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NATO’s Ominous Tank Orders for Ukraine… The Historic Spots of a Leopard

Strategic Culture Foundation | January 13, 2023

German-made tanks, the Panzer Leopard 2, are to be deployed in Ukraine in a war that is increasingly becoming an open confrontation between the U.S.-led NATO alliance and Russia.

Germany’s Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has given approval for the move following the announcement on Wednesday by Polish President Andrzej Duda that a “company” of Leopards was being supplied from Poland to Ukraine.

There are a reported 2,000 German-made Leopards in service across 13 European countries. Officially, Berlin has to give its approval for countries to re-export the tank, which is seen as one of the world’s best in its class of main battlefield armored vehicles. That approval was swiftly forthcoming in Habeck’s affirmative response.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is now under intense pressure to authorize the additional supply of Leopards directly from Germany to Ukraine. For months, Scholz has been refusing to provide the heavy armor out of concern not to provoke Moscow which would perceive it as a definitive escalation. Figures within the Berlin government, especially Habeck’s Green Party, have been cajoling the chancellor to increase the supply of weapons. It is a foregone conclusion that Scholz will cave in and give the green light, as he has done on several previous occasions concerning prohibitions on other categories of weaponry.

What is abundantly clear is that the United States and its NATO allies are coordinating a larger-scale involvement in the war in Ukraine against Russia. They are marching in lockstep.

Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden announced an agreement with Germany to supply “light tanks” in the form of Bradley and Marder fighting vehicles. That move was coupled with an unprecedented decision by France to send AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine. This week, Britain upped the ante by trumpeting that it was ready to supply Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine.

Polish President Duda was in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on Wednesday accompanied by Lithuanian counterpart Gitanas Nauseda and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. The day before, on Tuesday, the German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock (another warmongering Green member), made a surprise visit to Ukraine’s eastern city of Kharkiv where she hinted that Leopard tanks would be forthcoming.

Speaking alongside Germany’s top diplomat, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said cryptically: “I have no doubt Germany will send Leopard tanks to Ukraine… The German government somewhere deep down understands that the decision will be made and the tanks will be transferred to Ukraine.”

The implied fait accompli echoed the words of Joe Biden who warned just before the eruption of conflict in Ukraine in February last year that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia would never become operational regardless of Berlin’s position.

In Lviv, the Polish leader also spoke about the deployment of Leopard tanks as part of an “international coalition” for sending such weaponry.

“A company of Leopard tanks will be handed over as part of a coalition that is being built because, as you know, a large number of formal requirements, agreements, and so on must be met, but primarily we want this to be an international coalition,” said Duda.

What that means is the German-made tanks are going to be sent to Ukraine as part of a much larger, coordinated NATO effort. There is an air of inevitability that the Leopards will be joined by U.S.-made M1 Abrams as well as British Challengers.

The narrative that is being propounded is that the heavy weapons must be ramped up to Ukraine in order to prevent an alleged Russian offensive from taking the capital Kiev and also to consolidate supposed gains made by Ukrainian military. This narrative is obviously contradictory and belies the Western disinformation peddled by its news media and governments which swivels between imminent defeat or imminent victory for the Kiev regime.

The significant military victory by Russian forces this week in taking control of Soledar, the salt mining town in Donbass, is being cited by NATO figures as evidence that heavier weapons and tanks must be urgently supplied to Ukraine.

What is astounding is the dearth of public debate in the Western states about the relentless supply of weaponry to Ukraine. Hundreds of billions of dollars and euros are given away to a corrupt cabal in Kiev without the slightest oversight. Despite unprecedented economic and social hardships for their general populations, the ruling elites of Western states are pumping more and more weaponry into a conflict that has got nothing to do with alleged “freedom and democracy” in Ukraine.

Western nations are being dragged deeper into a war against Russia with no public knowledge let alone democratic consent about the real reasons for the war. Those reasons are to do with promoting U.S.-led Western imperialist interests, which are profoundly at odds with those of ordinary citizens.

The move to supply main battle tanks by NATO powers is typical of the stealth that has driven the build-up to this war. Typically, the decision has been made in secret and everything else is all about delivering on the decision. Shameless lies about “defending democracy and freedom” are spouted, even though the regime being supported in Kiev by Western taxpayers’ money is one infested with NeoNazis.

Nations are being swept towards an all-out war between the U.S./NATO and Russia by elite rulers in hock to corporate interests and unaccountable deep-state planners.

