The Next Russia Threat: Moscow’s Military Power After Ukraine. Really!

The Cold War warriors are back at the Foreign Affairs journal!

What if glasnost and perestroika return to Russia? Was Mikhail Gorbachev (the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until the country's dissolution in 1991) only a one time, singular historical accident in Russia? I doubt it!

Will the Russian people remember War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (published in 1869)?

Will the Russian people, which suffered now over 1 million war casualties that maimed and killed young Russian men in this absurd Russo-Ukrainian War, not have second thoughts about another strong man like Putin the Terrible?

"... Even if defeated, Russia will remain the primary threat in Europe for years to come. Despite its stagnating economy, poor demographics, and ossifying authoritarian regime, Russia remains the main power capable of and invested in upending the continent’s security architecture. ..."

The Next Russia Threat: Moscow’s Military Power After Ukraine

Current issue

Front page of War and Peace sixth volume, first edition, 1869 (Russian)

Canada lays out plan for all new cars to be zero emissions by 2035. Really!

Authoritarian socialist central planning! Unconstitutional!

The final puff: Can New Zealand quit smoking for good? Beware the Tyranny of the Majority!

Are the Kiwis going nuts! Is there something in their drinking water? There has been quite a few disturbing news coming from NZ in recent years!

They say democracies are laboratories. However, this is clearly an unconstitutional interference with individual liberty! Or the the tyranny of the majority!

This is also blatant age discrimination!

The dictatorship of experts going wild!

"Update, 13 December, 9:45 a.m.: New Zealand’s House of Representatives today approved the legislation making the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan law. It will take effect in January 2023. ...
Unveiled in December 2021, the plan features three radical interventions. One, called the smoke-free generation strategy, will make it illegal to ever sell combustible tobacco products to those born in 2009 or later. The goal is to create an ever-growing cohort that never picks up the smoking habit. A second provision calls for reducing the number of tobacco retailers by as much as 95%, to make cigarettes harder to get. The boldest proposal in the eyes of experts is reducing cigarettes’ nicotine content to below addictive levels. ..."

The final puff: Can New Zealand quit smoking for good? | Science | AAAS New Zealand’s public health officials have drawn on a decade of research to craft a plan to make the country smoke-free

Unvaccinated Patients Denied Care

This is a very serious matter!!! It goes to show how insane, absurd, and dictatorial the West has become regarding a relative harmless pandemic compared with plagues of the past!

These might be so far only a very few single and isolated cases. However, these cases clearly demonstrate the insanity and how far some are willing to go down the road to serfdom! An utter lack of common sense!

Had you asked me a few years ago whether I think such a scenario was possible, I would have vehemently denied it! Not anymore! Very appalling, very disturbing!

"...In October, the UCHealth health care system in Colorado denied a kidney transplant to an unvaccinated woman. Leilani Lutali, 56, was undergoing stage 5 renal failure and was in line to receive the transplant from donor Jaimee Fougner within months. Neither Lutali nor Fougner had received shots. A transplant or dialysis is usually necessary for survival for a patient with stage 5 renal failure. ..."

Unvaccinated Patients Denied Care

Tucker Carlson: These are the moral priorities of the Democrats

Very recommendable! Tucker is getting better and better! Exposing the coronavirus lunacy and tyranny of the Dimocrats!

The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent

I have not read this book, but I am familiar with the author Ben Shapiro!

This book was just promoted by the Convention of States in their latest newsletter.

"The rise of authoritarianism is our country's greatest threat. Whether from Big Government, Big Tech, Big Media, or Big Education, our country's "elites" are dead-set on destroying your freedom and controlling your life. ..."

"... A small [???] number of leftists—college-educated, coastal, and uncompromising—have not just taken over the Democratic Party but our corporations, our universities, our scientific establishment, our cultural institutions. And they have used their newfound power to silence their opposition.

The authoritarian Left is aggressively insistent that everyone must conform to its values, demanding submission and conformity. The dogmatic Left is obsessed with putting people in categories and changing human nature. Everyone who opposes it must be destroyed. ..."

The Authoritarian Moment: How the Left Weaponized America's Institutions Against Dissent: Shapiro, Ben: 9780063001824: Amazon.com: Books

Global Health NOW: Record-Breaking Smoking numbers worldwide

You got to love the follies of the leftist Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health! Like all authoritarians! These fools believe in Big Government to fix perceived public concerns by ratcheting up government interventions leading to more government interventions!

