Worth Reading: Euroseptic
Just added to our Blogroll on the lefthand side of the page is a link to our friend Mary Ellen Synon's column in the Daily Mail, Euroseptic. It's well worth visiting. For starters, check out her perceptive piece "A lesson for Britain from Honest Abe."
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I do not care what this woman says....Lincoln is still a hero for me...from what he achieved and the beautiful writings he left behind. Modern day politicians are pygmies in comparison, even if they do not have the "faults" this woman accuses Lincoln of.... I think it was Hegel who said: no man is a hero to his valet de chambre. And petty biographers are usually valet de chambres....
@1 Gargi
What beautiful writings? The Gettysburg Address? That should only serve as an example of brevity in oration, but it's content is imperialism at best or demagoguery at worst.
@gargia
"Modern day politicians are pygmies in comparison..."
Lincoln was much too modest. He definitely belonged in the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle. He's the soul of our nation. There's no point in denying it any longer. We're berserk.
Wasn't the EU created primarily by the British who had a major role influencing what rules and regulations it should adopt when it was created especially a European central bank.
And as far as EU security and international terrorism go it somehow usually comes back to Britain with quite a few being on the payroll of MI6.
As far as Abe Lincoln is concerned Britain had a vested interest in a divided US and was aligned with the Southern Confederacy.
Can anyone confirm the independence of her sources? She does not reference them.
British media and pundits have a history of demonizing and propagandising against adversaries of the government like Germans, Serbs, Russian’s, etc.
@ George: The European Union was established in 1993 by the Treaty of Maastricht. Britain's membership was hedged about with all sorts of qualifications and exemptions, insisted upon by Mrs Thatcher who was a 'Eurosceptic' (though not always as effective as she should have been in that role) and who knew that the British people wished to retain national sovereignty while participating in an economic union only (which is how the EU has always been sold to us, even though it clearly aspires to become "a country called 'Europe'").
For the same reason no British government has signed up to the single European currency or the European Bank, there not being a more potent symbol of loss of sovereignty than inability to control one's currency. Even New Labour (a party that regards England and all her traditions, including that of 1000+ years of nationhood, with contempt) which would like to embrace all of the EU's financial arrangements, dares not take a step that would mean electoral suicide, given that the British people are preponderantly opposed to financial, social and political integration in the Union, and are uncompromising in their wish to maintain Britain's identity as a sovereign nation-state. Britain is a dissident member of the EU, much disliked by the European establishment for its contrariness. That same establishment, though, is covertly integrating the member states of the EU into 'a more perfect union' by ever more audacious bureaucratic methods that by-pass national Parliaments and popular votes. (Note the case of Ireland: a popular vote that runs counter to the wishes of the European establishment is simply discounted. The Irish have been given 'incentives' - the threat of financial penalties if they don't co-operate - to hold the vote again. And they will be coerced into voting again and again until the EU gets the result it wants. If this were Sicily, Zimbabwe or Chicago this would be described as what it is: electoral corruption).
The EU's institutional ancestry pre-dates 1993, running back to the European Economic Community (EEC), founded in 1957 by Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, of which it (the EU) was the successor. France, under de Gaulle, kept Britain out of the EEC in the 1960s. He regarded us as a trojan horse for American interests. His attitude to the US, or the sort of considerations that were formative of it, can be gauged from one incident in particular. Amongst the first things de Gaulle did on becoming France's president in 1958 was to summon General Norstad, the Commander of NATO, to the Elysee Palace. He wanted to know the number and location of American weapons on French soil. He was told he was not 'cleared' to receive such information. De Gaulle considered the reply, and then responded. He told Norstad that no French leader would ever hear such an answer again. By 1960 the French had acquired their own nuclear capability, and during de Gaulle's second Presidency (in 1966) France left NATO's common military command (while remaining in the organisation). It has pursued an independent foreign policy ever since - i.e. one geared to French national interests and deploying French military personnel at the command of French political and military leaders. I've always assumed that France's unvailability as a tool of US/Israeli interests (in sad contrast to Britain) is one of the two reasons for neocon fury towards it.
But the upshot is that Britain has never been a founder of European institutions or a leader of them.
Your reference to MI6 is, with the greatest respect, quite absurd.