Despicably and criminally, there is no call among Western governments or media for diplomatic initiatives to end the conflict in Ukraine and to address the deeper geopolitical causes. All elite discourse is about the imperative of “defeating Russia” and “regime change” in Moscow as if it is a doctrinal ordinance.

The conflict in Ukraine was sown in 2014 by the U.S. and NATO-backed coup against democracy and the subsequent weaponizing of a NeoNazi regime. But the seeds for that were borne from a more evil fruit that goes all the way back to the Second World War and Nazi Germany’s failed conquest of the Soviet Union.

The imperial designs of the Third Reich and its expansionist “lebensraum” have been inherited by the U.S.-led NATO axis. The deployment of Leopard tanks – in place of Panzer Tigers – trundling towards Russia is a visceral sign of antecedent and of who stands on the right side of history.

January 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

Hungary in ‘culture shock’ from German policies – Orban

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. © ATTILA KISBENEDEK / AFP
RT | January 13, 2023

Policies introduced by Germany and German politicians within the European Commission and the way they “miscalculated” the effects of anti-Russian sanctions has caused a “culture shock” in Hungary. The EU doesn’t have the courage to admit the fallacy of its sanctions policies, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said in an interview on Friday.

“I grew up with the feeling that the Germans are precise, engineers, they calculate, take their time, they know what they are doing,” Orban told Kossuth Radio, adding that now that perspective has changed.

“Now we see what they are doing, because the European Commission has a German chairman,” Orban continued, referring to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “They failed with the sanctions, miscalculated and did not count to the end from a professional point of view,” he added.

According to the PM, the EU doesn’t have the courage to admit the fallacy of its sanctions policies against Russia amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Orban noted, however, that Hungary lacked the strength to change the position of larger countries, meaning that sanctions on Moscow will likely continue despite their ineffectiveness.

Hungary, which relies heavily on Russian energy, has on several occasions criticized EU leaders for being responsible for the ongoing energy crisis by introducing “counterproductive” sanctions on Moscow. Budapest has repeatedly asked to scrap the “failed policy of Brussels” in order to stop Europe from “slowly bleeding.” Hungary has also been one of the few Western states that have so far refused to send any weapons to Ukraine or train its troops.

“If it were up to us, there would not be a sanctions policy,” Orban said last month. “It is not in our interest to permanently divide the European and Russian economies into two, so we are trying to save what can be saved from our economic cooperation with the Russians.”

Hungary’s relations with the EU have been particularly strenuous in recent months as Budapest has also clashed with several EU institutions on a number of issues, including LGBTQ rights and migration. Brussels, in turn, has accused Orban’s conservative government of eroding the rule of law while Western establishment media outlets have treated him like an authoritarian leader that is too sympathetic to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

January 13, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Share prices of NATO weapons makers surge

RT | January 11, 2023

The largest military and defense corporations of NATO member states have seen a 21.5% boost in market value in 2022 amid the military operation in Ukraine and the rearmament in Europe, Vedomosti newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing data from Defense News and Tradingview analytics.

Their combined market capitalization increased from $579 billion in December 2021 to $703 billion in December 2022, according to the estimates.

The ranking included 25 companies with a capitalization of over $1 billion which are traded on the stock market and have military products dominating in their revenues, and are also actively involved in arms supplies to Ukraine.

Authors of the report name German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall as the top gainer over the last 12 months, with a 122% surge in share price. French drone and missile producer Thales saw its market value rise 54%. American defense contractor Northrop Grumman was up 44%, while stock in HIMARS rocket launchers maker Lockheed Martin gained 42%.

Other notable mentions in the report include BAE Systems (+40%), Kongsberg Gruppen (+37%), General Dynamics (+24%), and Raytheon Technologies (+19%).

The report pointed out that the value of NATO’s military giants was soaring while the overall Western corporate sector sank by 16% last year, according to the S&P 1200 index, suggesting that arms manufacturers were likely the main beneficiaries of the political crisis in Europe.

January 11, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

COVID mRNA “Vaccine” Safety Unravels As Scale Of Dangerous Side Effects Becomes Glaring

By P Gosselin | No Tricks Zone | January 10, 2023

Nowadays, as the collateral damage mounts, you’d have to be pretty damn dense not to see how things have gone awry with respect to the mRNA medicines.

As recent reports, studies and data indicate, it’s likely going to be even worse than the worst imaginable worst-case scenarios. An increasing number of physicians fear these rushed medicines are killing far more, perhaps millions more, than they’re saving.

