Month: September 2022
Iranian Woman Brain Dead After Arrest By Morality Police Over Hijab Rules
Meghan and Harry in a snit about not getting those HRH titles for their kids
By Monica Showalter
There’s class. And if you have none, you might be Meghan and Harry.
The “non-working” royals, as the matter is delicately put, are in a snit these days because now that the queen is dead, they didn’t get the spoils they thought they were entitled to:
According to the New York Post:
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s kids will not be given His and Her Royal Highness titles — leaving the exiled couple once again “furious” at the royal family over the snub, according to a report.
Harry’s dad, the new King Charles III, has agreed to soon bestow the titles of prince and princess on his California-based grandkids, Archie, 3, and Lilibet, 1, according to the Sun.
But after a week of tense negotiations, he has refused to allow them to be known as HRH, titles that were stripped from their podcasting parents after they abandoned the family and the UK in 2020.
“That is the agreement — they can be prince and princess but not HRH because they are not working royals,” one insider told the UK paper.
The decision follows “a lot of talks over the past week” since Harry’s dad became king the moment his 96-year-old mother died last Thursday.
“They have been relentless since the Queen died,” the insider said of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, saying they “have been insistent that Archie and Lilibet are prince and princess.”
So what are we reading here? That they want the titles and status of royalty, nice high royalty, not some Ruritanian eurochicken title from some long gone dynasty, but don’t want to put the work in of being royalty.
Meghan, of course, being classless, in the past has claimed it’s a matter of royal family ‘racism.’
That’s pretty questionable.
As we’ve learned from the various dramas around the British royal family, the royal family is actually an enterprise, and colloquially known as “the firm.” The members work pretty hard at making public appearances, tending to their charities, and going to every school and park opening in the British outlands — often the less well-known, or less glamorous, U.K. places such as Sheffield, Preston, Wolverhampton, Carlisle, Sunderland, Ripon, Blackpool, Leicester, Rotherham, Doncaster, Leeds, Kingston-on-Hull, Peterborough, St. Albans, Slough, Bolton, Stevenage, Truro, Bristol, Bournemouth to name a random few — to cut ribbons and make those stately airy waves to the adoring crowds. They smile sweetly, take teddy bears and wipe tears from gooey toddlers, sit still for hours for solemn ceremonies, and act delighted when huge bouquets of flowers are thrust into their hands by random members of the overenthusiastic public. They do this while wearing the uniform heels and stockings and other costumes of royal propriety, which, when one spends all day in them, is not exactly an easy life. They show patience with all sorts of idiocies as well as the odd faux pas as constitutional monarchs and call it a life of service, which to most people, particularly the Brits themselves, is obvious enough, particularly since we are seeing the public’s reaction to Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
This is the stuff Harry and Meghan ran away from, in order to focus exclusively on red carpets and big Hollywood payouts, particularly from their tell-all books and interviews.
What they are saying they want is the titles, but not the work, which is not the British model of royalty, but more like perhaps the Saudi model of royalty, of being idle princelings with more money than they know what to do with, but no ‘service’ to their name.
That in itself shows zero class, but there’s actually a secondary aspect to this that doesn’t reflect well on them, either: It’s that their hankering for royalty and status, which they hardly need in their chosen life as private citizens, is the sort of gilded-age hankering we used to see at the turn of the 20th century, when the children of robber barons would go to Europe in search of a spouse with a title. People like that never amounted to anything, they were always the second and third generations of their industrialist patriarchs who sought out these royal titles.
Those who have actually experienced real royalty often go the other direction, with a longing for the freedom of the commoners. They feel confident because they know the both sides of such things. They aren’t strivers. Recall that Princess Anne refused to give her children fancy titles on the grounds that she wanted them to live life more “normally.”
Presumably, that was the reason Harry fled the royal family, and both Harry and Meghan claimed they longed for normalcy with their kids.
Turned out that was a load of hooey. The pair of them craved status for their kids same as any parvenu downwind of the main royal line, despite their protestations to the contrary. That’s embarrassing. The want status as an entitlement, not an earned honor. And now that this story is out, everyone can see right through it.
India: Two Hindu minors raped and killed, five Muslim men arrested
Italy: Orban won elections, Hungary is a democracy – Meloni
Brothers of Italy (FdI) leader Giorgia Meloni on Friday stood by her right-wing group’s decision to vote against a European Parliament motion on Thursday declaring that Hungary can no longer be considered a full democracy and has become an “electoral autocracy”.
The MEPs of Matteo Salvini’s League, the FdI’s allies in centre-right coalition that is tipped to win Italy’s general election on September 25, also voted against the motion.
“We are talking about a situation in which all the Hungarian parties, including those in the opposition to (Prime Minister) Viktor Orban, were indignant about this EU document,” Meloni, who is favourite to become Italy’s next premier with FdI the top party in the polls, told RAI radio.
“Do you think it’s really a dictatorship? I recall everyone that Orban won the elections.
“Orban is a gentleman who won the elections several times according to the rules of the Constitution, with all the rest against him.
“So it is a democratic system”.
