousands of working hours, we will not be able to appreciably probe the dark matter parameter space in our lifetimes. Luckily, this is not the case - the methods and experiments described in these lectures are experiments that can be pursued by a small number of investigators at the cost of several million dollars per experiment. It is thus possible to sustain a robust ecosystem of dark matter experiments which will cover a significant range of parameter space. While the creation of such a program is not up to me, I certainly hope that this broad ranged program will come to be realized.

Goldfinch on zinnia

 

Who will be held responsible for the mess in Ukraine?

 The recent headline is (via the BBC):

"Ukraine’s Zelensky to offer neutrality declaration to Russia for peace ‘without delay’"

This could have happened years ago, without a war. I am recycling some previously posted material on this blog (some of the links in my article from 2014 are now defunct). The draft Association Agreement with the European Union that Ukraine wanted to sign back in 2013 had a military component, including

Article 7: The Parties shall intensify their dialogue and cooperation and promote gradual convergence in the area of foreign and security policy, including the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP)...

and

Article 10: The Parties shall enhance practical cooperation in conflict prevention and crisis management, in particular with a view to increasing the participation of Ukraine in EU-led civilian and military crisis management operations as well as relevant exercises and training activities, including those carried out in the framework of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).....The Parties shall explore the potential of military - technological cooperation. Ukraine and the European Defence Agency (EDA) shall establish close contacts to discuss military capability improvement, including technological issues.

Russia objected back then. 

 November 21, 2013, The Kyiv Post reported that "Russia is willing to take part in tripartite negotiations with Ukraine and the EU, but only if they are held before Ukraine signs an association agreement with the EU, Russian President Vladimir Putin said." 

 November 29, 2013, another Ukrainian source reported that "The EU-Ukraine association agreement cannot be elaborated in the EU-Ukraine-Russia tripartite format, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said at a press conference after the Eastern Partnership Vilnius summit. He rejected as unacceptable the tripartite negotiations and the interference of a third country in the bilateral agreement and said there could not be a tripartite format in the elaboration of the bilateral agreement between the EU and Ukraine." 

 What Russia wanted back then is that Ukraine remain neutral. The way to ensure that would have been a Russian veto over the military clauses in the association agreement, in effect, a Russian seat at the negotiations. This was and remains into current times, a no-no to the European Union, the USA and NATO, because of Ukraine's sovereign rights and all. 

 As I wrote back in my old post, and I write now, nothing justifies the actions Putin subsequently took. But the Zelensky offer for Ukraine to be neutral is a concession after hugely damaging events the very thing that could have been conceded without wars, invasions, huge loss of life, and untold civilian suffering, not to mention global economic disruption, years and years ago. 

 Who is going to be held accountable for this? Obviously, nobody.

India in Medieval Jewish Literature

The search for the sources of Judah Halevi's opinion led me to a publication by The Jewish People Policy Institute, titled India, Israel and the Jewish People, (2017), by Shalom Salomon Wald and Arielle Kandel.

 

They write as follows (the relevant end-notes are copied at the end of the excerpts):

 

From the 9th or 10th century on, India appears in the books of several of the most important Jewish writers – rabbis, philosophers, historians, and travel writers. India is not a central issue but it is a part of the intellectual inventory of the Jews of the Middle Ages, as it had been in Hellenistic times. 

 

The historian of religion R. G. Marks counted at least 19 Jewish texts written between the 10th and 14th centuries that speak of India.⁶⁵ His collection is heterogeneous. It includes the most important works of the period as well as some long-forgotten books. During this period many Arab travelers visited India and some wrote travelogues that mention the presence of Jews in the country. In contrast, only one of the Jewish authors writing about India, the Karaite scholar Jacob al-Qirqisani (10th century), is believed to have visited the country himself. His Book of Lights and Watchtowers describes Hindu customs and compares them to Jewish religious practices and those of other nations. 

