Showing posts with label Criminal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Criminal. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Gun Legislation

Where Senate Republicans Stand on Gun Legislation: Read the opinions of senators who declined or deflected. Michael D Crapo's answer was similar to India's opinion on Ukraine war wrt sanctions on Russia.

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Sunday, May 29, 2022

Baby Faced Bad Guy - Mitch McConnell

Inside Mitch McConnell’s decades-long effort to block gun control


This is also the guy who caused Trump to recruit the "wrong" justices to the supreme court 


Additional reading

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Saturday, May 28, 2022

Please Don't Judge Him, He Had His Reasons

 https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/texas-school-shooter-uvalde-salvador-ramos-gun-mother-father-1955273-2022-05-28


If the shooter cannot be judged, then which act or actor can be judged in life? 

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Saturday, April 30, 2022

Zelensky And Ukraine


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/19/opinion/why-we-admire-zelensky.html


Additional reading 

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Monday, March 7, 2022

Imaginative Zelensky

I had a wild thought. What if zelensky is in cahoots with Putin? What if he is no different now from Lukashenko, except that zelensky is acting the part of a patriot. 


Why could this be true? Ukraine knows 

1. It cannot win against mighty Russia

2. It cannot really count on USA, NATO, EU to help much, I mean they won't join the war against Russia. 


He and Putin could have forged a wartime "friendship" to fake an Ukrainian resistance that would ultimately give in. Zelensky will be called a hero. Putin will reward him quietly and substantially when the time comes. Say, $50 million deposited in a numbered account with Zelensky as the beneficiary, nobody will be the wiser. 


Everyone is happy.

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Sunday, February 27, 2022

Putin's Character And The Ukraine War

I was thinking. Why did Putin claim he wasn't going to invade when he did exactly that few days later. I figured out an answer
In his mind, Ukraine was always part of Russia. Invasion is about an action to take over what is not yours.
Ukraine was his anyway. So it wasn't an "invasion". 



This is a lovely article: https://nyti.ms/3tYGlWF.

This article is original and different. The rest have largely portrayed a surreal depiction of how the West brought Russia to its knees. Too much focus on the process (sanctions) and desire (want Putin to withdraw) without an evidence of the end result (is Russia withdrawing) makes all the essays drab


Additional reading:

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Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Trump's Stress Test

Trump Stress-Tested the Election System, and the Cracks Showed: This is a lovely article. 


The article focuses only on the election and howit took the stress. Congress would hopefully ensure that elections can handle stress better.


But what about the other issues that Trump stressed - such as meddling with special counsel Mueller's investigation or violating campaign finance laws (paying off the women through Cohen) or expecting the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden in order to get American aid? 


Trump stressed the system and the system was found to be weak in responding. 


There is a general belief that Trump did everything in broad daylight and the belief that whatever is done that way cannot be duplicitous. Here is an example below:


What we do know is unquestionably it was too many people,” De Blasio told reporters on Tuesday. “It appears that there was a very conscious effort to conceal what was going on. And that’s what makes it even more unacceptable.” from https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/11/25/hasidic-wedding-fined-new-york/


Is the act by itself culpable or the fact that it was concealed culpable? What is our moral stand? 


Who is going to address these?


