Brutal, Inequitable America

A man who immigrated to the US in 1924 made a gift to his town of origin in Sweden. While Americans would see this type of posthumous generosity as relatively common in America, they would perceive the late doner to be an American, a one time immigrant like many others who have added to America’s rich tapestry.

Because he did something nice for them, the European view would be to call this man a Swede. Had he behaved like a lout all of his life, he would have been called an American. You guessed it: Me!Me!Me!Me!Me!Me!Me!Me!

It turned out that John P. Johnson was actually born Per-Olof Johnson in Gothenburg in 1909, but emigrated to the United States in 1924.

“His parents were divorced and he had a rough childhood, from what we understand. He supposedly emigrated to the US to live with his father, but they never found each other,” Johansson explained.

“He ended up living with an aunt. He really had nothing.”

Over time, according to Johansson, John P. Johnson had also managed to transform himself from a penniless immigrant teenager to a successful economist.

That’s because America is such a rotten, inequitable, place where no-one can figure out anything without the government creating all your opportunities for you.

Elsewhere: Swedes snip out a Moyle with a twitch.

A European Supremacist Ponders the End of the O-ligarchy

Euronews, in reporting on the US mid-term election, obviously thinks that the story is about Europe. Titled “EU-US relations ‘steady’, though admiration fairly ‘one-way’,” one can only wonder what this self-absorbed stance can possibly mean when the European public has been conditioned into detesting the US for the past half century. The explanation comes from an Israeli historian:

Barnavi said: “Obama is not spontaneously a European. He’s the United States’ first post-European president. He looks more toward the Pacific than across the Atlantic. So an ambiguous relationship set in. From one side there’s affection and admiration for the man who’s obviously exceptional but also some disappointment over a president who doesn’t seem to be as attentive towards Europe as Europe is towards him.”

Smallminded, the ignorant mook who wrote the peicve confuses Obama with the entire nation, history and all, because, after all, Obama was supposed to be their guy, give them stuff, and act against the interest of the population of the United States.

Need proof that our byline-less knucklehead thinks this way? Get a load of the opening line:

The United States’ Star Spangled Banner has lost some of the new luster Europe saw in it with Barack Obama’s historic ascension as president.

It apparently lost its’ luster to all of humanity, including Americans, because a Euronews writer and his fellow nodding zombies passively experienced some disappointment.

Too bad, Spanky.

Pigs in Space

Europe sticks to hitching a lift into space.

Brussels has shelved its space policy, reports Les Echos. "What was to be a major priority for the European Commission, now that the Lisbon Treaty has granted it new prerogatives in the field of space policy, has discreetly been sidelined." In the current context of budgetary restrictions, the Commission wants "to avoid exposing the European Union to risks inherent in high-profile financing of major space projects" like Galileo. As the daily explains, the space industry has responded with disbelief to the news that the Commission has set aside the implementation of a programme for which it had assumed political responsibility.

A Man, Finally, In Full

The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.

- Walter Benjamin

Author Stephan Wackwitz writes with apparent embarrassment about his youthful affection for fantasy socialist and thus a willing idiot for totalitarianism, Walter Benjamin:

My admiration for some of Benjamin's writing, the elegance of his thinking and his language more than anything else, has accompanied me throughout my intellectual life. And this in spite of the irreparable damage I probably inflicted upon myself during my period of obsessive Benjamin reading. Because the confusion of his thinking exponentially propelled my own confusions to new heights, for many years. When you read Benjamin, you must learn to strictly separate admiration and criticism.

Or otherwise simply take him for what he writes. To some, his writing is as enjoyable as anything one may find. In itself, that does not give its’ content any more significance than can be rationally found in it.

After all, the concept of originating critical theory by obfuscation turned into a cottage industry that reached its peak in the academic industry sector in the 1980’s. It then migrated into the occupations of social thinking and political crash testing.

It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.

- Walter Benjamin, telling us that facts are irrelevant when we suffer from “false consciousness.”

