Meme of the Day #18
Month: February 2022
Is there anyone left you can trust?
Yes to Santa, No to Renewable Energy
Awful events can be salutary. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is one of those. The Russians have to move to take territory. They need fuel. The Ukrainians have to keep the heating on otherwise they’ll get very cold. Just looked, at 7 pm here, it’s 0°C in Kyiv.
It’s always struck me that despite incessant bombing in WWII that Britain and Germany largely kept the lights on, industry humming, and tanks a-trundling. Now, relatively speaking, a lack of precision bombing, intense air defences and the sheer number of targets presented a problem in disabling electricity production. But undoubtedly the properties of the primary energy sources played a part. Coal and oil are widely accessible and available, energy dense, and portable.
I imagine it would be an advantage to have slabs of power generation deep underground in large scale future wars. Obviously, Iran thinks so. But that’s speculation beyond my level of competence and is, in any event, by the way.
Imagine this future moulded by the Greens and the Climate 200 sirens:
Australia electrified; courtesy, predominantly, of wind and solar. Homes, industry, services, utilities and transport (yes transport) dependent on the grid; in turn, dependent on vast expanses of land and sea covered by interconnected wind turbines and solar panels. Sitting ducks. Hmm? I don’t think you can bury away wind and solar farms.
In sum, we are so vulnerable that we better start drafting the surrender letter in case someone threatens us. Someone who doesn’t think accommodating gender dysphoria or queer theory or feminism or using correct pronouns helps win battles. Who maybe has decided not to give away coal, oil and gas? I couldn’t begin to guess who that could be.
Having energy available when and where it’s needed is a national security issue. Coal, oil, gas and nuclear should be the backbone of our energy generation. Wind and solar are perilous frivolities.
No, Virginia, there really is no such thing as affordable renewable energy.
Justin Trudeau World Historical Leader
I know, it’s all just ancient history by now. But for me, it is the old country, so that watching it all unfold is beyond incredible. And to understand all this more deeply, there is Jordan Peterson to help others make sense of what is going on: Dr. Jordan Peterson Tells Fellow Canadians They Have No Idea What Was Done to Them.
Canadians, you have no idea what was done today in the name of — what? Safety? Punishment? What's the rationale, even hypothetically? The Emergency Act was reserved for events that threatened the very existence of the state. If you think that current events qualify, think again.
— Dr Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) February 22, 2022
Open Thread – Weekend 26 Feb 2022
We have stepped into the political unknown
Fascism is the amalgam of the corporate state with totalitarian political structures. Communism pretended it was international. Fascism is socialism within a single country.
We seem to live in our own version of that time in 1939 when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. I have tried to find something that matches my own views on what has just taken place and this is the closest I could find but there is nothing close enough. This is Kremlin Invades Ukraine from FrontPageMag with this as the subhead: “How Biden’s policies fueled Russian aggression”. Listening to Biden’s response is beyond weak and incompetent. The American left seems complicit in all of this to the fullest extent possible.
Also found this take from Instapundit illuminating in its own sad way.
LIKE TRUDEAU (AND PELOSI), PUTIN PRETENDS ALL HIS OPPONENTS ARE NAZIS: Zelensky to Putin: I’m no Nazi — I’m Jewish.
Where things will be a year from now is anyone’s guess.
Guest Post: Speedbox – The Putin Gambit – Part 2
Just a month ago I wrote “We may be witnessing one of the greatest geopolitical gambits in recent history. Or, we may wake up one morning in the coming days/weeks to news that Russia has invaded. Interesting times”.
The situation has now expanded where President Putin of Russia has officially recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics which had self-proclaimed their existence in 2014. At the time Russia refused to recognise them but that changed on Monday. “I deem it necessary to make a decision that should have been made a long time ago — to immediately recognise the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic” Putin said.
Consequently, the Russian president directed the Defence Ministry to send troops into the areas for “the function of peacekeeping”.