Additional reading

  1. https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2020/11/preening-narcissism.html
  2. https://vbala99.blogspot.com/2020/11/trumps-character.html
  3. Donald Trump and the Damage Done
  4. The Indian Express: When history is written, US courts may be singled out for protecting nation’s election integrity.
  5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/08/fast-track-trump-impeachment-pointless-revenge/
  6. Mint: The real lesson of Trump’s coup attempt that shocked everyone.
  7. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-kendall-censure-trump-congress/2021/01/10/9bed6330-537f-11eb-a08b-f1381ef3d207_story.html
  8. Joe Biden’s Impeachment Moment
  9. The Scary Power of the Companies That Finally Shut Trump Up
  10. Mike Pence Reached His Limit With Trump. It Wasn’t Pretty.
  11. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/how-the-media-handled-trump/2021/01/12/0f13a0a8-54da-11eb-a817-e5e7f8a406d6_story.html
  12. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/14/trump-twitter-megaphone/
  13. https://www.washingtonpost.com/tablet/2021/01/14/whats-next-trump/ - lovely voice
  14. There’s as Much to Learn From Trump’s Success as His Disgrace
  15. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/20/biden-inauguration-day-live-updates/ - Is this the end?
  16. Fauci on What Working for Trump Was Really Like
  17. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-investigations-lawsuits/2021/03/17/1ca3806c-8379-11eb-81db-b02f0398f49a_story.html
  18. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/02/trump-case-may-be-unusual-if-true-its-brazen-tax-fraud/
  19. https://apple.news/ARAuaUILdRrKqj2Tc0mIZCA
  20. Will Trump Face a Legal Reckoning in Georgia?
  21. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/29/trump-investigations-litigation/
  22. Before Jan. 6, Aide Warned Secret Service of Security Risk to Pence: About Mike Pence, Vice President
  23. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/14/how-prosecutors-sidestep-question-trump-intent-jan-6/
  24. Despite Growing Evidence, a Prosecution of Trump Would Face Challenges and https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/19/trump-charges-january-6-hearings-capitol-attack?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
  25. Prosecute Trump? Put Yourself in Merrick Garland’s Shoes.
  26. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/25/trump-jan6-hearings-sundaytake/
  27. Cassidy Hutchinson Changes Everything: Small steps forward.
  28. The End of Roe, the End of Trump: Very interesting
  29. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/13/criminal-investigation-donald-trump?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
  30. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/prosecute-trump-january-6-doj/670511/
  31. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/january-6-hearings-trump-cassidy-hutchinson/661414/: "Some of Trump’s defenders will, of course, seek to explain Hutchinson’s testimony away and apologize for him. They will contend that if the president wasn’t heard explicitly saying, I want a violent mob to topple Congress, harm members, and overturn the election that I lost, he cannot be held responsible for what happened that day. This is nonsense. If you pour gasoline all over a building, tell some people it is essential the building burn, and make sure they’re carrying matches and lighters, you are to blame for the arson that follows—especially if you then decline to call the fire department and condone the inferno. What Trump wanted to put up in flames on January 6 was American democracy."
  32. Cassidy Hutchinson Changes Everything
  33. We Can’t Afford Not to Prosecute Trump
  34. Trump Faces Questions About His Net Worth in Interview He Tried to Avoid
  35. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/nyregion/mazars-trump-organization-financial-statements.html?searchResultPosition=1
  36. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/10/nyregion/trump-questioning-investigation.html
  37. Did the F.B.I. Just Re-Elect Donald Trump?
  38. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-payback-for-mar-a-lago-will-be-brutal-trump-raid-fbi-justice-department-president-investigation-11660255311?mod=djem10point
  39. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/11/trump-fantasy-collective-persecution/
  40. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/12/us/trump-investigation-takeaways.html?smid=url-share
  41. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/13/nuclear-or-not-classified-or-not-mar-a-lago-files-spell-out-jeopardy-for-trump?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
  42. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/12/seditious-conspiracy-insurrection-trump-charges/
  43. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/08/13/trump-mar-a-lago-search/
  44. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/16/trump-reckless-national-security-serious/
  45. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/16/trump-crime-gop-support/
  46. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/18/trump-pardon-biden-benefit/
  47. Trump’s Legal Team Scrambles to Find an Argument: ""Mr. Trump, people familiar with his thinking say, sees the attorney general, Merrick B. Garland, not as the federal government’s chief law enforcement officer, but merely as a political foe and someone with whom he can haggle with about how much anger exists over the situation. Shortly before Mr. Garland announced that he was seeking to unseal the search warrant, an intermediary for Mr. Trump reached out to a Justice Department official to pass along a message that the former president wanted to negotiate, as if he were still a New York developer. The message Mr. Trump wanted conveyed, according to a person familiar with the exchange, was: “The country is on fire. What can I do to reduce the heat?” The essence of Trump - Dealing and negotiating and posturing.
  48. 3 big things we learned from the Mar-a-Lago affidavit
  49. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/29/roy-blunt-republicans-trump-wrongdoing/
  50. The Guardian: New legal filings paint Trump as a flailing liar surrounded by lackeys.
  51. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/02/trump-republicans-biden-maga/
  52. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/09/judge-cannon-trump-mar-a-lago-special-master/671349/: Judge Cannon failed the stress test
  53. https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/trump-nuclear-documents-mar-a-lago-rcna46638
  54. Trump’s ‘Muddled’ Claims About the Presidential Records Act, Explained
  55. The Story So Far: Where 6 Investigations Into Donald Trump Stand
  56. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/09/21/nyregion/trump-fraud-lawsuit-ny-james/donald-trump-fraud-lawsuit-letitia-james?smid=url-share
  57. Inside the Completely Legal G.O.P. Plot to Destroy American Democracy - The video is terrifying
  58. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/06/trump-organization-tax-fraud-guilty-verdict-analysis?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other: Breath of fresh air
  59. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/06/herschel-walker-reputation-georgia-football-politics-senate-trump/
  60. Trump Faces a Week of Headaches on Jan. 6 and His Taxes
  61. https://www.forbes.com/sites/irswatch/2016/02/28/no-ordinary-audit-donald-trump-is-facing-the-irs-wealth-squad/?sh=4017439b4d71
  62. For Cassidy Hutchinson, ‘I don’t remember’ wasn’t good enough

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Sunday, August 16, 2020

Cementing A Relationship

Many women suggest or insist that rapists should have their private parts castrated. 