Sweden Democrats will be ‘watchdog’ on immigration and crime reforms, vows prominent Swedish ME
The Sweden Democrats, a right-wing, populist and Eurosceptic party that will form part of Sweden’s new government will be a “watchdog for change,” according to one of its leading MEPs.
In an interview with Britain’s Nigel Farage on GB News, MEP Charlie Weimers revealed that his party — which received the second-highest number of votes in Sunday’s election in Sweden — will lobby for stricter immigration controls, reforms to fight crime, and support for nuclear energy as a solution to the country’s energy crisis.
“We will be a change watchdog,” Weimers told the British news outlet. “We will make sure that action is actually taken to control migration, an area where the previous government failed utterly, and that we actually start to implement reforms to fight crime.
“You mentioned gun crime, we have shootings every night in Sweden. We have had 500 bombings during the last four years of Social Democratic rule in this country,” Weimers said.
“We will also make sure that Sweden starts the process to build new nuclear reactors because we have an energy crisis in Sweden, and that is also a reason why this government failed because it closed down four reactors during its reign,” he added.
Ulf Kristersson, the leader of the center-right Moderate party is now set to take power, but Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson will have considerable sway and will not lend his party’s parliamentary votes to another without cast-iron guarantees on the topics of immigration and gang-related crime.
The writing had been on the wall for some time for the previous administration, as it only began to address legitimate concerns of ordinary Swedes about the pressure on public services and the increase in migrant violence when it was too late.
The outgoing Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson had vowed to abolish the ethnic ghettos in major cities, which have been hotbeds of organized crime, but her promises to the Swedish people fell on deaf ears as voters opted for a political reset in Sunday’s election.
Facebook Bans Holocaust Film for Violating Race Policy
India: Journalist receives death threats for criticising Islamists
On September 10, Nishant Kumar Azad, a journalist working with Nationalist weekly magazine Organiser received death threats from a US-based phone number. In the threat message, it was written that Nishant Azad would be beheaded if he continues to support the Hindutva ideology. He was threatened to stop spreading ‘propaganda’ against Islam otherwise ‘he will have to pay the price for it’.
There has been a First Information Report (FIR) filed. According to the FIR, at around 7:00 p.m. on September 10, a missed WhatsApp video, audio call, and message in Urdu and English were received from an unknown US-based number [+(701) 543-0549]. “Gustakh-e-nabi ki ek hi saza, sar tan se juda sar tan se juda” and “stop preaching agenda against Islam, you will pay for it (sic)” are among the messages. When the complainant questioned him about the identity of the sender, they said that they know everything about Nishant and that if he continued to write on such topics, he would face the consequences.
As per the FIR, the intimidator referred to Kanhaiyalal and Umesh Kolhe, he warned Nishant to stop writing in support of Hindu organisations or he will end up getting killed in the same way as Kanhaiyalal and Umesh Kolhe were beheaded.
Along with the threat message, the intimidator also shared the screenshot of one of Nishant Azad’s tweet in which the journalist had recently slammed Congress for posting an image of a ‘burning khaki uniform’ of RSS.
Organiser in its report says that the threat messages to its journalist Nishant Azad should be seen in the context of the recent killings of Hindus by Islamists.
On 22 June, Umesh Kolhe, a pharmacist from Amravati in Maharashtra was murdered by four Islamists for supporting suspended BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma when she received death and rape threats from Islamists across countries for her remarks about the prophet Muhammad and Islam.
In Rajasthan’s Udaipur, Kanhaiyalal, a Hindu tailor was beheaded by Jihadis over his social media post backing Nupur Sharma. Two Jihadis, Ghous Mohammad and Mohammad Riyaz, on June 28, brutally murdered Kanhaiyalal in his shop. The two were arrested. This case is being investigated by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
https://www.opindia.com/2022/09/organiser-journalist-gets-sar-tan-se-juda-threats-fir/
Majority of Slovaks support a Russian military victory over Ukraine
More than half of Slovaks would welcome a Russian military victory over Ukraine, according to a new poll published on Wednesday (14 September).
The representative survey, entitled “How are you doing, Slovakia?”, was conducted by the MNFORCE and Seesame agencies and the Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Respondents were asked to answer the survey using a 10-point scale, where 1 means a clear victory for Russia and 10 for Ukraine. About a fifth of respondents said they wanted a clear Russian victory, and more than half said they were inclined towards a Russian victory. The overwhelming majority of voters in former Prime Minister Robert Fico’s social democratic party SMER are on the Russian side.
Fico is a vocal opponent of anti-Russian sanctions and even celebrated the anniversary of the Slovak National Revolt with the Russian ambassador. The SMER is still a member of the Party of European Socialists (PES).
As far as geographical differences are concerned, only the population of Bratislava, the capital, has a majority of people who want a victory for Ukraine. Regarding the whole country, only a third said they were leaning towards Ukraine, while 18 percent expressed no preference.
Slovakia along with Bulgaria, has long been one of the most pro-Russian countries in the EU.