Wackwitz:

So how do you explain why his writing, which fails to meet any traditional criteria, has been been so phenomenally influential since the 1960s? The content argument points to Benjamin's combination of "scientific socialism" with cabbalist and messianic motifs (most prominently in his "Theses on the Philosophy of History) which struck a chord with students' illusory hopes of revolution against all odds. And the motifs in the essay on "The Artwork in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" would certainly have been useful for a generation where most people grew up wanting to become "something media-related".

A creature we frequently meet today, not to mention their enablers, well programmed by a monomaniacal, ideologically driven view found in the academy:

In 1972 I was twenty, a supposedly not entirely untalented, deeply impressionable and utterly confused individual. One week it was Maoism, the next it was poetry or fine art. The interminable vacillations of a young man. Ersatz military service in Bad Urach, holidays in Paris, a patchwork university degree in Munich. The obligatory hitch-hiking in Italy. The effects of Nietzsche's "Zarathustra" and three cans of beer in a youth hostel in Milan. An old man holds his head in despair over the diaries of his younger self.

Thankfully, he is now free of this sort of narcissism:

Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method.

There will always be people who will sugar-coat tyranny, just as there will always be young people who are sharp enough but lack the life experience to resist them. The irony is that it’s those people who are not ‘people of letters’ that are more likely to have the capacity to identify the theories and motives behind the intellectual child molesters.

That they prey on callow university students is no less wrong.

What do you Expect from a Morally Bankrupt Ideology?

Very little, especially when it comes to being imaginative or having good aim.

A WAR critic last night threw two shoes at former prime minister John Howard during a live television show and yelled "that's for the Iraqi dead".

Saddam Hussein’s victims were unavailable for comment.

Neither shoe hit Mr Howard during the program which also saw him blindsided when he was quizzed by David Hicks about why he was left at Guantanamo Bay military prison for 5½ years.

Simple:



The “Man of Peace” in Kosovo

Sandbox Journalism

Observing Hermann on those benighted sophisticates that call themselves European journalists:

This is the most pitiful article I’ve ever read on Spiegel Online, and that’s saying a lot–and that despite the fact that the guy at least got the title right: Obama’s Lost Magic.

Take a minute and read what informed, intelligent and sophisticated European journalists have to say when writing about Obama and the United States today. I would expect sixth graders to think this way, but… Whatever.

I.E.:

Now they are calling Obama a “weakling.” But that’s not fair.

If you can stomach this sort of “banging their spoons on their high chairs” sort of “news analysis”, then by all means feel free to read the whole thing. I just couldn’t.

David’s Medienkritik, deep into it’s gold-lamé unitard-wearing comeback tour, also found it infantile.

Syria is a Backward, Third World Gaping Hole of Suck

It isn't that way for a lack of skill, ambition, or resources. It's caused by their increasingly de-christianized culture, tempered by half a century of Ba'athist fascistic Socialism.

Homs: a 5 year old boy is married off to a 3 year old girl.

Berlin's B-Z:

For little Khaled (5) and his fiancé Hala, two years his junior, the ceremony in the Syrian city of Homs was probably just a game. But their parents are serious: If the kids are younger than 15 and 13 years old, they can be married according to the will of their parents.

Local and international human rights groups are up in arms against the engagement. In Syria, the marriage of minors is not unusual.

Kulturschande? You bet. Let's see if those “international human rights” types will, after all of these decades demonstrate their usefulness and efficacy. Don't hold your breath.

“Allow a Bunch of Regular People Express Brilliance ?”

The great schnitzeller make the simple point that skill and rigor are nothing without the element of trust, and the willingness of those in the know and in the capital to send out the signal to a society of potential innovators that they can think and act outside the box (inside their society).

German society, he asserts, is one that suppresses ingenuity for the sake of “things that just are.”

A guy like Bill Gates coming up with an amazing idea and launching it into a major enterprise within twenty years in Germany?  Never.  It simply can't happen.  The banking structure, the political structure, the national media, and various other stumbling blocks would ensure that something like that can't happen.

While the elite are busy tut-tutting you for not fitting the curve, and measuring your leistung, they are fearful of those who are really radically different in a positive way, if not bound up with the fake bombast of the public arts.