I agree if the rapist is like the Nirbhaya ones.


I have another suggestion. Females who falsely accuse a man of raping should have their private part cemented. Example would be the female alleged rape victim in the movie Section 375. My friends ARU and TKN agree with me.

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Sunday, November 10, 2019

NT About Narcissistic Trump (NT)


After reading this article I reflected. A callous, narcissistic person such as Trump is so hard to deal with. There is not an ounce of values of any kind. A pathological liar and devoid of any character, everything is about himself and furthering his own interests. Just like Capone had his income tax, Trump seems to have (hopefully) found his Waterloo in Ukraine.
  • The more reflective thought concerns the hundreds and thousands of other similar male Trumps and female Trumps that exist against whom there is no mechanism of Democrats, whistleblowers and anonymous guys to expose. 


 Who bells those cats?

 Additional reading

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Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Molesting Isn't A Crime

Continuing from my earlier post on  "reason" / "why", I thought that at times we exonerate someone because a reason was not found for their (wrong) action. Because of an absence of explicit intent, the wrong act isn't punished as in the case of the judge's ruling in the case of Asians against Harvard admissions. Read the link below:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/judge-determines-harvard-s-race-conscious-admissions-policy-is-constitutional-11569958184

In other cases, we exonerate a wrong act because there was a reason. "He came late because there was a traffic jam on the way" or "she couldn't deliver the project because her grandmother was in the hospital". 

The social reason given is basically to remove any trace of any material intent for the wrong doing and hence to give a clean chit to the party that didn't do the right thing.

Either the presence of a reason or it's absence could be used to exonerate someone. The insidious thing is that this is used not consistently across all occasions and all peoples.

Maybe the pedophile who molested your baby was just trying to learn biology. We really don't know why he was molesting, right?

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Saturday, February 23, 2019

Legislative, Executive And Judiciary

I read this today:
Access to Mueller’s report and evidence may be guided by Congress, Clinton email case

Then I read about the Legislative (L), Executive (E) and Judiciary (J) here.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-legislature-executive-and-judiciary This link explains the roles of the three functions: the legislative, the executive and the Judiciary in the context of a country.

Now let's consider a person instead of a country or an organization.

A person also has the three roles inside them. There is the L which consists of the rules that they espouse. The E which is the way he acts which may or may not be largely in line with the L. I am talking about a person whose rules as they profess are out of sync with their actions. 

The L could consist of rules such as "I am honest", "I like to help people", "I am courageous" etc. The E could do things which are often at variance with the professed rules. 

My question is: How does such a person manage that conflict? Is there a J that operates in that person which strives to remedy this conflict?

What will cause the J to be involved when the E and L in a person diverge? Maybe a friend points out this issue. Maybe the person realizes himself while introspecting.

If such a Judiciary were to exist in a person, it would adjudicate that conflict and decide in favor of either the Legislative or the Executive. If the E wins, then the E perhaps might let it go or might have to change its rules or laws to be more in sync with the action. If the L wins, then the E might realize that it had better follow the L better henceforth. 

If such conflicts are unresolved, in the worst case, the E and L would continue to be divergent with the person either at peace with the state of affairs or be troubled.

Considering that E, L, J are all embedded in the same person, maybe they are not strictly independent of each other. There is considerable overlap of all the three. The one that is in charge is the E. The action is not always decided based on one's rules as professed. Invoking the J is always unpleasant to the E because the trigger for that invocation is because the E has violated the E, in the first place - which itself is very difficult for a person to acknowledge. 

J is what is commonly referred to as our conscience. For some people this is strong. In such a case, the J can kill a person by constantly bullying them for having violated their own L. 

Where it's weak, a person is largely run by an E with the L serving as just a mouthpiece and the J largely absent. The absence of J leads to extraordinary (could be good or bad) behavior. In a person, a J cannot be forced to exist. At least I am not sure how. 

 But in an organization or a country, a J can be inculcated. The murder of Khashoggi in Turkey by Saudis is an indication of the absence of a J or of the absence of an appropriate L. The presence of a strong E and J is indicative of a good environment.

 A classic example of men's J not being at work is brought out by the author here: It’s Not That Men Don’t Know What Consent Is https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/opinion/sunday/sexual-consent-college.html. The L in men understands consent from the woman is needed, the E kinda disregards it while the J just takes a nap. 

 Of course women are equally at fault when they coerce men to do something (usually something other than sex, maybe related to shopping, vacations, activities for children) and there the rule of consent is not as strictly enforced. Because such violations of a non-sexual nature aren't deemed criminal or even important. Coercion (nonsexual) is more often perpetrated by feminine persons.
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Wednesday, January 30, 2019

ICICI Bank Backs CEO Chanda Kochhar

I read this article today.
BloombergQuint: ICICI-Videocon Loan: Srikrishna Panel Finds Chanda Kochhar In Violation Of Bank’s Code Of Conduct.