"Smoking prevalence has fallen in the last 4 decades—but the number of smokers worldwide has increased to 1.1 billion, propelled by population growth, according to a new Lancet article. ...

Solutions: Increasing cigarette taxes is the most effective policy, but taxes are significantly lower in low- and middle-income countries compared to wealthy countries.

Advertising and promotion bans are also needed—but only 1 in 4 “countries have comprehensively banned all forms of direct and indirect advertising,” ..."

 

Global Health NOW: Record-Breaking Smoking numbers; Airport Pickups & Other Unfair Burdens; and Burr Crawl

We Have the Data to Prove It: Universities Are Hostile to Conservatives

I did not have the time to read the whole article nor study! However, I have little doubt that you can empirically prove the claim! 

I know for sure I would not be able to study at many of the so called liberal and/or elite U.S. universities! It would make me cringe or worse almost every day!

"Academic freedom is in trouble in America, Britain and Canada, according to a new study I conducted on the subject. While the term "cancel culture" is often thrown around like a political football, my new report for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI) found quantitative evidence that the ideals of the university—to establish a tolerant ethos open to questioning received wisdom—is being perverted by political aims. ..."

"This study is the first of its kind to investigate authoritarianism and political discrimination in academia, relying on survey responses from both the perpetrators and targets of discrimination.

Across three Anglophone countries, a significant portion of academics discriminate against conservatives in hiring, promotion, grants and publications. Over 4 in 10 US and Canadian academics would not hire a Trump supporter, and 1 in 3 British academics would not hire a Brexit supporter.

Gender-critical feminist scholars appear to experience even more discrimination than conservatives. Only 28% of American and Canadian academics would feel comfortable having lunch with someone who opposes the idea of transwomen accessing women’s shelters.

Most professors do not back cancel culture in its most authoritarian forms. Only 1 in 10 academics supports firing controversial professors. Nonetheless, while most do not back cancellation, many are not opposed to it, remaining non-committal.

Right-leaning academics experience a high level of institutional authoritarianism and peer pressure. In the US, over a third of conservative academics and PhD students have been threatened with disciplinary action for their views while 70% of conservative academics report a hostile departmental climate for their beliefs.

In the social sciences and humanities, over 9 in 10 Trump-supporting academics and 8 in 10 Brexit-supporting academics say they would not feel comfortable expressing their views to a colleague. More than half of North American and British conservative academics admit self-censoring in research and teaching. ...
A hostile climate plays a part in deterring conservative graduate students from pursuing careers in academia. ..."

We Have the Data to Prove It: Universities Are Hostile to Conservatives | Manhattan Institute

Were the lockdowns a mistake?

Recommendable! Is that a rhetorical question? Of course, these draconian one size fits all measures that severely damaged the economy and made our lives miserable, more violent, and deadly were an unnecessary government overreaction to a fairly harmless virus. It exposed the colossal failure of the political class and elites in Western democracies!

"... The current death toll of 185,000 is 0.055% of the current population. It will go higher, but it’s about the same magnitude as those two flu [Asian flu of 1957-58 and Hong Kong flu of 1968] outbreaks and less deadly for those under 65. Yet, there [in 1957-58 or 1968] were no statewide lockdowns, no massive school closings, no closed office buildings and factories, restaurants, and museums. No one even considered shutting down Woodstock. ..."

Were the lockdowns a mistake? | American Enterprise Institute - AEI (by Michael Barone) Were the lockdowns a mistake? To that nagging question, the answer increasingly seems to be yes.

The Perfect Spy

Posted: 6/18/15

Trigger

Has China learned how to build the perfect U.S. spy? This article wants us to believe that China hacked into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management to train the perfect spy or mole.

Why Open And Free Societies Will Always Beat Totalitarian Or Authoritarian Regimes

Yes, perhaps Russia, Iran, North Korea, or China or any other repressive totalitarian or authoritarian regime will be able to train the most perfect spies to penetrate the deepest secrets of the U.S., but they will lose nevertheless. The former Soviet Union is a great example.

A free and open society willing to credibly defend its individual freedom will most always innovate faster and be stronger than any totalitarian/authoritarian regime no matter how much these repressive regimes try to spy.

The Ultimate Strategy

Is it not even perhaps the ultimate strategy of the U.S. to allow spies to report back how much more advanced the U.S. is compared to these totalitarian/authoritarian regimes? This is the ultimate awe and shock strategy, isn’t it?