All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
I’ve become a Neil Oliver junkie. This guy is great. Here he is just responding to the latest atrocities in the news and he sounds like a poetical voice of reason. I don’t know if he is a Roman Catholic but I think he’d make a better Pope than that atheist Francis. Just listening to his ten or fifteen minute talk lowers my blood pressure just knowing someone else in the world believes in normalcy.
It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Patrick Henry
This morning’s post was kind of depressing. Talking about the awful situation we’re in is always grim. But today was a beautiful day. Chilly for sure, but bright sunlight and reasonable breeze.
Camera Girl and I took our morning walk in the woods. She was a little feistier than usual but being a man of even temper and enlightened disposition I resisted the impulse to cut a switch and administer a husbandly correction as is my right by biblical pronouncement. But it was a close thing. Instead I gave her a lecture on the mistakes of allowing women to vote, wear shoes, learn how to read or talk back to their fathers and husbands. She was sullenly silent but I’m pretty sure I got through to her.
There were lots of folks out fishing from the shore and on boats on the pond and on the lake. There was some kind of public service sign asking fishermen to catch and release the stocked trout. Well, this seemed kind of silly. Sure, some people do this. But the people who want to eat fish are going to keep them. After all, they’ve paid their license fee and go through all the hoops needed to have the tackle and bait and drive to the lake and maybe own a boat and all that entails. And then they have to read how the fish are filled with lead and mercury and probably viruses only known to Lord Fauci. But then they still have to be harangued by tree-huggers because they want a fish dinner.
When I saw a guy throwing a pretty small fish into his bucket I gave him the OK sign and a conspiratorial smile. He looked perplexed and maybe slightly annoyed. Well some people are slow. On the walk back to the car I opined at considerable length about this fishing do-goodery to Camera Girl. She didn’t seem to hear me. Probably some hearing loss going on there.
So today was a good day to take care of some annoying paperwork that needs doing. And I planted some seeds in an indoor planting tray contraption. We watched a tv show (an episode of Amazon’s Jack Ryan series) and listened to some music. All in all a quiet but satisfying day. And not once did I worry about that moron in Washington and the awful stuff he’s working on. I took care of my own life and enjoyed the beautiful world that God gave us all day.
There’s plenty of time to fret and bellyache about the pod people next week. For now I’m living large and enjoying the good life. Have a good Saturday night.
Russia announced a week ago that after the economic sanctions that had been levelled against it would demand to be paid in rubles for all gas deliveries into Europe. After the Europeans refused it was assumed the Russians would back down. It appears that was mistaken.
“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.”
This is a very interesting situation. Will Germany back down and pay Russia in rubles? Will this signal the beginning of negotiations between NATO and Russia? Will Biden advise Zelensky to negotiate a quick settlement? We shall see.
Robert Graves is probably best known today for his historical novel “I, Claudius.” He was a British officer in World War I and after enduring the horrors of trench warfare he became completely disillusioned with patriotism and in fact British civilization in general. As a declaration of this rejection, he wrote an autobiography called “Goodbye to All That.”
By this he implied that he rejected the social structure that had defined British society before the war. To him that whole way of life, that way of looking at the world, and what it stood for had been invalidated and rendered absurd.
In a way, the Left is saying a similar thing. They’ve rejected the basis of traditional American life. But they’ve done more than that. They’ve rejected the basis of all traditional human life. They no longer recognize things as fundamental as the difference between a man and a woman. They deny the objectivity of science and even mathematics. They reject meritocratic principles. Essentially, they desire to reject reality and order the world according to some fantasy that they have concocted in their heads but that doesn’t seem to have any permanent rules. So, the Left has said goodbye to all that.
But by the same token it is necessary for us to say something similar. The concept of the United States of America as a cohesive, unified nation has now been invalidated and rendered absurd. America is a geographical and political entity that contains multiple, and in some cases, hostile segments of the population that no longer see each other as countrymen.
Worse than that, the Left uses the patriotism they no longer believe in to bamboozle traditional Americans into sacrificing their self-interest when it benefits the Left. So, we’re “fellow Americans” when the Left wants us to fight a war or share the wealth with underprivileged minorities. But when it’s time to celebrate anything of ours, well, that’s just white supremacy.
It’s time for us to say goodbye to the idea that everyone living in the United States of America is an American. It’s simply not true. Worse than that, acting as if it were true is counterproductive and sometimes even dangerous. We’re going to have to start separating from the Left in important ways. We’ll need to send our children to different schools. The public schools will be too dangerous. And because of the discrimination that’s already apparent in woke corporations we’ll need our own businesses. So, we’ll need to be able to identify each other in order to hire our people for these companies. How we’ll do that is something I’m not sure of. Probably recommendations will be the best way to know someone is one of us.
But the first step and the most important step is to start distinguishing in your own head between the different kinds of people living in the United States and do everything in your power to maximize your dealings with real Americans and minimize your dealings with Leftists. I’ll admit this was a hard realization for me. I’ve always been a flag waving patriot. But I know now that the Left has destroyed many organizations and institutions like the public schools. We don’t have the luxury of thinking that these are our institutions. They’re not. We just can’t assume that everyone believes what we believe and is our friend. We have to stick together and boycott the rest of them.
Maybe someday things will go back to normal and we’ll all be one country again. It’s possible though doubtful. But for the foreseeable future it’ll have to be, goodbye to all that.
With respect to that part of the proposal which says that every power not granted remains with the people, it must be previous to adoption, or it will involve this country in inevitable destruction. To talk of it as a thing subsequent, not as one of your unalienable rights, is leaving it to the casual opinion of the Congress who shall take up the consideration of that matter. They will not reason with you about the effect of this Constitution. They will not take the opinion of this committee concerning its operation. They will construe it as they please. If you place it subsequently, let me ask the consequences.
Patrick Henry
The author is a German professor named Hans-Werner Sinn. His bio says he is a German economist who served as President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research from 1999 to 2016. He currently serves on the German Economy Ministry’s advisory council. He is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Public Finance at the University of Munich.
What’s refreshing is he writes using facts when he discusses the realities of energy production. Germany has almost completed its program of shutting down both its coal powered and nuclear-powered electrical generation facilities. But since wind and solar account for 6.7% of the total energy requirements for the country it uses gas to heat most of its homes and businesses.
And even though 29% of electrical generation comes from wind and solar, whenever these resources fail (which is often) the full load of the electrical grid is powered by gas powered plants. Therefore, Germany has built a large number of gas-powered plants to supposedly allow the transition to 100% renewables. So currently, Germany is hopelessly dependent on Russian gas for heat and power. And even if the whole German land mass was covered in solar cells and the sky was filled with wind turbines they would still need a large amount of gas to heat their homes and run their industry.
Germany’s posturing about boycotting Russian gas is just that. Posturing. If Russia were to cut off gas from Germany the country would grind to a halt in less than a week. And several other European nations are in a similar situation. This makes Biden’s threats especially hollow.
Reading Sinn’s essay, I am struck that the Greens in Germany have slit their own throats. Germany had 17 nuclear power plants and an abundance of coal in the ground. They threw these things away to pay the Russians for gas that produces more of the “dreaded” green house gases than they used to produce.
Good. Let them stew on their current situation and possibly discover wisdom.
Personally, I hope the Russians do shut off gas to the West for a few weeks. I think it’s valuable for people to get what they say they want. It has a clarifying effect. Sometimes it’s even educational, depending on the intellect of the recipient.
