Posts Tagged ‘germany’

Definitions Under the Fedora: Safe, Woman, Illegal, Disinformation and Truth

Posted: March 6, 2023 by datechguy in abortion, covid, culture, the courts
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I wasn’t aware of the suit against Pfizer claiming they violated their contract with the Government over the COVID vaccine and thus doesn’t have immunity over their delivered vaccine. Given the ads constantly be running on radio about watching for signs of heart issues that are sponsored by them (ads we didn’t see three years ago) they might be worried but all of this depends on how the court defines “Save and effective”. If they make sure it’s defined in their favor it all doesn’t matter.

In Minnesota they’re having fun adjusting definitions of “woman” as a Transgender Powerlifter has won in court against the US Powerlifting federation. Apparently under Minnesota law, at least according to the court, to stop a man who believes himself to be a woman from competing against other woman is discriminatory and traumatic.

Hey if at least one justice on the Supreme Court can’t under oath define what a woman is how do you expect judges on the Minnesota courts to do so.

If they lose their appeals my advice is to drop all segregation by sex in powerlifting. I suspect once the prospects finishing in a medal round disappear so will these “woman” from competition.

Over at Legal Insurrection there is a piece about Germany banning protests against abortion as the “40 days for life” movement has come there and made quite a splash.

The left fear is always a good sign but there was something in the piece that jumped out at me:

Currently, abortion is illegal in Germany, but women and their doctors do not face penalties if the pregnancy poses a health risk to the woman or in cases of rape. There is also a loophole under which an abortion may be carried out within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (14 weeks since the last period) after mandatory counseling.

emphasis mine

That seems a rather flexible definition of the word “illegal” in my books, but to a person of a certain age Germans finding a loophole allowing them to kill undesirables is almost tradition.

The Twitter files keep coming out an the government’s use of the word “disinformation” to justify their actions is looking worse and worse as the New Neo reports:

Maybe GEC’s involvement was a secret, but it was no secret – to anyone paying attention – that vast numbers of Twitter accounts were being censored for fairly ordinary viewpoints, the majority of them on the right. It wasn’t limited to Twitter, either – YouTube was heavily involved.

I can vouch for the Youtube censorship but to me the real key line of the story (other than this being,surprise an Obama initiative is this:

The center has a budget of roughly $74 million and “reportedly gave to at least 39 different organizations, whose names were redacted” in an inspector general report.

I submit and suggest that this was, and still is, all about funding leftist front groups to point to their political enemies to have them censored.

Land of the free my ***

Just over two thousands years ago Jesus Christ said:

you will know the truth, and the truth will set you fre

John 8:32

Apparently Scott Adams has confirmed this is true

This makes this particular bit about the Scott Adams story, via Roger Kimball, particularly interesting:

Oh, the howls of outrage that comment elicited! The woke beast was awake and on the prowl. “Dilbert has been cancelled from all newspapers, websites, calendars, and books,” Adams said. Why? “Because I gave some advice everyone agreed with. (My syndication partner canceled me.)”

Once whetted, the appetite of the woke beast is insatiable. A day or two later, Adams reported, “My publisher for non-Dilbert books has canceled my upcoming book and the entire backlist. Still no disagreement about my point of view. My book agent canceled me too.”`

It is true, by the way, that “everyone agrees” with the point that Adams made. Everyone knows it is true. But no one is supposed to admit that it is true. Adams made it all worse by observing that “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps . . . then turn around and see somebody white and feel relieved.” Oh, wait. I got my notes confused. That wasn’t Scott Adams. That was the professional black Jesse Jackson in 1993. 

Perhaps the word “cancelled” might have to be redefined

Under the Fedora: Reality and Free Will in Germany, England, Jackson Miss, Portland Ore and Wilkes-Barre PA

Posted: September 4, 2022 by datechguy in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , , ,

It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.

Richard Feynman

One of the basic rules of existence is that reality doesn’t care what you think or how you feel or what your cause is. Reality IS.