Recent sudden and unexpected collapses

Since an NFL player and a Canadian reporter collapsed before millions of viewers on television, faith in the new mRNA medicines is eroding faster than a falling house of cards.

Already a recent Rasmussen survey showed that almost half of all Americans “believe the vaccines may be causing unexplained deaths, and one quarter of respondents said they knew someone whose death could potentially be linked to receiving a vaccine.”

Germany sees 19% excess mortality in December, 2022

Countries worldwide are reporting shocking “excess mortality” numbers since the vaccines were introduced in earnest in early 2021.

For example, the German Federal Statistics Office has found that the number of deaths in Germany has increased by more than 35,000 cases compared to the previous year and that in December, 2022, deaths were 19% higher than the comparable figure for the previous four years.

If the deadliest pandemic in centuries was overcome in 2022 by the great curative vaccination, then why did so many more people die in 2022, of all years? Naturally this makes no sense and so people have grown highly suspicious and distrustful of the experimental medicine.

Millions of people are refusing further boosters

It’s little wonder vaccine hesitancy has reached a new peak high as citizens are refusing to let themselves be boostered again. Switzerland, for example, reports that it will have to throw away millions of doses.

In Germany, a vast majority of citizens have opted not to take an additional booster. So far, less than 20% have taken 4 shots.

Less than 15 million Germans have taken the 4th jab

There’s a growing sense that the public has been grossly misled by the pharmaceutical companies and the authorities. Trust is at an all time low.

To make matters worse, high profile British physician Dr. John Campbell showed us that according to data tabulated from a recent major published paper, people catch COVID more often if they received more mRNA jabs. A growing number of experts suspect that the mRNA vaccines are damaging the body’s immune system, possibly irreversibly, rather than strengthening it.

Realization of being duped, damaged

Even hard leftists like Bill Maher have lost trust in the medical industry with respect to COVID and the “vaccines” and are now also beginning to slam widespread government-promoted Big Social Media censorship.

The tide is turning as once steadfast vaccination proponents realize they’ve been duped and damaged. It’s just a matter of time, possibly just weeks, before criminal investigations are launched to get to the bottom of it all and criminal arrests made.

German public health expert and physician, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, even suggests people should not take any more vaccines of any kind until the whole mess gets cleared up and the system repaired. “They can’t be trusted.”

January 10, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

EPA And The Electricity Cost Crisis

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | January 3, 2023

Over in Europe, the energy cost crisis, particularly as to electricity, proceeds apace.

Germany, deep into its Energiewende (energy transition) that began in 2010, leads the way. Almost all coal and nuclear power plants have been closed in favor of a massive building plan for wind and solar facilities. After a decade of that, for the past couple of years, Germans have suffered consumer retail electricity prices of over 30 euro cents per kWh — close to triple average U.S. consumer rates. On November 25, a German news source called The Local (behind pay wall) quoted an energy market expert named Mirko Scholssarczyk for the proposition that “40 cents per kilowatt-hour was likely to be the new normal in 2023 and 2024, and that prices could even rise to 50 cents per kilowatt-hour after that.” Meanwhile, my own post from December 24 cited data from a Belgian think tank called Brueghel showing that Germany was in the process of spending some 260 billion euros, around an astonishing 7% of GDP, to subsidize consumers to keep their electricity bills from going beyond even these ridiculously high levels.

The UK, second after Germany in its rush to what they call “Net Zero,” has its own associated energy cost crisis. The basic policy prescription is the same as in Germany — massive building of wind and solar facilities and suppression of fossil fuels. Although consumer bills are capped by regulation, they went in October to a level approximately three times where they had been a year previously; and they were set to rise again in April, to some five times the previous level, although that may now be temporarily headed off by the UK’s own round of massive taxpayer handouts in the range of a hundred billion pounds or more.

Can we here in the USA learn anything from this folly before it is too late? The answer is, if it is up to our EPA, then no.

Readers may be interested in some back and forth on this topic that has recently occurred in the briefing in the case of Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council v. EPA, pending in the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. CHECC is demanding that EPA reconsider the so-called Endangerment Finding of 2009, which is the bureaucratic edict by which those geniuses claimed to determine that CO2 and certain other “greenhouse gases” constitute a “danger” to human health and safety. The Endangerment Finding is the regulatory linchpin that underlies all U.S. government efforts to suppress fossil fuel infrastructure, whether power plants, pipelines, drilling, or anything else. You may recall that I am one of the lawyers for CHECC in this matter.