I had an American make the simple analysis that the last time that a regular German came out of nowhere to take on the "machine"....it was Adolph Hitler.  I laughed over the analysis and kept thinking I would find lots of regular people that launched careers and beat the system.

Either that, or they just leave to do their thing. While the rest of civilization clearly benefits from the dynamic, the malice quietly sprinkled on those ingenious folk who were not “engineered” by curricula and career paths that are chiseled into your tombstone, only serves to spike the creative spirit, not to mention smothering the joie de vivre of personality types not shared by that elite.

But on the whole of things.....this mighty nation is faced each Sunday evening with the thought and analysis of university elites.  For those who tune into channel one around 9:45 after Tatort....it's 75-odd minutes of political thought by elites, and not much else.

This recent topic of integration?  Well....the majority of the cultural and university elites don't see a problem.  They'd keep this train running on the same track.  The guys from the local plant?  The folks from the local pub?  The crowd that hangs out at the soccer stadium?  They have a vastly different view.  It doesn't matter where you go in Germany....they see too many foreigners and an influence that they dislike.

Every Progressive Scion Has His Billy Carter

Jeb he ain’t.

Expect the media to suppress the hysteria that would otherwise be mandatory had a Republican been in the White House.

EU Demonstrates that it’s Easily Defeated by Passive-Aggressive Taunts

"Such actions by EULEX do not at all contribute to stabilizing the situation on the ground, rather they only serve to fuel doubt and distrust among the Serbs," Bogdanović said, according to Beta news agency.

End of the world, you say? Serbs angered to a feverish pitch? What hideous sort of transgression are we talking about, anyway?

The Serbs from northern Kosovo held a protest rally at the Jarinje crossing on Oct. 7 against the installation of the antenna pole. Local government representatives said they had not been notified of EULEX's action.

Surely, the great peace loving master-diplomats of the universe will be able to get the situation in hand.

Elsewhere:

BELGRADE, 12. 10. 2010. President Boris Tadić meets with U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton in Belgrade

So which of them doesn’t look like they want to be there? Note too, the distinct lack of sniper fire to verify future claims.

Why I'm Depressed (a Chain E-mail)

Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, "Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land."

Nearly 75 years ago,(when Welfare was introduced) Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this is the Promised Land."

Today, the government has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of camels and mortgaged the Promised Land!

I was so depressed last night thinking about Health Care Plans, the economy, the wars, lost jobs, savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc . . . called a Suicide Hotline. I had to press 1 for English. I was connected to a call center in Pakistan. I told them I was suicidal.

They got excited and asked if I could drive a truck......

You can no Milk tha Bull!

In Spain it is now becoming increasingly difficult to show children the ways in which a man and a woman are different:

Europe's top court has declared that working fathers in Spain are entitled to take 'breastfeeding leave' everyday, even if the mother of the child is not employed.

Of course this is just a shrugged-shoulder matter of simply employing logic without any intent, rather than for judicial reasoning. Is the employed husband of an unemployed woman going to run home to attend to the wife’s nursing? Sure he is, right after he stops bitch slapping her.

The new legislation means that both the mother and father are allowed to leave work for an hour during the day or reduce their working day by half an hour during the first nine months following the birth of a child.

The European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled on Thursday that the Spanish law caused an "unjustified discrimination on grounds of sex" because fathers do not have the same rights as mothers.

The way to a European’s heart, and EU institutions know this, is for governments to be appearing to give people something for nothing, and this sounds like just that.

Why Tax Policy Matters

Heavens to Harry Rheems: in South Korea, penis enlargement surgery is exempt from VAT, but breast implants for women are not.

Noting this could be seen as gender inequality, Kim asked whether the National Tax Service was discriminating against women because all of its directors have so far been male.
Interestingly, Kim also said that 15.4% of Koreans age 17 to 19 get cosmetic surgery.

But here’s the real howler:

Kim noted that medically speaking, the size of a man’s member doesn’t really matter in ones sex life, but since breast size is easily noticeable by others, smaller-breasted women might develop a complex about them.

Un hunh. I tell ‘dat to my bitches that all the time.