ICICI Bank's reaction to Srikrishna panel's report is strange. Earlier when the allegations were made against Kocchar, the bank backed her and declared that she had done nothing wrong or unethical. Now the bank wants to terminate her for cause. What happened to their earlier declaration of her Innocence? How was that decision reached? Who made that decision? What do they have to say about their decision?
The title of the story was : "ICICI Bank backs CEO Chanda Kochhar, says no question of quid-pro-quo in Videocon loans."

It reminds me of the time when the Satyam scandal broke out and only a few months earlier, Satyam had been given the Golden Globe award for good governance. 

Golden Globe, like ICICI Bank today, retracted their earlier stance or award. 

 I came across this article a day after I wrote this post. https://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/icici-bank-board-under-fire-for-giving-clean-chit-to-chanda-kochhar-119013100034_1.html
Seems like other people have similar thoughts as I do.

While I do not know the issues that the Bank faces today and maybe what they did was the most appropriate. Maybe it is difficult for ICICI to continue to say that they believe in Ms Kochhar after Srikrishna panel's reporr. Even if they still do believe in Kochhar, maybe it's imperative in the current circumstances to go with the flow.
But one wonders - is being flexible and going where the wind is blowing is all there is to lending? Or to living.
Additional reading
  1. https://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/fall-from-grace-chanda-kochhar-or-icici-board-119021000729_1.html
  2. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/realty-deal-at-heart-of-icici-probe-against-chanda-kochhar/articleshow/67825792.cms -Real Estate transactions between the parties
  3. https://indianexpress.com/article/business/banking-and-finance/icici-bank-chanda-kochhar-hurt-and-shocked-videocon-group-venugopal-dhoot-5561993/
  4. Economic Times: Here's all that finally did Chanda Kochhar in
  5. Economic Times: ICICI Board must answer for the scandal around Chanda Kochhar. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/finance/banking/icici-board-must-answer-for-the-scandal-around-chanda-kochhar/articleshow/67769515.cms?UTM_Source=Google_Newsstand&UTM_Campaign=RSS_Feed&UTM_Medium=Referral
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Saturday, October 20, 2018

The Other Salman Al Beckett

The usual routine:
1. Denial. It never happened. "We know Khashoggi left the embassy alive." https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/17/17989244/trump-ap-interview-saudi-khashoggi-kavanaugh
2. Deny personal accountability. "I didn't do it. It was some ogues whodunnit (innocent babies can't pronounce "R") ". 
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/15/turkey-jamal-khashoggi-granted-permission-search-saudi-arabia-consulate-istanbul and https://wapo.st/2EyS7PH
3. When evidence gets to be overwhelming, pick some people and hold them responsible after doing what-if analysis. "Who are the cheapest set of men or things you can sacrifice" decides whom you scuttle.

Saudis arrest 18, fire 5 officials after confirming Khashoggi was killed
And now Kavanaugh is relatively safe because the cartoon has "ensured that Justice has prevailed".

 What happened was that the prince said in despair to the knights "won't someone rid me of this turbulent journalist."
And the knights flew to Toykey and brought back the head for the pince.
There endeth the story.

 The fiancee may get some reimbursement for her troubles provided that she or someone close to her emigrate to KSA so the royal family can hold the fiancee to ransom.

 Cartoon's hotels will continue to be patronized by Saudis. Business will be as usual for USA and KSA. Read: Saudi Arabia not fully cooperating with Khashoggi investigation, Turkish official says

 Or will it?
Saudi Arabia says Khashoggi’s killing was premeditated, reversing earlier statement that the journalist had died in fistfight
What's happening here? What exactly does Erdogan have? How come KSA is dancing to his tune? Or was the premeditated murder going to be unauthorized by rogues?

 Additional Reading:
  1. CIA director briefs Trump on audio purportedly capturing journalist’s killing
  2. Long Struggle for Supremacy in the Muslim World
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Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Neerja Bhanot flight 73 Pan Am - Horoscope

I  was looking at the horoscope of Neerja. She had 

  • Sun in own house
  • Mars vargottama in own nakshatra
  • Mercury retrograde in exaltation
  • Jupiter retrograde in own house
  • Saturn retrograde in own house
And yet she died at the age of 23. How does one account for this?


Review of the movie here.


The next similar one is that of Qandeel Baloch - real name Fauzia Azeem, a Pakistani model who was "honor killed" by her brother at the age of 25.
This lady had:
  • Saturn and Mars in vargottama in Sagittarius
  • Moon vargottama in Aries
  • Sun vargottama in Aquarius
  • Sun and Jupiter in Rahu's nakshatra
  • Powerful Venus in Capricorn in rasi (Aquarius amsa)
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Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Maturity, Intelligence, EQ, Wisdom

We often confuse between Maturity, intelligence, EQ and wisdom. I found this lovely article that describes the difference between maturity and intelligence.