Nobody in Britain considers Germans, Russians or Serbs to be 'adversaries' of our government. Outside of the government, nobody in Britain gives much consideration to any of those nations (except with the occasional football match).
@travis
"Lincoln was much too modest. He definitely belonged in the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle. He’s the soul of our nation. There’s no point in denying it any longer. We’re berserk."
Yes. He was a great man...Way too modest as you say. I love his speeches, all written by himself, unlike politicians of today who have people write it for them...He is a giant among the pygmy politicians of today....
I agree with this woman, however, that Barak Obama is clearly no Lincoln. What do petty biographers try to prove when they speak of the faults of great men such as Lincoln? 1) Lincoln had some faults. 2)I do not have the same faults. Hence, I am just as good as Lincoln.
If "gargi" does not quit referring to a journalist as "this woman," he shall soon find himself unable to post on this website. As I should have thought everyone knew, Mary Ellen Synon is a well-known American journalist who has been residing in Europe for some time. But what better can one expect of a person who admires Lincoln, who enjoyed embarrassing women with his dirty stories--his Congressional colleagues learned not to take their wives to dinner with Abe--or jilted a fiancee when he found a wealthier woman, albeit crazy, to marry--a Southern woman, be it noted, with a brother and two half-brothers in the Confederate Army. Am I the only reader who is tired of the inanities posted by people who profess to admire Lincoln but cannot be bothered to learn anything about him? Good news: The February issue of Chronicles is devoted to Lincoln's legacy.
@TJF
I apologize if a woman referring to another woman as a woman is disrespectful in any way--I guess the way to refer to her would be "the journalist". But I fail so see how this article has enlightened me about Lincoln. Moreover, I fail to see what is the point of people who dwell on petty faults of great men--this has nothing to do with not being open to learn more about the legacy of Lincoln--but I clearly do not want to learn about the "dirty jokes" he would tell as you say.
@5SternRepublicanVirtue
“Your reference to MI6 is, with the greatest respect, quite absurd.”
London is the centre for international terrorism in Europe.
MI6 claim is absurd then you are not aware of the facts.
During the 90's along with the CIA help train Islamic militants in Bosnia.
London is home to many terrorist organisations even banned in the Middle East and during the 90's was recruiting Islamic militants in Universities and Mosques with the Pakistan ISI to fight in foreign jihads in Bosnia, Chechnya and Kashmir among others including the London bomber mastermind. In fact he got the explosives from Kosovo from a network established by MI6/ISI in the 90's.
Abu Hamza who was running the Finsbury Park Mosque admitted that MI5 approached him during the 90's knowing what he was doing and said it was okay.
Babar Akhmed who ran Assam publications in London an international Islamic propagandist and recruitment organisations running websites, fundraising and transferring funding to militants since the Bosnian war for years operated freely working as an IT head at an English University until he decided to run as an MP which was to much and bring to much attention
“Nobody in Britain considers Germans, Russians or Serbs to be ‘adversaries’ of our government. Outside of the government, nobody in Britain gives much consideration to any of those nations (except with the occasional football match).”
I meant in historical context retrospectively with Germany during WW1 and before and after WW2.
I didn’t see much protest over Kosovo independence like they did over Tibet which was aided by MI6 Amnesty International and an advertising agency.
As regards to Russia Britain is one of the leading countries trying to overthrow the government through terrorism and NGO’s and with the constant barrage of negative propaganda just like they did to the former Yugoslavia.
The British foreign minister is David Milliband whose grandfather was a mass murdering Bolshevik commissar and is a neo-Marxist, Zionist Neo-Conservative.
@TJF
I find something perverse about that article. I googled her-- I think such people are wise of take a look at their own lives before they throw stones at men who are no longer alive...especially such a great one as Lincoln...
Why does gargi persist in calling Lincoln a "great man" unless this is meant in the Time Magazine sense that made Hitler, Stalin, and FDR great men. He started a war that killed 600,000 American soldiers and twice that many civilians--most of them black--gutted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, imposed funny money on the economy, etc. etc. Suppose, for a moment, that you were a Cambodian who was told all his life that Pol Pot was a great man, even though he killed off every member of your family. After reading all of Lincoln's speeches as well as published volumes of his letters, the reminiscences of people who knew him, and a variety of historical and biographical works--some in praise, some not--the only question that would be on the table is whether he was a monster or simply cheap crook. So far from being a great man, he was neither a good man nor an effective leader.