Plantu: “I Detest You, but don’t Stop Spending your Dollars Here”

“Gandhi, the Satanic God of Peaceniks”

Michael Phillips discusses the idol of so many unwitting, unread buffoons who are otherwise easily distracted with fake Dreamcatchers and getting worked up over the great bee crisis just as easily.

My slight distaste for Gandhi, after reading dozens of dishonest biographies of him, comes down to the fact that he tried to win independence for parts of India, by threatening to have his followers support Hitler in WWII.

Because, y’know, he was into non-violence, and even though there would have been a lot of violence in Britain had Hitler turned the Indians on the UK, it would still be, like, non-violent.

And that’s, like, y’know, I can grok on that.

Wow! What a Difference!

Look Ma, No Commies!...

Spiegel Online has a gallery of before and after photos of buildings and places in the Former East Germany. Much as it is that the word “utopia” actually means nowhere, collectivism means “it’s no-ones’”.

Spahtacus! I loved you Like a Foddah!

So long Signalman SM3c Bernard Schwartz. You’ll always be first rate.

Part of a Nation, Out of Their Minds

With an effect on the U.S. territories of the Pacific, Guam, American Samoa, etal., Congress passed a “living wage” law some years back. Phased in in stages, it’s was meant to bring “diginity” etc., etc., and such like to a population largely used as a congressional plaything most of the time.

They said it is in nobody's interest-not workers, not businesses, and not the government-for uncontrolled cost increases to lead to business closures.

But something rather interesting happened on Saturday. A bill delaying the next $0.50/hour minimum wage hike until 2012 was signed by President Social-Justice, having been the culmination of a rushed through congressional voting process.

Even Radio New Zealand International reported that Democrats feared that Republicans with a view to making people sleep in the bed that they made, would not sign on, but the measure to suppress a minimum wage hike got through with full support of the left.

Moreover, the hourly wage increase couldn't have come at the worst possible time when the CNMI government has been partially shutdown effective Oct. 1 because of a lack of a timely passed balanced budget. Among other things, the shutdown means over 1,400 government employees will be temporarily out of job, until a budget is passed and signed into law.

Why did they do it? To reduce unemployment, and protect jobs and employers at a time when the economy is so uncertain.

Let's see ... What ELSE happened that day? Hm. Not much I guess, other than a horribly contrived Union and fringe-political set-up rally at the Lincoln Memorial, supported by the whole of Leftist Flunkydom who when not adapting to the free markets in the U.S. Territories, is advocating full unionization of the U.S. workforce to levels above both the market value for that work, and the value at which those employers can viably remain in business.

“One Nation Working Together” was more than just a lot of individuals who came on their own of their own volition, it was an amalgam of dial-a-mob operations ranging from Union organizers to Trotskyites to “Anarchists”, and all the passive-aggressive fig-leaf “cause organization” trying to make the crackpot left look like they’re involved in feeding poor waifs on the streets, housing, and whatever else.

It was many things, but it was not a spontaneous expression of individuals thinking freely and joining together to make a point. It was paid for in large part with union dues, grant money, and had paid organizers whose business is constructing the appearance of sincerity and providing lunch and portable toilets, and generally being venal for a living.

I wonder if the U.S. Overseas Territory minimum wage hike freeze issue was presented by anyone who voted for is at the “One Nation Working Together” theatrics? I sort of doubt it.

It brought together a variety of left leaning groups fighting for these themes, as well as LGBT rights, comprehensive immigration reform, peace, civil rights, environmental protection, and worker’s rights.

One wonders how their stated, if not their expanded (to include the usual rainbow umbrella) collection of issues not related to economy, and especially not related to the general population of the nation – would be treated by Samoans trying to save their jobs.

Samoans vs. Professional LGBT political agitators. Hm. Professional LGBT political agitators vs. Samoans.

Seriously, are they the brain-trust or what?

Leftist Persuasion 101

Permit me to present an excerpt from a 1981 East German publication for agitators. It was meant to give small-time propagandists who were supposed to work the barracks, the factory floor, and the like, examples of successful preaching to the imprisoned.

One choise piece provides an example of the limits of truthiness:

Italy: What are the Causes of Terrorist Actions?

