Visions Of The West Art Show & Sale: Fill & Download for Free

No way to know, for two reasons.1. Puppet statesDefinition of “puppet state” is too diffuse. Romania in the 1980s was anything but a puppet state. It openly flirted with the West. Likewise, we had zero influence of what happened inside North Korea. Poland’s rulers were much hampered by the internal opposition, where illegal trade unions and the Catholic Church played the central role.2. Computation of GDPNo way you can trust Soviet statistics. And it’s not just because Communists lied.The USSR and other Communist-ruled countries (we called them “Socialist”) had a Marxist definition of economic output. It was dictated by the labor theory of value, i.e. how much work went into a particular product or service. No one managed to come up with a recipe how to calculate that in a “scientific” way. The government simply assigned some value to it guided by the Marxist vision of how things should be—and tactical expediency.Consider the following:An hour that went into cleaning the floor of a military plant with a mop and a bucket of water cost much more than an hour of cleaning a similar-sized floor in a kindergarten. Simply because bureaucrats decided that the salary of a vetted cleaning lady was higher by a factor x2, and often much more.Since there was no market to ascertain the value of what you’ve produced, you were able to pad you reports as much as you wanted—if you knew how to do it undetected. (You also could bribe those who used to come to check your books and appraise your inventories). Factories over-reported production in order to get bonuses, inflating GDP by up to five percent, at least.Many goods reflected in the statistics were of a shoddy quality. Consumers refused to buy them. But the stats showed them as a full-good output.A lot of investment spending went for hoarding of materials to compensate for expected shortages. In the industry, large parts of the inventory either warmed the shelves and floors indefinitely or was used wastefully. The resulting destruction of wealth was not reflected in the GDP reporting.Huge construction sites that were never completed to full functionality. Yet, the stages were reported to completion. These items never created any value but still showed up in GDP.The massive defense outlays were extremely murky. In addition to the factors above, padding of the accounts was enhanced thanks to secrecy. Even though stealing might be problematic because of the extra scrutiny in the military industrial complex, a pure window-dressing for propaganda purposes didn’t harm anyone and was good for showing the historical advantages of Communism.Economic competition between a market economy and an economy of Real Socialism is best described as a Blackjack game where one player is obliged to show its hand and the other is not.The Soviet cartoon below from the 1970s illustrates the shortcomings of the Marxist “labor theory of value” for assessing the real GDP. A worker outfitted with a state-of-the-art high-tech equipment is tasked with manually carting bricks around the building site. The Soviet accounting books will show his working hour as worth 100x of the same worker doing the same without the fancy equipment.Text: “Operator! What’s the destination for the cargo?”

No she did not! Galadriel was born in Valinor as one of the Noldor. She is described as "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-Earth.”The Mirror of Galadriel was a basin filled with water in which one could see far away visions of the past, present and future. Galadriel could not predict what the mirror would show and did not guarantee that its visions would come to pass. It is unknown now or when or by whom it was built. The mirror showed up in The Third Age.This is how Tolkien described Galadriel’s Mirror.When introducing the Mirror, Galadriel calls out Sam's earlier mention of "Elf-magic":'And you?' [Galadriel] said, turning to Sam. 'For this is what your folk would call magic. I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem also to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel. Did you not say that you wished to see Elf-magic?'Fellowship of the Ring Book II Chapter 7: "The Mirror of Galadriel"Tolkien refers to this passage (obliquely) in the unsent Letter 155, when talking about the different sorts of magic in his world (emphasis his):I suppose that, for the purposes of the tale, some would say that there is a latent distinction such as once was called the distinction between magia and goeteia. Galadriel speaks of the 'deceits of the Enemy'. Well enough, but magiacould be, was, held good (per se), and goeteia bad. Neither is, in this tale, good or bad (per se), but only by motive or purpose or use.[...]Their magia the Elves and Gandalf use (sparingly): a magia, producing real results (like fire in a wet faggot) for specific beneficent purposes. Their goetic effects are entirely artistic and not intended to deceive: they never deceive Elves (but may deceive or bewilder unaware Men) since the difference is to them as clear as the difference to us between fiction, painting, and sculpture, and 'life'.The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 155: To Naomi Mitchison (draft). September 1954The Elves had always been incredibly adept at creating incredible works of art and magic. Faenor himself created the palantíri and the Silmarils.To fully understand Galadriel’s power we must understand Nenya. Nenya was one of the Rings of Power; specifically, it was one of the Three Rings of the Elves of Middle-Earth. Also known as the Ring of Adamant and the Ring of Water, it was made of mithril and set with a white stone of adamant.Nenya was made by Celebrimbor, Galadriel's first cousin once-removed, along with the other two Elven Rings, Narya and Vilya.The power of this Ring strengthened and beautified the realm of Lothlórien, but it also increased Galadriel's desire for the Sea and return to the West.Nenya's power was preservation, protection, and concealment from evil.We do not know the origin of Galadriel’s Mirror but I think we can safely assume it was not created with Nenya since then Nenya’s powers did not include the creation of such a mirror.Thank you Sami Kriikku for your wonderful editing job!I love comments, questions and disagreements!-Jason