A poll conducted in the summer of 2021 showed that 55 percent of Slovaks had a favourable opinion of the Russian leader. Among Central and Eastern European countries, only Bulgarians had a better opinion of Putin (75 percent).
Moreover, in February 2022, before the military intervention, 44 percent of respondents blamed NATO and the US for the tensions on Ukraine’s borders. As for NATO membership, only 45 percent were in favour in the 2021 poll. Immediately after the invasion, support rose, but has recently fallen again.
Europe’s Energy Crisis
Europe is facing a growing energy crisis. Individuals and industries are being battered by rising energy costs. On August 31, Russia shut down the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany for initially what was supposed to be 72 hours, but followed by an announcement of “technical difficulties” that would prevent a resumption. Russian energy giant Gazprom also announced that natural gas supplies to French energy company Engie SA would be immediately reduced. These actions have created significant uncertainty and the threat of much higher energy prices in Europe as the cold winter season approaches.
In the Netherlands last month, I had the opportunity to discuss the skyrocketing energy costs. Monthly utility bills of 400 to 600 euros are not unusual. One company said it was spending four times the amount for natural gas than a year ago. The company indicated because of these higher costs, it would be cutting its production by 50% this winter. Most European Union countries are experiencing an eight-fold increase in energy prices.
Both Germany and the Netherlands have been seeing extreme energy price spikes. Germany’s prices surged to 1,050 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) before falling to 610 euros in August. Last year, the approximate cost was only 85 euros per MWh.
This dramatic inflation in energy costs is resulting in predictable actions with unpredictable outcomes. The Dutch have reported demand destruction. This means that when the price for a product increases, the demand for it decreases. What we are seeing in Europe is significant decrease in demand for energy because of the huge price increases. An example is the business that will cut production by 50% because energy costs have significantly increased the costs of their end product, resulting in a 50% cut in demand for their product.
The Dutch used 25% less natural gas in the first six months of 2022 than they did in the comparable period in 2021 — primarily due to customers’ responses to the higher prices and mercifully somewhat milder than expected temperatures.
The EU has already asked member states to cut energy use by 15% this winter. When it comes to Russian gas supplies, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned Europe to prepare for the “worst situation.” Meanwhile, the Norwegian energy company Equinor estimates that European power companies will need to find 1.5 trillion euros to cover the costs of margin calls related to soaring energy prices. Europe and the West look as if they will be in for a rough, expensive winter.
Predictably, EU government leaders believe that the EU and its member states “must act.” Several countries have already unilaterally implemented measures — from imposing price caps to direct government handouts to deal with the immediate costs of the crisis. At the EU level, there now appears to be a consensus that the entire energy market structure must be redesigned, and quickly. They seem to be hoping that this might be completed by early 2023, but none of these actions is laying the foundation for a long-term, workable energy solution.
The reality, however, is that this situation did not develop overnight and will not be fixed overnight. Despite European politicians blaming all this on Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the root causes go deeper. The EU made a commitment to sustainability and so-called green energy years ago. Germany, Austria, Italy and the Netherlands are now reportedly going back to coal-fired plants to save on natural gas usage. Experts in Germany say the coalition government is “trying to buy time with coal so that it can come up with a more sustainable long-term solution.”
In January, Germany closed half of its six remaining nuclear power plants despite rising energy costs. Germany’s lofty sustainable climate goals did not include plans on how to replace the energy that was being provided by its safe, clean and reliable nuclear power plants.
Instead, to achieve its climate utopia, Germany decided that it would become more dependent on Russian gas, that consumers willingly would pay higher prices, and that it could turn to power from far less reliable wind and solar energy. This fantasy became the model across the EU, and the EU has no one else to blame for the results.
The frustrating outcome is that businesses, families and individuals will be forced to shoulder the burden caused by unwise policy decisions by their leaders. As one Dutch farmer said, their governments are run by a bunch of bureaucrats who sit in chairs and have no real-world experience. It might be worth adding they also have no accountability.
In response to Russia severely restricting or cutting off gas supplies, EU governments will take dramatic actions over the coming months. Germany recently announced it would keep two of the nuclear plants it was shuttering as backups, just in case. EU leaders will then go back to the voters and describe the amazing job they did while failing to mention they were the ones who made the decisions that put their countries in this crisis in the first place.
The entire current crisis was avoidable if the EU had developed a rational plan instead of one based on a daydream, no matter how enticing.
The U.S. needs urgently to examine what is happening in Europe and develop a rational energy transition plan. Any long-term solution must include strategies for reliable power production, sustainable energy and a massively strengthened electrical grid.
Europe’s plan was built on the hope that consumers would accept higher prices, that Russia and Putin would be reliable, and that battery storage technology would be robust enough to cover the times when “the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.”
This strategy, sadly always doomed to failure, provides a cautionary tale for “solutions” based solely on hope.
The U.S. should not repeat the same mistakes as the EU by continuing down a path that cuts domestic fossil fuel production, bans gasoline-powered vehicles, and ignores that the power generation capacity and energy infrastructure are not in place to achieve an unrealistic and unfortunately unsustainable green agenda.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18907/europe-energy-crisis