To wit:

Germany

In Europe in general and Germany in particular the greens have been fighting against fossil fuels and nuclear power for decades. Some of us have argued this was idiotic and noted that it only helped Russia but were laughed at.

They’re not laughing in Germany now:

Now the Greens are having to make a great energy leap. As members of the German government they are staring close up at the realities of soaring energy prices. They are having to face the prospect of the lights going off this winter, and of public buildings in major cities such as Hamburg already trying to ration the amount of electricity they use. The Greens’ demand that everybody else join them in a fantastical leap has now reversed into the Greens recognizing that their society simply is not ready.

England:

Today it emerged that Britons could be asked to limit energy use this winter to head off blackouts by avoiding using gas and electricity at peak times in a move that will hit every part of life.

At home people may be encouraged not to use washing machines, dishwashers and ovens between 2pm and 8pm while charging cars before 9pm is also not advised when similar measures were imposed in the US this year. Abandoning the family weekday dinner at 6pm or the Sunday roast at 5pm may be required and moved to after 8pm or swapped for a cold dinner or leftovers.

Green Energy is a great grift even better than BLM but if it doesn’t produce the energy people go cold and that means something burns.

Jackson Mississippi

It seems that Mayor Lumumba performed solidly on the revolutionary pronouncements part of the job — “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” he told The New York Times in 2020 — but not much in the way keeping the water treatment plants working.

According to our media, a major city in the United States of America 2022, does not have drinking water either because of heavy rain (who could have anticipated RAIN?) or racism.

Apparently the over 80% black population of Jackson figured electing an ultra radical, with the approval and celebration of white liberals all over the world was a great achievement. But said achievement pales in comparison to the engineering needed to provide water to tens of thousands a major city.

Being so fond of leftist you would think they would have taken WH Auden’s famous quote to heart:

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

W.H. Auden

Portland Ore:

Demetryus Bright recently took a job with the Portland Timbers as an account executive and moved his family from Ohio to Portland, hoping to escape the rampant gun violence. But after four months, his wife already wants their family to leave.

Bright says the homeless camps in the South Tabor neighborhood have him fearing for his family’s safety and that his car and home have been vandalized. He also said there have been fires on the street, including one that took place Tuesday night.“

It’s kind of disappointing. I worked hard to get where I’m at, to move my family 36 hours, to deal with this? No,” he said. “Gunshots and gun violence and that’s one reason we moved, to get away from stuff like that. And to feel safe walking to school, and to move to a nice neighborhood but it’s like there are people doing narcotics sitting outside. We can’t let our kids go outside and play on the front porch, let alone walk to school.”

Mind you the problems in Portland have not been a secret for years, at least if you read or watch anything other than the MSM yet this fool took his family TO Portland just four months ago.

Good luck selling that house of yours.

And finally in Wilkes Barrie PA where both Joe Biden and Donald Trump held rallies this week. Compare and contrast:

The real story here is that you don’t face any backlash from attending a Biden Rally, big tech, big government big education & the violent left et al will celebrate you for attending while you face the wrath of all for showing at the other

Yeah Joe Biden got the most votes in the history of the republic, sure he did.

A final thought about all of this. All of these are examples have one thing in common. The decisions that led to each of these realities were all made freely by the folks now facing these realities.

It’s a perfect analogy to Christianity, Christ offers forgiveness of sins and redemption but does not impose it, you are perfectly free to push away his extended hand and ignore his mother and the saint who offer to help you along that path to him. If you do Christ will stand back and await your call but till it comes he will let you face the reality of the world without him.

Free will.

Russia, Germany and Mutually Assured Stupidity

Posted: April 4, 2022 by datechguy in war
Tags: , , ,

Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’

Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.

Luke 14:28-32

Saturday we talked about how stupid is was for Russia to complain about Ukraine hitting fuel dumps in Russia under the argument that it hurts potential peace talks on the grounds that if you decide to go to war with someone they retain the right to fight back.

