“There is a principal which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance — that principal is contempt prior to investigation.”
— Herbert Spencer
Author Archives: priamos
Kulning
The Legacy of Doping in the GDR
The Price of Gold
The Legacy of Doping in the GDR
Reunited Germany inherited many East German champions who had not only broken records in track and field, but also in the forced consumption of steroids. Twenty years later, German sports are only now beginning to recover.
Heidi Krieger became a victim of the GDR’s doping program. She eventually received so much testosterone that she felt forced to seek out gender-reassignment surgery.
Holodomor
Holodomor
Ukraine has always been invaluable to Russia as a ready source of gain. For centuries, the fertile black earth of the Eastern European plains was cultivated by peasant farmers who led a traditional way of life attached to their patches of land. When Stalin came to power in 1924, he instigated a reign of terror in the Ukraine that ranks among the foremost of his crimes against humanity. Over the next few years, he imposed a ruthless policy of collectivization. The kulaks’ land was sized for state farms and they were forced to work their own land as state employees. Many rebelled and were shot. In 1928, Stalin piled on the pressure by increasing the kulaks’ taxes at the same time as requisitioning ever-larger quotas of grain. Continue reading
tumblr ads
updated June 2019
This is how to get rid of the “supported post” that placing ads on tumblr timeline in firefox:
- First you need to have installed the Adblock plus extension.
- Click on the Adblock plus icon, at the upper right corner of your screen and click at the “gear” icon from the menu.
- A new page appears with blocking options. Just check mark the first two and have unchecked the third one as shown in the screenshot below.
no need to save, no filters, nothing; just close the tab and you are fine.
stacking
…
Die Mauer
Die Mauer
The early days of the Berlin Wall.
By John Bainbridge
The wall that divides Berlin is hard to visualize, because it defies comparison. Other things in the city are easy enough to imagine, because they can be Iikened to something familiar—the Kurfürstendamm to Fifth Avenue, Potsdamer Platz (in an earlier period) to Times Square, the Spree River to the East River, and so on. But there has been never been anything quite like die Mauer—or, as Mayor Willy Brandt has called it, die Schandmauer (the wall of shame). Its purpose alone would make it unique. Countries have built walls to keep their enemies out; die Mauer is probably the only wall ever built to keep a people in.
Continue reading
modern civilization
In modern civilization… Continue reading
The last Samurai
Otoya Yamaguchi (22 February 1943 – 2 November 1960)
On October 12, 1960, the 17year old Otoya Yamaguchi assassinated Inejiro Asanuma, head of the Japan Socialist Party, during a televised political debate for the coming elections for the House of Representatives. While Asanuma spoke from the lectern at Tokyo’s Hibiya Hall, Yamaguchi rushed onstage and pierced Asanuma twice with a 33cm yoroi-dōshi (a traditional samurai sword) through his ribs and abdomen. Asanuma died before he reach the hospital.
Otoya Yamaguchi hung in his cell, while being held in a juvenile detention facility, some days later, on November 2.