@TJF
I found the Chronicles by accident. Since I was a student of classics for many years and read that the editor is a classicist, I was curious. There are many good articles on it, and my own views are very conservative on most issues. But after a while, it gets tiresome...And when the Daily Mail is supposed to educate you about Lincoln, the tone degenerates to the level of FOX news. Then you know it is time to leave....Don't worry. No more posts from me on this site.
Gargi
The Feb. issue devoted to Honest Abe? That should be interesting indeed!
@George: you wrote, 'And as far as EU security and international terrorism go it somehow usually comes back to Britain with quite a few being on the payroll of MI6.'
Thank you for your subsequent expansion and clarification, which make far more sense than your, perhaps, overly concise and slightly elliptical original statement.
You are right to state that London is home to many Islamic terrorists. So are many other British cities. But it's worse than that. The New Labour government actively protects a number of them from justice. It refuses to extradite people wanted for terrorist outrages to countries where they might be executed, where they might be tortured, or where they might be 'mistreated'. It's generally believed that the security services had an informal agreement with foreign terrorists who had received sanctuary in Britain: they could continue to plot against the governments they had escaped from, so long as they didn't engage in terrorist activity on British soil. It worked for several years, until 7/7 blew it to pieces. It presumably came as a surprise to our security forces when the culture of Islamic terrorism that they themselves had helped establish extended to British born Muslims, who as a rule are far more fanatical than most foreign Muslims (simply because most British Muslims are of Pakistani stock, and Pakistan produces the craziest Muslims bar none).
People only demonstrate on behalf of what they regard as sympathetic causes. The Serbs, unfortunately, allowed themselves to be out-propagandised by their enemies in Bosnia and Kosovo (who presumably had Western help; advertising not being a Muslim speciality).
I hadn't known that about Milliband's grandfather. I do know that his father, an academic, once - post-Iron Curtain - gave a clenched fist salute at the grave of Karl Marx in Hampstead. Imagine what would have happened to a conservative Member of Parliament if it had been revealed that his father had once, post-war, saluted a picture of Hitler. A few years ago David Milliband came out with the characteristically neocon suggestion that the British flag should be changed to something more inclusive. Doubtless a flag comprising three crosses was more than he could bear. Though tipped as a future Labour leader I doubt if he ever will be. He's a light-weight politician, has flash (and not too much of that) without substance, and despite holding one of the most important Cabinet posts - foreign secretary - hasn't made the sllightest mark on anyone or anything. Besides, the Scots presently control the Labour Party (Smith-Blair-Brown has been the political succession) and look like doing so for a while yet (and they need to, in order to govern and exploit England for Scotland's benefit. Most Scots are terrified of accidentally winning independence from England and England's wealth).
Milliband's Zionism is sotto voce, assuming it exists at all (I think he's thoroughly secular, retaining nothing of Judaism but its hostility to Christian traditions). The Jewish community here are nothing like the one you have in the US, at least not in practical terms. When it suited them, a few years ago, the Scots of the Labour Party ran an openly anti-semitic campaign against the Conservative's Jewish leader Michael Howard (references to Scrooge, Oliver Twist and Fagin; barbed comments about his foreign background and his Rumanian illegal immigrant father, etc.). the Jewish community was naturally, and justifiably, outraged; but they were powerless in the face of calculated anti-semitic jibes by the governing party. I think it more likely that Milliband's orientation is cultural Marxism heavily qualified by self-importance and opportunism. But the boy is no Disraeli.
Ah February! I remember getting the 12th as a day off school once in the late 1960s. As an immigrant I asked a school chum why, because it had not snowed. He seemed surprised that I didn't know. He seemed equally amazed that the Queen's birthday always falls on a Saturday.
I'm starting a drive to get that bearded mug off the five spot. I'd prefer Gerald Ford's bald pate.
TJF
Sorry to comment again. There seems to have been a misunderstanding--I have entered a wrong website. I read some articles from time to time on this site and did not get the full picture...