The new year began in Italy as the old one had ended: with terrorist actions. On 31 December, Police General Enrico Calvaligi was shot at the front door of his home. In January, the kidnapping of Judge Giovanni D’Urso occupied public attention until he was a released. These were only the latest in a long chain of events that began on 12 December 1969 with a bomb at the Agricultural Bank in Milan and reached its high point so far on Bologna on 2 August 1980 when 85 people were killed and more than 200 injured. What are the causes of these terrorist actions, which have affected Italy in particular, but also other capitalist countries?

Bourgeois and social reformist ideologists and politicians generally, reject the claim that the roots are in the capitalist system. Explaining the causes, however, requires considering the whole interrelated complex of objective and subjective of economic, social, political, and ideological factors, and they develop from the nature of the capitalist system!

In the socio-economic area, terrorism is bred complex of factors of new and old contradictions, in the backwardness of the south, and particularly the sharpness of the economic crisis and its results. The inflation rate in 1980 was above 20 percent throughout the year, at the top of the leading capitalist states, and unemployment according to official figures remained at about 1.7 million, about 50 percent of whom are young people. In a situation of general uncertainty, extremist and anarchist ideas spread among dissatisfied and politically immature young people who want revenge on the bourgeois state. In this milieu, adventurers find an audience for their calls for “direct action” and terrorist acts, which they claim are the quickest path to social change. The crisis is also hard on the middle class, and produces not only anti-monopolistic views, but also radical views to the right and the “left.” Demagogic appeals to national sentiments, or to economic and social difficulties and social problems, allow neo-fascist and “leftist” extremist groups to win supporters in various social levels — from the poorest farmers in the south to some tradesmen, businessmen, civil servants, and students.

The two were, of course, kidnapped by the Red Brigade, well known for their “right wing views” to the East German listener of this bromide, and who were trained, plosletyzed to, and funded by the intelligence agencies of the Warsaw pact,making the entire thing a “Daddy drinks because you cry” type of argument.

What Social Progressives in the Near East Look Like

Gay Saudi prince 'murdered servant in ferocious attack'

Hey, he’s got all the right credientials... a gay ‘outsider’, aristocratic wealth that’s counteracted by the cred, a willingness to take ‘direct action’, a sense of entitlement, and, let’s face it, an unknown with political access.

On the surface, any number of towns on the west cioast of the United States would elect him to their city councils on the strength of ‘celebrating his identity’ alone.

A Legacy left behind by the Red Army: Soljanka

Of which there were very few, but like that evil genius Ripley’s love of Gulasch, mine is a weakness for Soljanka, a picante soup made popular among Eastern Germans by way of contact with their Soviet military comrades / douchebags / occupiers.

I have translated the recipe from the original Klingon, to which I’ve added my personal touches:

- 200 g /7-8 oz. of Yellow onion, finely chopped (avoid the vidalias or any new-fangled mild varieties)
- 100 g /3-1/2 oz. of unsliced bacon, cubed into small pieces
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 100 g /3-1/2 oz. of Tomato paste
- 1 tablespoon of Paprika
- 2 medium sized pickles (dill or sour are best), “julienne” cut to the extent one can with a pickle
- 500 g of meat: sausage, leftovers, or trimmed tips of pork or ham (anything, really, even leftover chicken!)
- (Add a tbp. of butter, if the meats are all lean.)
- 1,5 liters/ 3 pints of Beef stock (powdered stock may also be used, but omit the salt if you do)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 tablespoon of capers

For decoration:

- Thin lemon wedges (thin sliced rings cut into triangles)
- Sour crème
- Dill

Optional:

- Parsley
- A few sliced olives, or any other pickled favorites.
- Pepperoncini (one of my favorites)

Preparation:

Sauté the onions and bacon in the bottom of your soup pot, until the onions clarify. Do not let them brown.
Add all of the meats, pickles, and paprika for a few moments until they soften.
Then pour in the soup stock.
Add the lemon wedges to the stock, salt and pepper to taste.
Let it come to a boil, and then let it simmer for at least 15 minutes and up to 45 minutes.
Just prior to serving, add the capers, and all the optional faves, as well as the sour crème dollop right in the middle of the bowl.