One of the things that you need to show to bring one of these cases is that the party you represent has what they call “standing.” That means that the party bringing the claim has or will suffer some concrete injury from the regulatory action in question. That’s why our client is a council consisting of electricity consumers. As we state in our Petition and in our Brief, “Each of CHECC’s members is a U.S. citizen and a member of a household that pays electricity bills.”

To demonstrate the effect on consumer electricity bills of the policy mix of wind and solar expansion plus fossil fuel suppression, we cite and describe the experience of Germany. Excerpt, from page 31 of the Brief:

In Europe, Germany began converting to renewables in 2010, and by 2015 30% of its electricity was from wind and solar. . . . The average German household’s electricity rate in 2021 was 32.16 cents per kWh, about triple the average U.S. rate. . . .

So what’s the answer to that, EPA? EPA filed its responsive Brief on December 20. From pages 20-21 of that Brief:

Petitioners’ extended discussion of electricity costs in Germany — involving a different country, market, currency, and regulatory regime — does not aid their efforts [to demonstrate standing]. . . . There is no effort to show that Petitioners or their members suffer “injury-in-fact” from electricity rates in Germany, or that any U.S. regulation (let alone the 2009 Finding or Denial) affected those rates.

That’s it. Hey, it’s a “different country”! Electricity prices in Germany don’t hurt you. Thus, says EPA, nobody has “standing” to challenge our Endangerment Finding.

I guess there’s just no way of knowing whether the hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage being wreaked in Germany have anything to do with the forced energy transition. Anyway, it’s none of EPA’s business to try to figure that out. They are way too busy saving the planet.

Could the DC Circuit — supposedly one of our premier courts — fall for something this blindly ignorant? We shall see. Of note is that the “standing” question can be an easy way for a court to get rid of a tricky case without having to do the hard work of grappling with the merits.

January 10, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 1 Comment

About 50% of Germans Consider Cabinet Decision to Give Kiev Marder Vehicles Wrong: Survey

Samizdat – 08.01.2023

BERLIN – Almost half of Germans consider the cabinet’s decision to give Kiev Marder infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) wrong, a survey conducted by the Institute for New Social Answers (INSA) for the Bild tabloid found on Sunday.

On Thursday, US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in a joint statement that the United States and Germany intended to supply Ukraine with infantry fighting vehicles and train Ukrainian troops to use them. On Friday, German cabinet spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said Germany was planning to supply about 40 Marder IFVs in the first quarter of 2023.

According to the survey, which 1,001 people took part in, 49% of respondents perceive Berlin’s decision to supply Marder IFVs to Ukraine as a mistake, while 40% support this initiative.

Also, 38% of Germans believe that Germany should intensify its military aid and give Ukraine Leopard battle tanks, while, 50% are against this measure.

Western countries have been ramping up their military support for Kiev since the beginning of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine.

In April, Moscow sent a note to NATO member states condemning their military assistance to Kiev. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that any arms shipments on Ukrainian territory would be “legitimate targets” for Russian armed forces. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov, in turn, stated that arms provision was undermining prospects for a future peace process.

January 8, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | 1 Comment

Germany’s digital minister meets with Elon Musk, says Musk “agreed” to EU’s censorship laws

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | January 5, 2023

Germany’s Minister for Digital and Transport Volker Wissing said that he is less worried about Twitter under Elon Musk’s leadership after meeting with the CEO in San Francisco.

“Thanks @elonmusk for a constructive conversation in San Francisco. My stance is clear: the platforms’ self-commitment against #disinformation must be strictly adhered to until the #DSA comes into force. Elon Musk agreed with me,” Wissing tweeted.

The DSA (Digital Services Act), expected to come into effect in February 2024, requires, among other things, platforms to remove “harmful” content immediately. The legislation aims to protect consumers from content considered harmful as well as illegal content.

In a December interview, Wissing, the General Secretary of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), expressed concerns about Musk’s leadership of Twitter and said that he was undecided on whether he would continue using the platform.

Since taking over in late October, Musk has made some changes that censorship-lovers some might deem controversial. He rolled back the COVID-19 misinformation policy and reinstated some previously banned accounts, including the account of former US President Donald Trump.

In a letter to the EU Commission, Sven Giegold, the State Secretary for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, raised concerns about abrupt changes at Twitter and the relaxation of censorship policies.