I did not quite realize the place I stumbled upon is a white nationalist site. Please delete all my comments because I do not want to pollute it as I am non-Christian non European and just thought this was a regular conservative site, but after reading more articles and comments here, I realize my comments do not belong on such a site, and I also do not want them on such a site. I love my Plato, Aristotle and the Western classics on which I even have some degrees (one in Greek, Latin and Philosophy as well, two years of Hebrew and minors in French and German) which I do not use in terms of work ...I enjoyed it although my work is in the economics field. However, I no not feel that anyone has a monopoly on the great minds of the World--. Good luck in in preserving your White Civilization from threats from people like me!
As to your comparison of Lincoln and Pol Pot, I can only laugh. I am certainly no authority on Lincoln and have read a few biographies for pleasure. But I believe Walt Whitman over a second-rate "journalist" for the Daily Mail who accuses him of bad "morals". Google her and see the great morals she has...
Whitman on seeing Lincoln: Who can see that man without losing all wish to be sharp upon him personally? Who can say he has not a good soul?
A great man such as Whitman is to be believed, especially as he lived during the War and took care of the sick....I copied it from an exhibition I went on Walt Whitman in New York.
It is not my intention to provoke an argument and cause Gargi to make another post on this site which he has foresworn from ever doing again, but it seems to me, if we want to give someone the benefit of the doubt, then I posit that Mary Ellen Synon was paraphrasing from her source, Professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo. If Gargi has an argument with anyone, I suggest it is Prof. DiLorenzo. After reading her article, I think Mary Ellen has her hat on straight.
We welcome the participation of anyone willing to engage in a rational argument. I suspect that "gargi," though having the benefit of some classical schooling, is a young woman whose head is filled with TV and textbook images. Why believe Walt Whitman? A dreadful poet and sexual deviate who did more to corrupt American letters than anyone I can think of. A far greater writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, had little use for Lincoln and his administration. The same is true of Charles Francis Adams, Lincoln's ambassador to the Court of St. James, the son of John Quincy Adams and the father of Henry and Brooks. If Lincoln is a great man, let us hear the reasons.
As for White Supremacists, this is simply a libel issued from the safe anonymity of an internet moniker. (We do, by the way, have the email addresses of everyone who writes in.) White supremacists do write in, and some of them are civil and rational. When they are not, we ban them. One of the contributors to the discussion this week--I shall not name him--has been kicked out more than once. This week, however, he is making sane and civil arguments. The same rule is applied to the Marxists, liberals, feminists, Albanian Muslims, et al., who write in. To tolerate an open discussion, in America today, is now apparently tantamount to Nazism.
On Pol Pot and Lincoln: Once upon a time people who studied the classics also learned a bit about rhetoric and logic. The point was not that Pol Pot = Lincoln, but that American Southerners are being asked to admire someone who has their ancestors' blood on his hands.
We have no wish to exclude participants in these discussions, not even people who call us white supremacists. We hope that by encountering facts and reason, they will begin to dig themselves out of the ideological stupor that has drugged the American people. I should add that if I was a bit sharp initially it is partly because Mary Ellen Synon is a friend whose frankness and free spirit have caused her a great deal of trouble. And, I should add, I am frequently baffled by the free and easy manner-- more than a little tinged with arrogant contempt--of young people in referring to strangers.
@Meng
Mr. Meng, judging from your comments you seem rather pedantic and do not seem to understand my point but you force me to answer such a one as you.
It is the tone in which the journalist writes, so sure about the "morals" of the president which is at issue. No one is arguing about the facts of the War--as all wars it brought about great grief and suffering. But hey, I tire of defending the greatness of people whose own country men put down as in this post...The fact remains Lincoln was a great man and people will read about him and admire him in the future, whereas this journalist will go to the dustbin of history.
Anyway, I do not like this website. It is for people who have the points of views it espouses and I am not one of them. I think Western civilization is a great thing, I am not a Marxist or a leftist nor a liberal, but I can understand people would feel threatened by non Christians and non Europeans who they think "pollute" their culture.
I fail so see what someone with an Asiatic name of Meng is doing on a white nationalist website.
@ Gargi, #20, I suppose I owe you two apologies. First, for causing you to make another post on this site; and second, for referring to you as he, when it seems you are a she. Yes, I have been pedantic; its one of my many weaknesses. However, how was I pedantic in my post at #18? It was a rather brief remark and not a tedious show of learning. Oh, yes, FYI, Meng is a Swiss name, which I hope you won't construe as inclining me toward white nationalism.