Decorate with small lemon wedges an a small dollop of sour crème. Some prefer the sour crème “on the side”, or otherwise spoon out the amount they deem excessive prior to stirring it in. Some the dill reserved from preparation is also a good thing to drizzle on top.

Makes 4 servings, or 2 if served without any other dish. Serve with rye or black bread on the side, the gamiest smelling type that you can find.

This is one of the simpler recipes, prone to a more pickle dominated taste, but is easily tempered by using a little bit more bacon or sausage.

Click on the photo for an excellent Ukranian Soljanka recipe, which has a much fresher taste, not masked as heavily by the tomato paste. It should take on the taste of creative variations more readily.

Just Another Lefty Gautag

Check out the leftynomics:

Solar panel operators receive a fixed tariff for every kilowatt hour of power they produce. That tariff is well above the standard market price for electricity, guaranteed for more than 20 years. The total subsidy payout over the last 10 years has been €60 to €80 billion. The yield has been modest by comparison. Solar power covers just 1.1 percent of German electricity requirements.

What’s even more hilarious, is that the author blames the Conservatives for “withholding the costs” of what the left’s fantasies of dystopic backwardness really are. Somehow, the Conservatives in power who are being buffaloed and berated into shutting down nuke plants and “transform” Germany are responsible for the fact that it might cost money, and not wishes or daisies.

That this notion would be expensive and unreliable was painfully obvious 20 years ago when households in Germany were still regularly taking delivery of oily Lignite coal. The fact that someone has waited until now to establish that their fantasies of power generation would cost 5 to 7 trillion Euro-smackeroos (2-3 YEARS for German GDP, by the way,) reveals the short term thinking of these louts so fond of telling others that they are such fantastic long term thinkers.

”Caring mayor wants Roma register”

Why does their “caring” sound so much like a cross between pandering and fascism?

“Ethnic registration for Roma”, headlines De Volkskrant. Social democratic mayor Cor de Vos of Nieuwegein, a town in the central Holland, says that councils with the largest Roma populations should keep an ethnic register of the community. “We are dealing with a group of people which is not integrated in Dutch society,” he declared.

If that’s the case, why don’t they “register” gays and anyone who might haver ever practiced Islam?

“They need to be helped, for their own sake and that of their neighbourhood. But we can’t do that without knowing their situation.” Last Wednesday it was revealed that the city council of Ede has been holding police, child welfare and justice department files on the Roma since 1978. The council apologised but also said: “The law isn't in step with the issues.

And of course that was bad, and wrong. Sooooo in the interest of “caring”, there will be a lot more of it.

What next? Tattoos to show you “care”?

A Status Report from the Happiest Place on Earth

And I’m not kidding you. Your average garden variety European Ivan Ivanovich really DOES think that a certain country, population, etc., can be objectified in such a way that they will clam being the happiest people on earth, despite the stunning and enduring tradition of having a high suicide rate.

“Danish ghettos ravaged by fire,” alerts the Jyllands-Posten. Every week in troubled Danish neighbourhoods, four fires on average burn down kindergartens, trash containers, cars and motor scooters, reports the Danish daily, based on fire department reports in the country’s three biggest cities.

According to one sociologist quoted in the paper, these acts are perpetrated by a hard core of ethnic youths who want their neighbourhoods to “take on the image of a dangerous ghetto”.

Because in a life where nothing matters, your biggest complaint can be either some detached social issue, a fake crisis of some sort, or the fact that your precious, tidy, overpriced society isn’t enough like a first-person shooter game, or your image of da hood.

More Neo-Bauhaus

From a city that is philosophically more of a hybrid than it is European, Mediterranean, or Near Eastern, and might be one of the most substantive laboratories of Bauhaus and it’s many there-afters. It is present day Tel Aviv.

A new city, it was to make every effort to look into the future, not into the hard, class separated, hatred laden past, so the “new” style, a forward looking one, seemed a natural choice, despite the fascist use of modernism in Italy and Germany in a state-authoritarian and institutional role.