Stuart Graham

A genetic study was done that shows the earliest Scythians had genetic affinity with the Andronovo culture, widely held to be an Indo-Iranian culture. So, they were related to the Persians and other Indo-Iranian nations. They show very little admixture with Siberian or Asiatic cultures such as the Turkic peoples. #sec-3" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">science.org/doi/10.1126/sc… So, they were a branch of the Indo-Iranian peoples who are a now independent sub-group descended from the earlier Indo-Europeans. The Yamnaya were about 3000 BC, the Andronovo split off about 1700 BC and the Scythians appear about 800-700 BC. So, yes, absolutely, they were related to the Yamnaya.

@Tom_Rowsell Were the Scythians related to the Yamnaya? They are one of my closest groups as Dad was European. Mum has ancient British. So I am a mix.

Don't fall for this "Yamnaya invaded Europe" semantic trick

Yeah, there's evidence if you can be bothered to actually look for it. For example, in less than 2 minutes I found this: museum.wa.gov.au/explore/dirk-h… They mention that the Javanese knew of Australia and had visited it on multiple occasions. In the fourth paragraph they mention a Portuguese captain named Eridia (full name Manuel Godinho de Erédia) who spoke with the Javanese who mentioned the continent and how there was alluvial gold in the rivers amongst other things. Eridia's account: Here: archive.org/details/jmbras… Mentions that in a 1601 account by a Javanese king of Demak named Chiaymasiouro Javanese people had journeyed south to a land they called 'Luca Antara' and established a settlement. Eridia says he found this area when he landed in Australia in 1610 but there was no one left at the site. There are also two quite ancient inscriptions in Java, the Waharu IV inscription (c.931 AD) and the Garaman Inscription (c.1053 AD) allegedly mention Australia, but I can't confirm that since no one has bothered to make an English translation available or they're hidden behind paywalls. However, it is very clear that the Javanese had long established contact with Australia. They were collecting trepang (sea cucumbers) in the waters off the NT coast, they found gold in the rivers and rocks, they may have taken slaves (they were obtaining slaves and workers as far afield as East Africa in the 10th and 11th century), and, according to one of their own kings, had briefly established a colony. Now, to be fair, their colony may only have been for the purposes of capturing Aboriginals for slavery on Java or, quite possibly, a mining settlement. But they themselves say they had at least one point during the 1500s or earlier established at least one colony that was later lost. Now, I have given you some more evidence as well as locations of the sources I used to inform my opinion and if that is insufficient for you to change your opinion then don't kindly bother me again.

@sgreum @FoxfordComics Also no evidence the javanese attempted to colonise Aust, although trade was likely. Anyway you so called evidence is very flimsy. Explorers used to produce maps. Where was zhengs maps of northern Australia. I read a book on Zhengyears ago and it’s claims were spurious.

Always hilarious to me that China and India didn't even know this massive continent in their backyard. And then some English dude from the other side of the world just came along and yoinked it.

Yes. Apart from all the evidence of pre-European contact with Australia that I and others posted including at least seven points of evidence that Zheng He likely contacted Australia there's absolutely zero evidence that the Chinese ever contacted Australia before the Portuguese. Cool story bro.

@sgreum @FoxfordComics That’s just a massive assumption. Heard of it maybe, came here, extremely unlikely.

Fair warning, I'm going to go long here. The facts deserve it, but I'll summarise it as much as I can. Starting off, true, his account was probably full of holes and exaggerations, that was par for the course with ancient and medieval histories. The idea he reached the Americas? That he circumnavigated the globe? Probably misunderstandings of translators or fantastical tales. However, there are historical and archaeological facts that show at least a significant portion is true, particularly about his journeying around the Indian Ocean and the island kingdoms north of Australia. Let's look at the evidence: 1. China traded with Rome along the Silk Road from about 30 BC and had probably heard of the Greeks via the Bactrian kingdoms established by Alexander the Great and the Persians with whom they traded as early as 110 BC. 2. They were also trading by sea from about the second century BC as well. Though this was more controlled by other maritime kingdoms such as the Malaccans, but it's impossible that sailors did not tell stories of fantastic kingdoms to the west. In fact, a cache of 4th century Roman coins turned up in southern Japan recently that probably reached there by trade so we know that in the real world there were goods flowing east and west as well as spices from the Islands and goods north/south to and from China. These trade routes existed until the mid 1400s. Well into Zheng He's lifetime. 3. In 97 AD a Chinese general attempted to send an embassy to Rome but they were dissuaded by the Parthians and turned back. About a century later the son of a Roman emperor did reach China (c.166AD) and then two more missions about fifty years later. The Byzantines established diplomatic contact with China in the 7th century. That lasted right up to the fall of Constantinople. 4. Between around 900-1000 AD some Javans attempted to colonise Australia but by the middle of the 11th century they had vanished and it was not attempted again. That's the background to all this. The Chinese were travelling far and wide and were in contact with the West, India, South East Asia, and the Malay peoples long before Zheng He's journeys. Zheng He's father and grandfather along with other Muslims under Chinese dominion made the pilgrimage to Mecca from ancient times. So they did travel very long distances. On to Zheng He. 1. There are old stories from the Arabian peninsula that match Zheng He's records. So he almost certainly reached that far west. Being a Muslim, that was probably a priority for him as well. 2. There's a tablet in Colombo, Sri Lanka, that was brought as part of his journeys. So he certainly did reach as far west as China. 3. Chinese pirates were operating quite far south into the seas of the Austronesian islands north of Australia and so were Chinese traders. 4. He did very likely reach kingdoms such as Java who had had contact with Australia centuries before him. So he would have heard of this mysterious land to the south. His purpose was trade and diplomacy, probably to encourage royalty and nobles of other lands to pay homage to the Ming emperors, so I doubt he would have passed up the opportunity to find yet another kingdom that he could establish trade with and increase the prestige of China. Of course upon reaching Australia depending on where he landed, he would have found endless tracts of stony deserts, barren mountainous regions, crocodile infested swamps, or crocodile infested tropical jungle. There were no civilised kingdoms, just stone age barbarians who had little to trade and no kings or princes to bend the knee to Zheng He's emperor. I have little doubt that he reached Australia at least once, that he found nothing of value to China and never returned. Given the historical facts of Chinese trade as far as Rome 2100 years ago and the archaeological evidence, it's quite unreasonable to say he could never have found Australia.