Judah Halevi: The Kuzari

Wiki:

Judah Halevi (also Yehuda Halevi or ha-Levi; Hebrew: יהודה הלוי and Judah ben Shmuel Halevi יהודה בן שמואל הלוי‎; Arabic: يهوذا اللاوي Yahuḏa al-Lāwī; c. 1075 – 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela,^[2] in 1075^[3] or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in the Holy Land in 1141, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

From his work "In Defense of the Despised Faith", know as "The Kuzari", in the form of a dialog between a Khazar king and a rabbi, Hartwig Hirschfeld's translation from 1905:

https://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/khz/khz01.htm

Excerpts:

44. Al Khazari: It is strange that you should possess authentic chronology of the creation of the world.

45. The Rabbi: Surely we reckon according to it, and there is no difference between the Jews of Khazar and Ethiopia in this respect.

46. Al Khazari: What date do you consider it at present?

47. The Rabbi: Four thousand and nine hundred years
.......
.......

60. Al Khazari: Does it not weaken thy belief if thou art told that the Indians have antiquities and buildings which they consider to be millions of years old?

61. The Rabbi: It would, indeed, weaken my belief had they a fixed form of religion, or a book concerning which a multitude of people held the same opinion, and in which no historical discrepancy could be found. Such a book, however, does not exist. Apart from this, they are a dissolute, unreliable people, and arouse the indignation of the followers of religions through their talk, whilst they anger them with their idols, talismans, and witchcraft. To such things they pin their faith, and deride those who boast of the possession of a divine book. Yet they only possess a few books, and these were written to mislead the weak-minded. To this class belong astrological writings, in which they speak of ten thousands of years, as the book on the Nabataean Agriculture, in which are mentioned the names of Janbūshār, Sagrīt and Roanai. It is believed that they lived before Adam, who was the disciple of Janbūshār, and such like.

62. Al Khazari: If I had supported my arguments by reference to a negro people, i.e. a people not united upon a common law, thy answer would have been correct. Now what is thy opinion of the philosophers who, as the result of their careful researches, agree that the world is without beginning, and here it does not concern tens of thousands, and not millions, but unlimited numbers of years.

 

More recently, about the translations of the Kuzari:
https://seforimblog.com/2017/06/translations-of-rabbi-judah-halevis/

Less than thirty years after R. Judah ben Samuel Halevi completed his Book of Kuzari in approximately 1140, it became one of the first Judaeo-Arabic compositions to be translated into Hebrew. This pioneering translation marked part of the cultural transfer of Andalusian Jewish culture, written in Judaeo-Arabic, into Hebrew, and was accomplished in 1167 by R. Judah ben Saul Ibn Tibbon, “the father of the translators.” As the centers of Jewish intellectual life moved to Christian areas where Hebrew was the predominant Jewish literary language, it was only through this translation that the Kuzari was known to generations upon generations of Jews. 

...

With the birth of Jewish studies in the nineteenth century, scholars began publishing original texts in academic editions. Thus, Hartwig Hirschfeld (1854-1934), working with Oxford-Bodleian Ms. Pococke, the only complete, or almost complete, version of the work, produced a first edition of the original Judaeo-Arabic text of the Kuzari. He published with it a version of the Ibn Tibbon translation which was partially corrected to correspond to the Judaeo-Arabic version, but not in a consistent manner. Thus, Hirschfeld changed some passages in the Hebrew despite their being attested in all the Ibn Tibbon manuscripts and editions, but left other problematic passages untouched.

...

In addition to editing the Judaeo-Arabic text of the Kuzari, and producing an edition of Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew translation, Hartwig Hirschfeld also translated the book into English.

There is a recent translation by Rabbi Chanan Morrison, based on a Hebrew translation of a new critical edition by Rabbit Yitzhak Shilat (2010)  "utilizing several Arabic manuscripts, including texts from Russian collections inaccessible to earlier researchers" : Sefer Ha-Kuzari: Precise Hebrew Translation in the Style of the Period of Its Composition.  Morrison also writes: "In preparing the text, I found Prof. Hartwig Hirschfeld's classic (but antiquated) 1905 English translation to be of great assistance.