Further evidence of the need for Euroskepticism is found in this just released report detailing prejudice against secular Turks and increasing pressure from AK backers on secular, non-Sunni turks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7792239.stm
One can hear Dr. Trifkovic saying "I told you so."
TJF, #19. You can add Herman Melville to Hawthorne as a anti-Lincolnian
TJF
First of all, I do not watch TV as there is nothing to watch on it. And secondly, I understand Lincoln might not be a hero to some. But I find the journalist has a rather cavalier way of putting down figures far greater than she--that was my sole point. I see an exaggerated annoying sense of ones own self-importance in a person not so important. But these days, every Tom, Dick and Harry can write without reverence about anything. And this is a very irreverant society.
As for the white supremacy, I was startled at the comments of some people. But people are free to think as they wish, I am not one to try to change such types, it is not my business...far from it. Moreover, I like to understand all points of views, even the extreme one because there is a reason people espouse them.
I can also understand religious conservatism in a society which does not have anything to fall back on if it gets rid of religion. I am the last one to ban prayer, religious music and such in schools. In fact, even though I am not Christian, I went to a Catholic school during my elementary years. I understand all to well the importance of tradition and values. It is ironic that the most troubled of my American friends are from the bible belt. It seems that they are just angry at religion altogether and rebellious. I wonder if this has to do with having a very rigid upbringing?
Well regarding the white supremacy, I read that this site was affiliated with it. I did not realize that everyone comments here and the comments are not necessarily endorsed by the Chronicles. And you are right, it is hard to speak one's opinion these days without getting into trouble and being misunderstood. There must be a way such that freedom of expression does not entail the abuse of the very freedom it is designed to protect.
As for our taste in poetry, I guess we differ. Perhaps Whitman is too pagan for Christians.
I wonder what the Greeks would have thought of Christianity--I mean the greatest ones who are all pre-Christian. Would they not dismiss it as Semitic fairy tales (no offense mean to the religion itself and I respect all the Christains out there). I sometimes wonder if the Semitic religions have not changed the true classical heritage of the West and put blinkers on the way people think? The notion of a reveled absolute truth faces great challenges in the modern world. It will be interesting to see how the West deals with it and reconciles its religion to a changing world. However, I respect all those are brought up in tradition and values. When you lose these things, you lose everything and it is more difficult to create new ones than to just preserve the old.
It is Whitman's formlessness, self-importance, and girlish hysteria that disturbs me, not his religion or lack thereof. Some of my favorite poets of that era were anti-Christian for much of their lives: Baudelaire and Carducci, for example. Perhaps the finest poet of the 19th century was Leopardi. I do not recall how he ended up, but he was something less than a faithful Catholic for most of his life. Another good example more recently would be the poet and filmmaker Pasolini...
What the Greeks would have thought of Christianity is an extremely interesting question, and your remark about "Semitic fairytales" certainly captures what many ancient pagans thought of the Old Testament and Judaism. It is very difficult to break out of the ghetto of one's mind and culture, without falling into self-hatred. Herodotus is perhaps the greatest exception I can think of. I think too many Christians have misled too many non-Christians into thinking that it is a question of belief in certain ideas. Ideas and creeds are important, of course, but Christianity from the beginning depended on 1) the acceptance of Christ as son of God, 2) acceptance of his moral teachings, 3) participation in common rituals. The Greeks would have no trouble with the first and third--though they would have wondered about the exclusivity that rejected all other traditions, and as for 2, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and the Stoics would have found a good deal of common ground. Seneca the younger sometimes writes--as has been pointed out--as if he really did hear something about St. Paul from his brother who interviewed him. Plotinus is the most interesting case. His philosophy is quite compatible with many aspects of Christianity, but he disliked what he knew of the new religion, largely, it would seem, because he had only met with Egyptian Gnostics.
Now I am going to say something that always annoys my friend and colleague Aaron Wolf. When people talk about the world's great religions, they usually mean, in addition to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and perhaps Hinduism and Confucianism. I think Greek paganism is a far richer and more humane religion than any but Christianity, and it has a theology that is far deeper than anything in Judaism or Islam. Who were these great theologians? Hesiod and Aeschylus, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. But this is a thought best left for another time.