@sgreum @FoxfordComics Zheng never made it to Australia. That account is so full of holes it reeks of propaganda.

@Brad_Glasgow @mich___l We're not quite at the British point of arresting people en masse for 'hurtful words', but the far left are pushing it rapidly in that direction.

@mich___l I don't really know much about its politics other than how it affects gaming (since that's what I'm into) so you could certainly be right.

Here's your periodic reminder that Australia is actively hostile to the games industry with regards to free speech.

@Betty19231 @JMccartney89038 @BuzzPatterson I second that. The country has gone to pot over the past 40 years thanks to the insane socialists who my countrymen idiotically keep returning to office.

@JMccartney89038 @BuzzPatterson Unfortunately, I cannot disagree.

A flying story. One of my favorite places to fly in the Air Force was the “Down Under” trip to Sydney and other spots in Australia. At the time, Australians loved us and we loved them! It was such a great time. One morning, we were flying into Sydney from Pago Pago early in the morning. As we were descending, the sun was just starting to come up on a clear morning. The radios were silent and we were the only people in the sky. As we were letting down for our approach into Sydney, the ATC guy asked us if we wanted a tour over the Opera House and the Sydney Bridge. He said, “drop as low as you want.” So, we did. The entire crew came up to the cockpit to check it out. It was beautiful. I always loved flying in Australia.

Some people should not be allowed anywhere near the internet, mobile phones, or social media at all. For people that have no idea what that is, it's not a camera. I work in a supermarket in Australia and we have near identical digital tags on our shelves. My job is to pick people's shopping for collection and delivery (online shopping) and those 'cameras' are LED lights that flash to easily identify the next articles for the picker to collect. I presume they could be re-purposed to help staff in other ways if the store doesn't provide online shopping. That's it, no conspiracy, just a convenience for staff.

New conspiracy theory unlocked 🔑

Xlibre came about because the keepers of the original X11 project refused to allow it to be patched and updated and were pushing Wayland instead. Recently they purged a lot of contributions that were in the pipeline and rolled it back a couple of years. So it was forked and the fixes and debugging etc are being done under the xlibre banner. I don't know how much different it is apart from things being brought up to date and stuff like security vulnerabilities and bugs being fixed.

@CanaRepublic @LundukeJournal I use X11 and am aware of its many shortcomings. I guess my question is, if I go out of my way to get xlibre, will it improve things? Did they fix some bugs or something? Or is it just a branding exercise?

The XLibre page on the Arch Linux Wiki has been deleted, with the following reason given: “The Xlibre project goes against [Arch Linux Code of Conduct] and should not be listed on ArchWiki.” The deletion appears to have been done by Alad Wenter, an Arch package maintainer and Wiki Administrator. wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xlibre

I dunno, I never saw any when I've visited Darwin, plenty of fat very happy looking crocs. But you may be right, like I said, they do like gaslighting people into believing they don't exist. Just like cassowaries who pretend to be friendly birds until you aren't paying attention.

@sgreum @SandyofCthulhu That's what they want you to think m8

I'm pretty sure that's all bunyip and yowie territory. Prove me wrong.

@RiverinaKid @SandyofCthulhu I'm pretty sure they're extinct in those regions because the crocs and drop-bears ate them.