Interesting how the difference between wisdom and intelligence hasn't come out in the links below. Wisdom, maturity and EQ have to do with F and the intuitive tendency to live and make good choices while intelligence is cerebral NT (as in MBTI). Intelligence is often confused with knowledge. Not at all, intelligence is the ability to process knowledge, go beyond it and see what exists behinds the knowledge.

Article on Emotional Immaturity: http://www.hwarmstrong.org/rice05.pdf - this article is interesting though almost everything including the kitchen sink is included under the subject and at times, contradictory stuff too. The last section on mastering irresponsibility is nice.

 Maturity Definition:
The word Maturity is defined here. The 1st para in the link given is very interesting and seemed to agree completely with my idea of maturity. It is an F (as in MBTI) , not T trait.
Maturity correlates well with EQ. An important part of maturity is the use of "Key Words" relevant to the topic under discussion.

Additional reading:
  1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/critical-habits-mentally-tough-people-dr-travis-bradberry?trk=eml-b2_content_ecosystem_digest-recommended_articles-116-null&midToken=AQFGTBkk8hSJtQ&fromEmail=fromEmail&ut=39ao7nPrb6J6M1
  2. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/384179/dear-liberal-nerds-theres-difference-between-intelligence-and-wisdom-david-french
  3. http://inspirebusinesssolutions.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-emotional-intelligence-and-emotional-maturity (also read subsequent pages in this link)
  4. http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/wisdom-vs-intelligence-28418.html
  5. http://inspirebusinesssolutions.com/blog/the-first-and-most-overlooked-step-in-conflict-management
  6. http://www.experienceproject.com/question-answer/What-Is-The-Difference-Between-Wisdom-And-Intelligence/47331
  7. http://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/15-signs-youre-emotionally-intelligent-without-even-realizing-it.html: On EQ
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Friday, May 1, 2015

Adolf Eichmann, Simon Wiesenthal, Josef Mengele, Christian Wirth

Quotes, reproduced without permission, from a book by Alan Levy: "Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File" (Protagonist is Simon Wiesenthal) - the quotes are about Adolf Eichmann, unless otherwise mentioned.
"At the time, Eichmann impressed his superiors only with his diligence in doing whatever was asked of him. Though one of his colleagues described him as a most colorless creature - the typical subordinate: pedantic, punctilious [and] devoid of any thorough knowledge."


"It was here [Palais Rothschild in Austria] that he [Eichmann] discovered his two true talents: he could organize ruthlessly and he could negotiate from a position of strength, real or illusory."


"'Anger got the better off me' Eichmann recalled in 1960. 'I lost my control, which very seldom happened. I don't know what got into me. I let myself go and slapped him in the face. It wasn't the kind of also that hurt, I'm sure of that. I haven't got that much muscle. But I never concealed that incident. Later on, when I was a commandant, I spoke of it in in the presence of my subordinate officers AND Dr. Lowenherz - and begged his pardon. I did that deliberately... because on the department I ran layer, I did not tolerate physical violence. That was why I apologized in uniform and in the presence of my staff.' Nothing is more important to a desk murderer than clean hands."
How feminine... [my comment]


"One of the Eichmann family's good friends, who had not been a Nazi, simply refused to believe the accusations against 'that oafish lackluster Adolf who never spoke up and often seemed to get stupidly stuck on one idea'. Wiesenthal said later 'The man didn't realize how well he'd characterized Eichmann - how right he was and how wrong'."

"Eichmann could have been a communist taking orders from Stalin or a Mafioso from his godfather. In every dictatorship, the appeal to such people is the same: 'Let the Führer think for you'."


Eichmann was a J (as in MBTI). Germans are (or were) largely J's. Is it possible that normal people can become murderers if their duties involved murder? is there a potential criminal lurking in SJ's? I had earlier thought that J's, especially TJ's were not capable of dastardly acts. I wonder... Was Eichmann T or an F?

I would assume Eichmann had a strong Mars and a strong Saturn (indicated by J) and poor Venus (an inability to decide what's good for him - no independent goals or vision). Looking at his horoscope (taking date of birth data from Wiki), his Mars and Saturn are both strong. Mercury is debilitated but in its own constellation. Surprisingly though, so is his Venus and Moon. Now, how come his Venus is strong? :( 

While he was found guilty and hanged to death in Israel, I can't help but wonder... Was he guilty? He did his job (exterminating Jews) as a duty. Just as the two soldiers in the Tom Cruise movie A Few Good Men were found to be guilty of conduct unbecoming a Marine and dishonorably discharged for having only executed a Code Red (=kill) ordered by the Camp Commander. The senior of the two soldiers explains at the end of the movie to the junior person as to why they were dishonorably discharged: Marines were supposed to protect the weak. Carrying out orders to kill the weak was wrong. Hmmm. Difficult to integrate duty and morality when the two are out of sync.