60. The Kuzari: Does it not weaken your belief that the people of India are reported to have ancient relics and buildings that they are certain are millions of years old?

61. The Rabbi: It would weaken my belief were it based on accurate knowledge or a written historical record that is universally accepted.  But that is not the case.

They are an unreliable people, lacking clear historical account.  They anger the followers of religions with these claims, just as they anger them with their statues, talismans and practices.   They say these things are effective, and they ridicule those claiming to possess a book from God.

This conjecture is only found in a few books written by a few individuals -- books that only mislead the feeble minded.   To this category belong some of their astrological writings, which speak of tens of thousands of years, and The Book of Nabataean Agriculture, which mentions the names of Janbushad, Sagrit and Duani.  They say that they lived before Adam, that Janbushad was Adam's teacher, and other such claims.

---

Note: The Book of Nabataean Agriculture is, per what I can find, about the people termed as the last pagans of Iraq.  I haven't been able to find out whether there is any mention of India/Indians in that book.

----

Just to contrast the Morrison vs Hirschfeld translations, Morrison has:

62.  The Kuzari: Granted, had I based my argument only on the traditions of a fractious people who cannot agree about anything, your answer would be excellent.  But what will you say about the philosophers, who as the result of careful research on their erudite level, have concluded that the world is eternal, without beginning?   And here it is not a question of tens of thousands or even millions of years, but an infinite number of years!

Hirschfeld has:

 62. Al Khazari: If I had supported my arguments by reference to a negro people, i.e. a people not united upon a common law, thy answer would have been correct. Now what is thy opinion of the philosophers who, as the result of their careful researches, agree that the world is without beginning, and here it does not concern tens of thousands, and not millions, but unlimited numbers of years.

 

-----

 

Eliding over the modern phenomena of a fractious negro people,  it would be interesting to trace from where Judah Halevi obtained his opinion of India.

 

Mahabharata Treasure House

 The Arsha Bodha Center's website hosts five years of Swami Tadatmananda's lectures on the Mahabharata. Each recording is about an hour long.  Swamiji brings in his trademark humor and American idioms.8

Some knowledge of the story and the characters would enhance the listener's experience, but are not pre-requisite.  

Shower Cap's Blog

 Some of the best political commentary/rants about the crazy politics in these United States of America can be found on Shower Cap's American Madness Journal.  There's a new entry each Friday.

Excerpt from the latest:

Y’know, the way I sorta judge how things’re going in this country boils down to, “is there more Nazi shit going on than last week, or less?” and I tell you, folks, since that fateful escalator ride what seems like a fucking century ago, the answer hasn’t been “less” once. Not once. Well, shucks, may as well grab a drink and join me for a few nervous chuckles at all the zany, zany ways 21st century America refuses to learn history’s clearest lessons…wheeeeeeee.                 

BUT FIRST…move over, Omicron, it’s time for the other plague menacing humanity to run wild, and though this particular variant was 100% made in the USA, I’m sure Rand Paul will still figure out some way to blame China. I’m speaking, of course, of Tantrum-Throwing Manchildren Demanding the Right to Spread a Disease That’s Killed Millions.                                                   

(This is all coming on the heels of a new study showing the unvaccinated are 23 times more likely to be hospitalized with Covid than those of us who don’t have skulls full of hornets and rat turds, and how fun is it to live in a society where absolutely no one expects data that clear to change anyone’s behavior, because a certain political party decided it would be a good idea to brainwash their base into despising science?)

Rangapura Vihara | Sooryagayathri | Carnatic Krithi

While I am an Uthara Unnikrishnan fan, my favorite by far is Sooryagayathri.  For reasons I am not aware of, this song keeps ringing in my head.