Now it’s Europe’s turn to be stupid. Don Surber pointed out that virtue signaling by the Chemical Giant BASF (whose name I remember from the old blank VHS tapes I used to by in the 80’s) might just prove costly.

But in the meantime, Brudermuller described that “It’s not enough that we all turn down the heating by 2 degrees now” given that “Russia covers 55 percent of German natural gas consumption.” He emphasized that if Russian gas disappeared overnight, “many things would collapse here” – given that “we would have high levels of unemployment, and many companies would go bankrupt. This would lead to irreversible damage.” He continued:

But in the meantime, Brudermuller described that “It’s not enough that we all turn down the heating by 2 degrees now” given that “Russia covers 55 percent of German natural gas consumption.” He emphasized that if Russian gas disappeared overnight, “many things would collapse here” – given that “we would have high levels of unemployment, and many companies would go bankrupt. This would lead to irreversible damage.” He continued:

“To put it bluntly: This could bring the German economy into its worst crisis since the end of the Second World War and destroy our prosperity. For many small and medium-sized companies in particular, it could mean the end. We can’t risk that!”

The dire warning of coming disaster in the event Russian gas is shut off came in response being questioned over whether it’s at all possible to abandon Russian energy. 

Now remember what got them to this point, Germany joined others in going after Russia’s financial industry to punish them for their moves in Ukraine and of course like Russia’s shock and surprise that Ukraine would dare to hit back Europe in general and Germany in particular are shocked and surprised that Russia didn’t take this lying down.

After European nations imported the most gas from Russian sources yesterday in months, scrambling to stock up on supplies as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s deadline to either pay for gas in rubles (or be cut off) came and went, Russian gas giant Gazprom has officially halted all deliveries to Europe via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, a critical artery for European energy supplies.

Instead of flowing toward Germany and the EU, gas supplies on Friday and Saturday started flowing in the opposite direction, according to Gascade, the network operator.

Well there is US LNG but they’re already at full import capacity there, well what about Nuclear Power, oh wait:

Germany on Friday is shutting down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power.

The decision to phase out nuclear power and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy was first taken by the center-left government of Gerhard Schroeder in 2002.

His successor, Angela Merkel, reversed her decision to extend the lifetime of Germany’s nuclear plants in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and set 2022 as the final deadline for shutting them down.

The three reactors now being shuttered were first powered up in the mid-1980s. Together they provided electricity to millions of German households for almost four decades.

Alas for Germany Russia and before them the Old Soviet Unions investment in the Greens and anti-nuke activists have paid off handsomely.

One might argue that this will not stop Russia’s economic woes and possible short term collapse and you might be right but it must be remembered a people with a history of destroying their own cities and crops to harm an enemy are likely not going to flinch at a hardship if they can get revenge on those they consider its source.

It’s very possible that the war in Ukraine will cause long term damage to Russia’s economy but it’s also very likely that they will be very happy to take as many of those who decided to take them down with them.

The history of old and feeble men as head of state is a tragic one

Posted: September 5, 2021 by John Ruberry in News/opinion, politics
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Paul von Hindenburg

By John Ruberry

As president of the United States we have a man in the White House who has moved well-beyond his autumn years. That man of course is Joe Biden, who even when he was at his best was simply a mediocrity. 

Other men–no women that I can recall–who were just too old or sick to perform their duties have been heads of government. I’ll get to them in a bit. But the story usually ends bad for those countries. Sometimes, such as with the Soviet Union, that nation ceases to exist.

But back to Biden.

Much was said–but not on the Democratic protector networks CNN and MSNBC–about Joe Biden falsely claiming during a video conference last week with some Jewish leaders that he visited a Pittsburgh synagogue shortly after a deadly mass shooting in 2018. 

He did not. Biden merely called that synagogue’s rabbi the following year.

But as is often the case with Sleepy Joe, the story gets worse. In an attempt to bond with the participants on the call, Biden spoke of his daughter, who is married to a Jewish man, while–gasp!–off of the teleprompter. 