Another person the book describes is Josef Mengele, the Angel Of Death in Auschwitz, formally the chief medical officer of the extermination camp. Quotes from the book about him:


"He was a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Munich who had studied Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, but embraced the racist rubbish of Alfred Rosenburg, Hitler's philosopher."


"In front of the Auschwitz crematorium he was once heard to say 'Here the Jews enter through the door and leave through the chimney.'"
His remark seems more like that of a tourist guide who extols someone else's virtue. (I doubt whether he designed the crematorium. - That the statement is in extremely poor taste is not worth mentioning.)



"Pedaling blithely along, the doctor in his early thirties seemed seemed immune to the dirt, dust and grease of the misery around him - none of which was [was, not were!!] permitted to smudge his attire...He might be humming or whistling a melody - maybe Mozart, sometimes Wagner, but invariably with perfect pitch, for there was much that was musical about this man..."


"He liked cryptic dialogues  in which he understood the subtle nuances, but the other person didn't. "
Was he an N (iNtuitive as in MBTI)? This guy prided himself on his work while Eichmann did his work conscientiously and ably. How come both have strong Venus? It is worth noting that Mengele had strong Mars and Venus and a debilitated Saturn. Is weakness of Saturn more important than the strength of Venus in this case? Incidentally, Saturn and Rahu are in the 8th from Moon which point to a different conclusion about his marriage.



"Of the millions he met in the eternal chill before the chimneys of Birkenau (Auschwitz), Dr Mengele reserved a special welcome for those who had not been created in "God's image", for they were laboratory animals for his diabolical pseudo-scientific experiments."
This man was different from Eichmann. He was more akin to Hitler.


"In the Auschwitz memoir appropriately titled Anus Mundi, Polish survivor, Wieslaw Kielar characterizes the anthropologist Dr Mengele, who was also camp doctor as 'an exceedingly elegant and good looking SS officer who, thanks to his attractive appearance and his good manners, conveyed the expression of a gentle and cultured man who had nothing to do with selection, phenol and Zyklon-B. What he was like in reality was something we were to learn soon enough.'"


"As a matter of fact, Dr Josef Mengele was no evil mastermind, no ancient dybbuk, no devil incarnate but a dumb intellectual, a dilettante, a dabbler who used human beings as his guinea pigs. Though better educated and endowed, he was as much a loser in life as Eichmann or Stangl, a bungler whose failures bred failures, aborted starts and abrupt ends that, almost without design, carved a trail of blunders and false clues leading only to Simon Wiesenthal's greatest postwar disappointment. Even Mengele's drowning in three or four feet of water - which cost the world and Wiesenthal a chance to confront him in court - was banal and stumbling, as befits the man's mediocrity."
I am not able to agree with the opinion expressed in the para above. 


"There [in the camp] he came into his own - found expression for his talents, so that what had been potential became actual. Intelligent but hardly an intellectual giant, Mengele found expression and recognition in Auschwitz beyond his talent. The all important Auschwitz dimension was added to ... create a uniquely intense version of the Auschwitz self as the physician-killer-researcher.... In Auschwitz, Mengele was 'the right man at the right place at the right time.' His energies no less than his ambition were galvanized by this Auschwitz synchronization of all his faculties."


"[As per Dr Martina Puzina, a University of Lemburg anthropologist] 'He [Mengele] believed you could create a new super race as though you were breeding horses. He thought it was possible to gain absolute control over a whole race. Man is so infinitely complex that that kind of strict control over such a vast population could never exist. He was a racist and a Nazi. He was ambitious up to the point of being completely inhuman. He was mad about genetic engineering.... In the end he would have killed his own mother if it would have helped him.'"


"If gypsies were his fetish, twins were his forte. 'Scientists,' Mengele once gloated 'have always been able to study twins after they have been born together. But only in the Third Reich can Science examine twins who died together.' Sometimes he would even dissect them while still alive."

It is usually thought that psychopaths or criminals who are "unfeeling" are of Thinking (as in MBTI) type because Feelers would be empathetic. Mengele is an example to disprove that notion perhaps. Being "F" is not sufficient for a person to be decent. Just as being J, as I realized, is not sufficient for a person to be decent.