The movie 300 gets essentially everything wrong.First, the title of the movie is quite inaccurate. The rear guard of the Greek forces consisted of 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, all of whom fought to the death. By glorifying the Spartans, Zack Snyder deliberately left out the other 1100 Greeks who played a pivotal role during the retreat. Kinda of a bummer if you ask me.Apparently, the Spartans all have chiseled abs in the movie. But in reality, you probably couldn’t tell because they wore actual armor chest-plates covering their “abs”.It’s also extremely ironic (and ridiculous) to see Leonidas call the Athenians “Boy Lovers” when institutional pederasty was an embedded part of SPARTA’S educational system.in the movie …In real life …even the 1962 version got it right …Zack Snyder also depicts the Persians as weird and barbaric beings threatening Greek “civility”. And once again, his vision is heavily distorted from the truth. First, Xerxes wasn’t this tattooed bald freak decked out in chains. In fact, 300 depicts all Persians in very “exotic” fashion. This image basically explains the difference between Zack Snyder’s “Xerxes” and the real Xerxes …Persian Immortals of 300 …And actual Persian Immortals …see the difference?And the part regarding Persian enslavement is pretty nonsensical as well. Slavery in Persia was limited due to its Zoroastrian beliefs (particularly under Cyrus the Great) and those who were enslaved were often resettled to the Mesopotamian heartland, similar to Jews and other ethnic groups. Meanwhile, Spartan slaves, known as Helots, were communally owned and ritually slaughtered every autumn to remind them of their status! Please tell me which society is more cruel!And alas, the ridiculous battle scenes. 300 pits 300 Spartans endlessly slaughtering waves upon waves of Persians. Unfortunately, this is once again inaccurate as only a fraction of the 100,000 strong Persian force engaged Leonidas in the famous last stand. But this movie shows hundreds of thousands or millions of Persians charging at the Spartan rear guard, only to be butchered in the slaughterhouse. It even shows the Persian advance as causing an earthquake!Snyder depicts the Persian hordes as an ant colony ready to be exterminated …The fight choreography is extremely inaccurate as well! All the sequences performed by the Spartans are a mash up of FILIPINO martial arts, not historic Spartan fighting tactics. What the heck?!? And the glaring part is: none of the audience noticed! I’m pretty sure Sparta didn’t have long distance interactions with the Philippines … yet.There are still even more historical inaccuracies that I haven’t listed of this movie. Frankly, it’s hilarious how little Hollywood knows about outside Western culture. Would it kill for the producers to pick up a tenth grade World History textbook and base 300 off from there? But no … they must portray the Spartans as democratic heroes saving the West from the wrath of uncivilized Persian monsters! The irony here is that the founder of the Persian Empire, Cyrus the Great, was the first world emperor to guarantee human rights and individual liberties. Contrast this to the 40% population of Greek city-states enslaved with absolutely no standing in their societies. Notwithstanding political correctness here, the movie’s inaccuracies are still extremely funny to watch and there are good scenes. But there’s one thing to note. At its premier at the Berlin International Film Festival, the audience gave a standing ovation at the film’s introduction only to leave during the actual showing. The few who stayed booed at the end; this sums up 300 quite well. Here’s director Zach Snyder’s response to the “alleged” historical inaccuracies: "the events are 90 percent accurate. It's just in the visualization that it's crazy.... I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is."