January 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | 1 Comment

Top German general calls for an end to Ukraine war

Free West Media | December 30, 2022

The longtime military policy advisor to NATO, Helmut W. Ganser sees the chance of an early end to the war in winter, especially for military reasons. With this, Ganser explicitly contradicted NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, who has spoken out against peace negotiations.

Ganser is a retired brigadier general and was, among other things, deputy head of the military policy department in the Federal Ministry of Defense and military policy advisor to the German Permanent Representative to NATO. Born in 1948, he worked in the command staff of the German armed forces from 1992.

He argued for a cessation of hostilities: “Military-political reason speaks for an early end to this costly war”. A victory for Kiev is unrealistic, he said. “After Moscow’s initial failures in Ukraine, some observers “overreacted” and overestimated Ukraine’s chances of victory.

Militarily, there is currently a stalemate situation, while at the same time the ammunition consumption on both sides is exceptionally high.

The West has reached its limits in this war since their ammunition depots are being depleted. This applies in particular to Germany. Ganser was quoted in the German ipg-journal for international politics.

Counter-offensives by Kiev only result in losses and are unsuccessful

Russia currently occupies well under 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory. After considerable losses of terrain and the retreat to the east bank of the Dnieper, the Russian army “substantially shortened and consolidated the front”.

“Attempts at further extensive counter-offensives by Kiev […] are likely not only to result in extremely heavy losses, but will also be to no avail,” according to Ganser.

He added that the wide Dnieper river posed “a significant barrier to possible counter-attack operations by Ukrainian forces in the southern part of the front”.

High ammo consumption

At the moment there is a stalemate situation, but there is a risk of a longer war of attrition and position, with occasional thrusts and counter-thrusts. At the same time, the consumption of ammunition on both sides is unusually high. The West is also reaching its limits here, Ganser warned.

“The western side can no longer intervene in the blocked stocks of the ammunition depots of their armed forces and deliver unlimited supplies. […] Ammunition supplies for the M777 howitzers and the long-range HIMARS rocket launchers are also reaching their limits in the US,” said the psychologist and political scientist.

Be sure to take fears of nuclear escalation seriously

The danger of a nuclear escalation also speaks in favor of peace negotiations. Although this is not desired by either side, the risk still exists. “One cannot yet speak of nuclear detente,” he underscored. US President Joe Biden had also warned of a nuclear war and has used the term “Armageddon”.

Peace talks should therefore take place as soon as possible, albeit behind closed doors. “To present warnings of a nuclear escalation as exaggerated fears is irresponsible,” Ganser said.

The solution to this lies with Moscow and Washington, the two actual players. Without Western support, Kiev would have lost the war long ago. “On the geopolitical level, this is a Russian-American conflict.”

The war is very costly for Ukraine

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, General Mark Milley, has also made a similar statement: Russia and Ukraine must mutually recognize “that a military victory is not achievable and that the winter months should be used for negotiations”.

But there are many critics of this proposal, which Ganser contradicted. “The argument that is heard again and again that the West must bring the Russian military to its knees with the help of Ukraine, because otherwise Putin will be the next to attack the NATO East Europeans, is simply a weak analysis.” After this war of attrition, Russia will first have to deal with military reform. In addition, NATO is building up forces on its eastern flank.

“The widespread counter-argument, including from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, that Moscow is only interested in an operational pause in order to attack again in the spring, may be correct. But even the Ukrainian army, with Western help, would use a ceasefire to bolster its defensive and counterattack capabilities.”

December 30, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 2 Comments

Germany’s Public Television Suggests Bathing Once A Week Would Be Beneficial

Private daily showers to become a luxury for the privileged and wealthy in Germany? 

By P Gosselin – No Tricks Zone – December 28, 2022

“What if we showered/bathed only once a week?”

What the BBC is to Great Britain, are what the WDR and ARD public broadcasting are to Germany in terms of television and radio presence.

Just some weeks ago, the Instagram site of WDR kugelzwei presented some tips that save heat and energy for citizens to consider: showering only once a week.

After all: “Around 100 years ago, it was still customary to bathe only once a week,” wrote kugelzwei. “Today, people almost look at you strangely if you tell them you don’t shower several times a week.”

The “benefits” of showering only once a week

Supposedly, there are in fact numerous benefits from showering much less frequently, according to ZDF’s kugelzwei. For example, people would maybe learn to become “a little more tolerant of body odor”, and the unwashed would save time in the bathroom every morning.