"A letter of recommendation from the SS garrison commander at Auschwitz: Dr Mengele has been here since 30 May 1943. Dr Mengele has an open, honorable firm character. He is absolutely trustworthy, upright and direct. His mental and bodily hygiene is outstanding. His appearance indicates no weakness of character, no inclinations or addictions. His intellectual and physical predispositions can be designated as excellent. In his function as camp physician at Concentration Camp at Auschwitz, he applied his knowledge practically and theoretically while fighting grave epidemics. He seized every every opportunity, even under difficult circumstances, to improve both his theoretical and practical knowledge. He uses his spare time to search for further opportunities and unused anthropological materials."
I am amazed by this recommendation. Was it written by Mengene himself? Could his nature be so skilfully masked and reputation cleaned? Wonderful. A classic case of strong Venus (and Mars) and a weak Saturn.


"Simon Wiesenthal points out that this is a very common paradox: 'From Eichmann and Stangl on down, ninety percent of my 'clients' were - sometimes before the war and certainly after the war - solid family man and women, devoted to their children, loyal to their relatives, hardworking, taxpaying good citizens and good neighbours who did their duty, tended to their gardens and seldom made trouble for anyone. But when they put on under uniform, they became something else: monsters, sadists, torturers, killers, desk murderers. The minute they took off the uniform they became model citizens again."

"'The trouble with Eichmann' writes Hannah Arendt, 'was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.' And Stangl, says Gitta Sereny, had an infinite capacity to manipulate and repress his own moral scruples which, she insists, unquestionably existed."

"'In countries where the church is a controlling or dominating factor,' said the La Vista report, 'the Vatican has brought pressure to bear which has resulted in the foreign missions of those Latin American countries taking an attitude almost favoring the entry into their country of former Nazi and former fascist or other political groups, so long as they are anti-communist.' LA Vista added that 'the justification of the Vatican for its participation in this illegal traffic is simply the propagation of the faith.'"
The Catholics and Muslim institutions are primarily feelers (not thinkers) - power hungry.

"During her stay in Düsseldorf, Theresa Stangl visited her husband several times a week. 'What was strange,' she says 'was that often he would hardly talk to me. He'd sit opposite me at the table... But he'd chat with the guards, not with me. He'd talk to them about their leaves, their outings, places he knew, had been to. It hurt me and sometimes I'd say, ' Don't you want to talk to me?' Of course he didn't. To talk about his work from 1940-43 would have been to confess his infidelity to her values and upset the delicate equilibrium of his relationship with her and his family. She, more than he, had long looked the other way. His way crimes were like a mistress that everybody knows the head of the house has, but to openly acknowledge her existence would disturb the harmony of Sunday dinner. So it is perhaps fitting that the only time Stangl ever acknowledged his guilt, in private or in public, was to another woman, Gotta Sereny on Sunday, 27 June 1971, the day before he died."

"Sereny comes to this conclusion: 'I do not believe that all men are equal, for what we are above all things, is individual and different. But individuality and difference are not only due to the talents we happen to be born with. They depend as much on the extent to which we are allowed to expand in freedom... A moral monster, I believe, is not born, bit is produced by interference with this growth."


"Unlike Eichmann, however, he [John Demjanjuk, Ford Motor Co mechanic], denied everything, including, that he, Ivan Nicolaivich Demjanjuk, born 3 Apr 1920, in Duboimachariwzi in the Ukraine, was the same person as 'the other Ivan', whose name he (and later, others) said was Marchenko. But Demjanjuk performed the ultimate abstraction when he told the  US Marshals escorting him to Israel: 'If I was in Treblinka, then I was just a small cog. There was a war on, and there was no choice but to follow orders. But I was never in Treblinka.'" Wonder how his Venus is...

"'The trouble with Eichmann' writes Hannah Arendt, 'was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal.' And Stangl, says Gitta Sereny, had an infinite capacity to manipulate and repress his own moral scruples which, she insists, unquestionably existed."

The book also talks about Raoul Wallenburg, who apparently was a gentile Swede and whose contribution to the Jewish cause is indicated to have been great.

Shown below are recent photos (shot by a friend of mine) of old houses in the southern part of Poland where I understand Jews used to live around 1944 until they escaped or the Gestapo took them away .







Additional reading:
  1. Auschwitz extermination camp (Near Krakow)
  2. Treblinka extermination camp (North east of Warsaw, Lublin)
  3. Riga concentration camp (Latvia)
  4. Dachau concentration camp (Southern Germany)
  5. http://Calmisc.blogspot.com/2015/04/best-of-world-war-ilse-koch.html
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Wirth
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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Krishna And Kalyavan

Today I was watching Mahabharata on TV. Today's episode was about Krishna guiding Kalyavan towards his (Kalyavan's) death. For dummies like me who are wondering who Kalyavan was.. He was a bad man. 

Arjuna is perplexed at Krishna, who instead of fighting Kalyavan, actually withdraws towards a cave.

Krishna explains to Arjun why he maneuvered Kalyavan into a cave where a Rishi was doing Tapas completely covered by a cloth. Kalyavan, who has sworn to kill Krishna, thinks that it's Krishna who is hiding under the cloth and kicks the person inside the cloth cover, thus waking up the Rishi who, in his wrath, kills Kalyavan.