Imagine Superman after being buried in Kryponite–times 1000.

“There’s a psalm based – there’s a hymn – my favorite hymn in the Catholic Church based on a psalm, and it’s – it’s a psalm that talks about life. And – and so, I – I asked if that psalm – that hymn in the Catholic Church.

Biden then unsteadily recalled some lyrics but then he couldn’t remember the name of that song–or psalm–or hymn. Or whatever.

And then Great Grandpa rambled further into incoherence. 

You know the thing.

And they played – and I’m – my mind is going blank now.

What’s the song that is played where everybody is on the chair? 

Everybody, you know – what – what – I can’t remember it. 

Anyway. And that’s the song that was played. So, you know, I don’t know what the hell is going on here.

Yeah, Biden said, “So, you know, I don’t know what the hell is going on here.” And after exclaiming, “And I’m – my mind is going blank now. ”

You don’t believe it? Click here for the video.

I’ve heard enough. Biden has to go, and yes, that means Kamala Harris will be president. But I’ll take my chances–even though I may eat these words–with a cackling leftist over a faded mind in a frail body. Conservatives, even non-religious ones, believe in conversion. Although converting Harris into a moderate is the best outcome I can imagine. And yes, that’s a big stretch in the hope department. 

Back to the USSR:

In the last years of his life Leonid Brezhnev was clearly physically unwell. Since Soviet leaders didn’t do press conferences or give impromptu speeches, we don’t know about his mental health. His doctors, who probably are all dead now, didn’t talk. Brezhnev died in 1982, he was replaced by Yuri Andropov, who spent half of his 15 months as Soviet leader living in a hospital while he was being treated for kidney disease. Andropov’s successor, Konstantin Chernenko, a mediocrity like Biden, albeit without the jocularity or the gaffes, barely made it past a year in the Kremlin before dying of emphysema and heart disease. 

C’mon man! Who chooses a man suffering from emphysema to lead a government?

In 1985, the healthy Mikhail Gorbachev, took over. But the rot had set in and the USSR collapsed six years later. 

Here are some other sad examples of ill men in power. Paul von Hindenburg, a German World War I hero, wanted to retire after his term of office as president of Germany was winding down in the early 1930s. He was 84. But after Hindenburg ascertained that “the Bohemian corporal,” Adolf Hitler, would be elected as his successor, he ran again and defeated Hitler in a runoff race. A year later Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor. You know the rest of the tragedy. Some historians believe Hindenburg, who died of lung cancer in 1934, was senile late in his life. 

His titles varied but another World War I hero, Philippe Pétain, was the head of government of Vichy France. Pétain was 84–the same age as Hindenburg when he was reelected–when he took control of the Nazi puppet state. After the Nazi defeat Pétain was diagnosed as senile, which today is not considered a medical term. But was Pétain senile earlier? 

There’s a tragic example in American history of a man who was too ill to serve. As he was running for his fourth term as president in 1944, those close to Franklin D. Roosevelt knew he was a sick man and strongly suspected he would die before his next term in office expired. That is why Democrat leaders pressured FDR into dumping his leftist vice president, Henry A. Wallace, for someone more centrist. Good for them! Harry S. Truman was chosen.

Roosevelt died three months after his fourth inauguration at the relatively youthful age of 63. But not before getting swindled into condemning most of eastern Europe to communist totalitarianism for over four decades at the Yalta conference by a healthy Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin. While no Americans were left behind millions of Poles were. Remember, Britain and France declared war on Germany to save Poland from tyranny.

It was an ailing Brezhnev who made the disastrous decision to invade Afghanistan.

Joe Biden never should have run for president in 2020. And those close to him, such as his wife, should have said convinced him to ride out the rest of his life as a has-been.

Biden needs to resign. Or the 25th Amendment must be utilized to remove him from office. 

And why am I the only person wondering if Biden’s doctor, Kevin C. O’Connor, who is now the White House physician, was being honest when he said in 2019 that Biden is “a healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency.” 

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

Older Entries