Use sinks, not showers

Moreover, fitness studios could replace showers with just plain sinks. After a sweaty workout, one could freshen up in cubicle with with a simple sink and a washcloth instead of using a shower cubicle.

Make the weekly shower a public social event

Another idea proposed by the WDR’s kugelzwei is public bathing: “Maybe showering or bathing could become a weekly highlight,” they suggest. “We would celebrate this in public bathhouses – perhaps also in the company of others.”

WDR also cited research from Great Britain on the impacts that lockdowns had on showering. “In a YouGov survey, 17% of Britons said they shower less since the lockdowns. Among younger people aged 18 to 24, as many as 27% skip showering sometimes.”

December 28, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | 7 Comments

The American Colony Called Germany

Tales of the American Empire | December 22, 2022

The end of World War II resulted in a stand off with the Soviet Union. The practical solution was to rebuild and rearm West Germany to deter a Soviet invasion, but keep that nation under American rule.

After World War II, Germany remained occupied by a million foreign troops during the Cold war. After that ended in 1990, the Russians returned home and the Warsaw Pact alliance disbanded. There was no threat to the west and NATO troops returned home, except the Americans, who insisted on keeping several large bases in Germany.

Billions of dollars were spent on new military facilities to include a massive spy center at a newly expanded Wiesbaden base.

You do not have to look very hard to find historical information revealing that the CIA has been spying inside Germany for more than seventy years to bribe and blackmail political leaders and journalists.

In 2022, the United States destroyed the Nordstream pipelines and thus the German economy. This was the third time in a century the United States destroyed Germany. The innovative and productive German industry was shut down in 1919, 1945, and 2022. Germany is not a true democratic state, but a colony of the United States.

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December 28, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | 2 Comments

Ukraine to hike transit fees for Russian oil to EU – Transneft

RT | December 27, 2022

Ukraine will raise transit fees for Russian oil running via the Druzhba pipeline through its territory to the EU on January 1, Russian oil exporter Transneft announced on its website on Monday.

It is expected that Kiev will increase tariffs for transporting crude to Hungary and Slovakia by €2.10 per ton to €13.60 ($13.90), bringing the total hike to 18.3%.

In November, Bloomberg reported that Ukraine was mulling a tariff hike on Russian oil transit starting next year, citing a letter from Ukrtransnafta, the operator of Ukraine’s oil pipeline network. The Ukrainian operator had attributed the need for the price hike to the “continued destruction of Ukrainian energy infrastructure” which had resulted in “a significant shortage of electricity, an increase in its costs, a shortage of fuel, and spare parts.”

Transneft spokesman Igor Demin confirmed to the Russian media that the company had received the letter and was studying it.

Ukrainian oil transit fees have already been raised twice this year. The last hike in April reportedly brought the total increase to 51% on an annual basis.

Druzhba, one of the longest pipeline networks in the world, carries crude some 4,000 km from Russia to refineries in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

December 27, 2022 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Merry Christmas

eugyppius: a plague chronicle | December 24, 2022

In 2020 it was the lockdowners who destroyed Christmas, and in 2021 it was the vaccinators. All of it was for nothing. Sweden, which never locked down, has lower cumulative excess mortality than Germany, which locked down longer and harder than almost any other country in Europe. Nor did anyone even try to pretend that excluding the unvaccinated from public life would reduce the incidence of infection or death. The vaccinators claim that their elixirs reduce the rate of severe outcome from SARS-2 infection, but mass vaccination has coincided with increases in all-cause mortality and higher rates of transmission everywhere that it has been tried.

In the end, the lockdowners and the vaccinators lost. Alas, it wasn’t our alleged rights or democratic principles that saved us, but only Omicron, which crashed the pandemicists’ mythology faster than the Federal Republic of Germany could get their coercive proposals before the Bundestag. Today, the German Corona regime is all but dead, and even China has sworn off Zero Covid.

While I like to think that we may have played a small part in defeating the hysterical clowns and their virus circus, their greatest opponent was always reality. They stirred up enough panic and utopian hope to impede ordinary social life for the better part of two years, but they were too wrong about too many things to survive as any kind of durable political movement.

While they’ve done incalculable damage and changed many aspects of our lives and our societies forever, it feels really, really great to have Christmas back again.

Merry Christmas to all of my readers.

December 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | 6 Comments

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