Krishna explains that this is fate, that Kalyavan was fated to die this way. True, perhaps. God of course created all of us and is omniscient. He knows what has happened and what will happen to every thing and living being in the universe(s).

If I wrote a software program, I would probably know the meaning of each statement and perhaps even know how efficient each part of the program and which part would consume a lot of resources and so on.

But then if I start ascribing piety and evil to each component of the program, it is weird. I created the program - I am responsible for how each part of the program performs. I cannot distance myself and say "this is evil".

If destiny is true, how can we ever ascribe good and evil to people around us? We are destined to behave in a particular way. People are not responsible for what they are destined to do. Our behavior itself, good or bad, is an "Act of god". 

How do people believe in destiny (and hence, in absence of free will) and also simultaneously believe that some people are good and others are evil and that they are responsible for what they are? 

I am surprised - how does Krishna believe in this fallacy? He is supposed to be knowledgeable, if not, an avatar of God.

I am shaking my head. Some things don't seem to make sense.

Quote from http://cicn.vanderbilt.edu/images/news/psycho.pdf: 
"Gage’s story became a classic of neuroscience because it revealed that behavior, which seems a matter of personal will, is fundamentally biological."

 Quote from http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/intro.asp#.VSE5ltyUdrw: 
"Everyone emerges from childhood with one of the nine types dominating their personality, with inborn temperament and other pre-natal factors being the main determinants of our type. This is one area where most all of the major Enneagram authors agree—we are born with a dominant type. Subsequently, this inborn orientation largely determines the ways in which we learn to adapt to our early childhood environment. It also seems to lead to certain unconscious orientations toward our parental figures, but why this is so, we still do not know. In any case, by the time children are four or five years old, their consciousness has developed sufficiently to have a separate sense of self. Although their identity is still very fluid, at this age children begin to establish themselves and find ways of fitting into the world on their own."
I had shared these thoughts with BR, a friend of mine about a month back. I got a reply today. I am posting the same here..

The other day i did not answer 2 or 3 of your questions. (1) Destiny and Freewill. (2) The very first creation by God. (3) Our actions - God's or ours?

(1) What you meet in life is Destiny. How you meet it is Freewill. Destiny may or may not be subject to change. It is the choice of the individual but however it is, it is predestined only. An illustration-In a temple, people receive "prasad" at the end of their prayers Irrespective of its taste,it is consumed by one and all WITHOUT COMMENTS. The reason being that it is considered as God's Blessing.Similarly,our experiences in life are 'prasad' only. Whether they are favorable or unfavorable to us, they have to be consumed (swallowed if they are unpleasant) WITHOUT COMMENTS. They are His Blessings only, some in disguise, for unknown reasons. For one with a correct understanding, a life full of sorrow will not anger him/her because he/she knows that whatever happens IS for their ultimate good. (2) As followers of Sri Aadi Sankaracharya who propagated Advaita philosophy, we all are part of (Ansh, in sanskrit) The One and only Reality. According to this philosophy, the Reality or Truth is only One Consciousness or Awareness. There is no duality meaning creation, world etc. is only a myth. Even the Trinity- Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are CREATED because of the will of The One Supreme Being. This Supreme Being is beginningless and endless, birthless and deathless. Hence, the question of the first creation does not arise at all. But even then, we have been given the names of the first couple in Brahma's creation as Manu and Satrupa. It can be taken that our presence here is because of them who were the first couple after creation to beget progeny.
(3) Whatever are one's experiences in a lifetime is according to the doctrine of karma.The law of karma is the application of cause and effect in this world. One's happiness or suffering are the inevitable consequences of actions in a previous life. Similarly, actions performed in this life determine those of the next. Hence, the pains of this life are self-inflicted, they have to be accepted with calmness and resignation.Thus one is free to rise or fall in their evolution.If we learn to live rightly here, we are spared grievous suffering in a future existence on whichever plane we may land. The rewards and punishments are not by the whims of God, which most of us believe to be.". I reap what I sow." It applies equally to one and all without even a trace of partiality. God is not responsible for our actions, He gives results to actions governed by the law. Hence He is responsible for the results of actions.
Another clarification;
Sri Krishna is considered to be 'Poornaavataar' among all Incarnations, meaning, A complete Divine Incarnation-human +divine at its fullest. He also behaved in compliance to the Supreme, not according to His wishesJust as we worship our own religion but respect other religions as well, just as we love our own mother but respect others' mothers as well, we must adore our favourite deity without an aversion for other deities (of other religions too)..

Hmmm. BR, What do I make of this?

Additional reading:
  1. http://vbala99.blogspot.com/2015/03/criminals-who-are-they.html
  2. http://Calmisc.blogspot.com/2014/10/krishna-villain.html
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