@21 Meng
Do not apologise. I tend to post quickly without checking what I write, and do not lave a lot of patience, so it is usually too late to edit or correct--which is what happened in this case. But it is clear there are a lot of intelligent people who post on this site.
TJF
this is a post on Lincoln so I will only briefly comment:
"Buddhism, and perhaps Hinduism and Confucianism."
Perhaps Hinduism and Buddhism? Surely you must be jesting. But this is largely due to Hindus themselves who are these days utterly uneducated about their own culture, so they can hardly expect others to understand their religion. With the beginning of Buddhism, you already see a steady decline in the creative energies of a peoples...Buddhism had to leave its homeland, and I think Buddhism never grew in the sense that Christianity did. The Greeks and Romans transformed a tribal religion in the sense that a Mid-East graft no longer remained a sterile graft but grew in the creative soil of the the genius of the Western culture. Whereas Buddhism lost the original rational basis on which it was founded after it left its homeland due to Muslim invasions: people like the Dalai Lama who are harmless have given it more of a bad name than good: you just have to compare the early Buddhist monks who were the most educated men of their society, rational and very much active in the world they lived in, interested in all that constituted learning of their day, to the Buddhist monks of today who are more interested in transcendental meditation than in the affairs of the world, to see the cultural decline. Which is why although it spread to places like Japan and China and the tradition was preserved in this sense, Buddhism never produced the kind of philosophical innovation it first did in its own homeland...Confucianism cannot be compared to HInduism and Buddhism in that it is limited in scope and concern.....
@TJF
"And, I should add, I am frequently baffled by the free and easy manner– more than a little tinged with arrogant contempt–of young people in referring to strangers."
I apologize if I was disrespectful in any way. I am disrespectful only inadvertently, and have been taught to respect elders.
"Elders" is the right word, though I am not quite ready for the rocking chair nor is Mary Ellen Synon. Think no more about it. One can only blame people individually for falling below the standards of the time and place, and your manners are far superior to most.
"I think Greek paganism is a far richer and more humane religion than any but Christianity, and it has a theology that is far deeper than anything in Judaism or Islam. Who were these great theologians? Hesiod and Aeschylus, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. But this is a thought best left for another time."
A most interesting statement. At some point this would make great topic for discussion.
The problem with Judaism, Islam, and, to some extent, Protestantism, is that they are not pagan enough. Fr. Alexander Schmemann once described the Reformation as an attempt to scrub clean all the pagan residue in Christianity. This is bit harsh as Protestants at various times and places have supported a classical education. Nonethelesss, there seems to be some truth in it. The Catholic/Orthodox traditions which include a multitude of saints, feast days, and devotional acts such as kissing icons (Ed Abbey pointed out that creating idols was a natural and universal part of human religious experience), fit quite well with traditional pagan religions. I'm not sure what this means for us in the present, since in an industrial/technological society we are divorced from those things that supply the religious imagination-- namely, nature, ritual and community--so that natural religion loses its meaning.
@30
The history of the origins of Christianity is shrouded in mystery. With a religion like Buddhism, one can easily see how it grew out of the various philosophical schools of Hindusim....
The early Christians also stamped out a great deal of paganism--in Rome you can see a Church built on top of a Mithraeum till today. There were no monastic orders in the Western world before Christianity--the Buddhist sanghas for monks were already established in 5 century BCE. How did the monastic orders pop up all of a sudden in the Western world? I have always been intrigued by the origins of Christianity.
I find that Christians who do not know much about the Greek and Roman civilizations, dismiss paganism as idol worship, without understanding the whole Greek world view as contained in the work of their tragedians, poets and philosophers. And it is in this way that Christians dismiss the non-Christians who do not have one book and one revealed truth without understanding that you need to make a study of HInduism which grows from polytheism, to henotheism, to monotheism and to the abstract concepts found in the Upanishads in the course of millenia.
And as a non Christian, it is far easier for me to understand the Greek outlook than the Christian world view. This is not to say that I do not respect what I do not understand. And I can see your point about Catholicism being more pagan.
Perhaps there will be a thread on this topic.