Should we have seen this coming? Hindsight is a great thing but all the signs were there and it was just a matter of connecting the dots which stretch back before the fall of the Soviet Union. Firstly, we need to look at the Crimea. Continue reading “Guest Post: Speedbox – The Putin Gambit – Part 2”
Canada revokes Emergency Act
It’s hard to work out the reason for the change since two-thirds of the population of the frozen north support the Emergencies Legislation, but that is only what the press reports. Who knows what the actual truth might be. The notion that conscience had anything to do with it is beyond farfetched. The possibility that there had been a massive run on Canadian banks is more likely as a reason for the change. And it is possible that the morons surrounding the Great Reset have found their plans both exposed a bit before they would have preferred, and have found their plans a bit tarnished in large parts of the population. Finally, the notion that the Canadian Senate might have turned this back is possible in a science-fiction sort of way but hardly plausible.
There is also the American truck convoy that is working its way to Washington that may be starting to worry these people.
Still, it is a surprising turn, and weakly suggests there is some resistance to these fascisti. It is a positive sign but it hardly adds to any sense of optimism about where we go from here.
Video of the boy-PM’s announcement here. And this is from the Canadian news. The absence of any mention of any aspect of this in the Australian media is just the way it is.
WolfmanOz at the Movies #10
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Up and until yesterday I was half way through writing my weekly post when with current events rapidly escalating I decided to change the topic.
What could be more appropriate now then to take a look at Dr. Strangelove or: I How Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.
Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 nightmare black comedy concerns a totally psychotic US Air Force general (Jack D. Ripper) who orders a pre-emptive nuclear first strike attack on the Soviet Union. At the same time the US President and his Joint Chief of Staff advisors debate as to how they can prevent the attack, whilst we also follow the activities of one of the B-52 bombers ordered to attack the Soviet Union.
Initially Kubrick conceived the film as a straight thriller drama but he soon began to see the comedy inherent in the absurd idea of mutually assured destruction:
“My idea of doing it as a nightmare comedy came in the early weeks of working on the screenplay. I found that in trying to put meat on the bones and to imagine the scenes fully, one had to keep leaving out of it things which were either absurd or paradoxical, in order to keep it from being funny; and these things seemed to be close to the heart of the scenes in question.”
When Terry Southern came on board to assist with the screenplay the comedic element flowed and with Peter Sellers playing three roles – Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, President Merkin Muffley and Dr. Strangelove – a comedy movie masterpiece was taking place.
In addition to Sellers, Kubrick also had George C. Scott in an absolutely wonderful over-the-top performance as the ridiculous and hawkish General Buck Turgidson. The characters names in this movie are just priceless – Major T.J. “King” Kong, Colonel Bat Guano and so on.
Scott was apparently tricked by Kubrick into doing the OTT scenes as practice takes and during filming they often played chess where Kubrick repeatedly beat him, which although Scott did not see eye to eye with Kubrick, he respected him immeasurably for his skill at chess.
Eventually, President Muffley has to contact the Soviet Premier to tell him that his country is about to be attacked and the following is just pure comic gold, where we learn that the Russians have built a Doomsday machine.
If this was filmed today you could have a field day with Putin and Biden but I’d have Putin ringing Biden !
The Americans then assist the Russians in shooting down their planes whilst Group Captain Mandrake manages to figure out the CRM code to recall the planes; but one plane still manages to get through and drop its’ bomb.
With the world facing total nuclear destruction, Dr. Strangelove then proposes to the President and his staff that several hundred thousand people live in deep underground mines with a 10:1 female-to-male ratio for a breeding program to repopulate the Earth !
Announcing he has a plan, Strangelove suddenly rises from his wheelchair and exclaims: “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk !” as the Doomsday machine is triggered.
The film then amazingly ends with a serious of nuclear explosions all to the accompaniment of We’ll Meet Again by Vera Lynn. The sheer audaciousness of this ending and the imagination that was behind it is simply breath-taking.
All this in a film with a running time of just 94 minutes.
What make the film so successful and compelling is that it is totally played straight despite the absurd characters and the inherent comedy of it all whilst the design and the sets look totally authentic. Ronald Reagan is supposed to have asked as to where the War Room was when he became US President.
Dr. Strangelove is one of my favourite top 5 films of all time !
Enjoy