@sgreum @SandyofCthulhu There's less people up that far so less of them get sighted

It doesn't really need explaining, though, the Romans didn't move away from spears. They just stopped using the phalanx tactic because they proved that it could be beaten with their more modern and far more flexible tactics, which still employed different kinds of spears as needed. Here the spear wasn't the failure, it was the Phalanx tactic that failed when it faced an army that wasn't willing to form up in a huge pointy rectangle and march at the other huge pointy rectangle and poke each other with sharp sticks until one side didn't have enough able-bodied men with pointy sticks left to poke the other side. The Romans were still using spears, all they did was change tactics with the spear, but they kept using them as primary weapons alongside their swords quite successfully right up to the fall of Constantinople.

Spear-always wins fans don't have a good explanation for why the Romans moved away from spear phalanx to manipular tactics. I know why! Having fought with both, I will definitely take a sword over a spear or polearm in forest country or on ground sufficiently irregular that maintaining a formation isn't practical.

What's the best melee weapon? The answer is unambiguously the spear, which is also one of the cheapest and oldest weapons. Neanderthals used spears. The answer to the question posed in the image below is that in one-on-one combat, the sharp pole will usually win, but in disciplined mass combat, the long sharp pole can be used to form a pike mass, and then it can beat almost anything. Even the fabled Roman legions lost when facing trained pikemen unless they could break up the pike line, flank them, or otherwise do some kind of workaround. Lindybeige on YouTube has several videos in which he gets re-enactors to fight with swords against spears. He goes through lots of variations - spears with shields, without shields, swords allowed to flank, or not allowed to flank (trying to simulate an unflankable line), and so forth. Even though his spear-using Brits are usually unfamiliar with their weapon, and his sword-users fairly experienced, the spears win almost all the time. 1/3

Don't be surprised by this. They pretend they are 'bipartisan' but their founder and many of their leaders since have worked for the Greens and Bob Brown. Minshull seems to be cut from the same cloth, here she's fawning over a terrorist sympathiser with a degree in 'Islamophobia' and a Greek socialist and 'anti-fascist' who lists Marx and Keynes as two of his influences. youtube.com/watch?v=8tANgN… At this stage, the demand that we accelerate the dismantling critical Australian infrastructure in a time of crisis caused primarily by the past dismantling our critical infrastructure by the kind of far left radicals they platform is just par for the course for the (anti) Australia Institute.

We are in a full-blown crisis It's going to get worse. So what do these retards do? Call on the government to STOP fossil fuel developments. I have an idea, if YOU dont want the privilege of fossil fuels, then YOU get off the grid and buy nothing that is built, made, or grown with fossil fuels.

I'll give you the first bit. It has a 'more complex and full flavour' in the same way as Limburger cheese does versus a good vintage cheddar. It doesn't mean it's better. It smells awful and tastes worse than it smells. I had Marmite again recently and it's as foul as I remember it. I grew up on the stuff until I was six, I had a Scots born dad and its what he grew up on, so he foisted it on us. I'm so very glad we switched to Vegemite.

@sgreum @SandyofCthulhu Marmite has a more complex and full flavor, it is the Coke to vegemite's Pepsi and we all know it.

New Zealand girl carrying a jar of poison.

Only to a degree. Britain is a very small place with a very large population. I'm not sure where to compare it to in the US, but comparing to places in Australia it's about the size of the state of Victoria but with nearly 3 times the population of Australia. I'd guess you get away from the worst of their decisions, but in a place that small it will get to you in time. It certainly does here where it's nearly impossible to escape the ridiculously stupid decisions of our governments. The US also has a pretty good constitution that gives a fair bit of protection. Australia has a reasonably good one that was based on the US constitution, but which leaves out the most important protections from government overreach (e.g. free speech). Meanwhile the Brits don't have anywhere near that protection. Which is why they can allegedly get away with arresting around 12k people for Wrongthink. Still, I'd love to go there or even move there if I could afford it. But we can barely afford petrol at the moment if the nearest petrol stations even have any. Moving overseas is just a dream and at least they are free until the government works out how to tax them.

@sgreum @AydinPaladin The amazing thing about Britain, like America I assume, is that if you want to avoid the shitty decisions made by politicians you can go live in the countryside and have a very happy life

Y'Know how Jews have Birthright trips to Israel? I swear, every Anglo-Saxon blooded American needs to do the same here, provided he not be annoying (legally enforced). You will understand so quickly why this is OUR "holy land" so fucking fast and in such an existential way, it's unreal.

@ShamashAran My back's okay, the knees are an issue after a long shift at work. And yes, I recognise it.

You shoulda said, "take care of your back"

Depends. Americans call a version of scones 'biscuits' for some unknown reason while in most other English speaking names they mean what Americans call 'cookies'. Though, in Australian English it's common to call biscuits with chocolate chips 'choc chip cookies'. But we all understand Simplified English outside the US, so if you say 'do you want some cookies?' we'll all know what you mean.

I’m Japanese, so which one should I use when speaking English?🇺🇸🇬🇧🍪😳