Best of the Web:


Vader

Best of the Web: Romania - The first 'post-election' democracy?

Kit Knightly
Off-Guardian
Thu, 06 Mar 2025 20:29 UTC
Romanian Protesters
© Off-Guardian
In December 2024, a Romanian court cancelled the second round of the planned Presidential election and annulled the completed first round, citing (totally theoretical) "Russian interference".

This caused massive protests in Romania, as you can imagine. The first round had been won by right winger Călin Georgescu following a social media-based campaign, and he was predicted to quite easily win the second round as well.

The Romanian opposition - denied a likely victory - took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Then, earlier today, the ECHR threw the case out without even hearing it. Apparently, the Romanian courts were perfectly within their rights to simply indefinitely postpone their election on the basis of unproven allegations, and all those people who already voted and wanted to vote again can just go to hell.

This is the ECHR, which lectures the world on rights and democratic norms on the regular.

And everyone is apparently just fine with it. It's crazy.
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Bullseye

Best of the Web: DEI, cancel culture and bad boards are killing our universities

Niall Ferguson
The Times
Tue, 04 Mar 2025 19:45 UTC
Lord Hague of Richmond, oxford university
© Joe Daniel Price/Getty; Eddie Keogh/GettyLord Hague of Richmond, chancellor of Oxford, warned of threats posed to free speech
With British institutions copying the likes of Harvard in stifling free speech, the only way back to reason is explicit guarantees for academic freedom

More, as Kingsley Amis foresaw in 1960, has meant worse. After years of rapid expansion, which have taken the proportions of young people in college to unprecedented heights, higher education is in crisis throughout the English-speaking world. On this side of the Atlantic, a significant number of universities are staring bankruptcy in the face. In real terms, funding is down by nearly a third since tuition fees were raised to £9,000 back in 2012. Four Russell Group universities — Cardiff, Durham, Newcastle and Sheffield — are laying off lecturers to try to balance their books.

On the other side of the pond, America's much wealthier colleges are on a collision course with the newly elected administration of Donald Trump — a collision they have brought upon themselves by years of overt left-wing political activism. Federal funding looks set to be slashed, the generous tax treatment of endowments to be challenged. And everywhere in the Anglophone world, students and recent graduates are weighed down by debt they incurred for degrees that employers view with scepticism — not to mention a double pandemic of mental ill-health and what Richard Dawkins called the woke "mind virus".
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Eye 2

Best of the Web: Prominent French LGBT activist arrested for raping handicapped 4-year-old girl, revealed as leader of pedophile ring

Genevieve Gluck
Reduxx
Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00 UTC
Pierre-Alain C
© Capture d'écran FacebookPierre-Alain C., then a candidate for La France insoumise, during the departmental election campaign in the canton of Ancenis (Loire-Atlantique), in June 2021.
A prominent LGBT activist who was recently arrested on charges that included the rape of a 4-year-old girl has been discovered to have organized a pedophile network in France. An investigation conducted by the Office of Minors (L'OFMIN), a newly-created branch of the French National Police, has uncovered a pedophile network that extends from the Loire-Atlantique region to Belgium.

Reporting on the revelations, Le Parisien neglected to name LGBT activist Pierre-Alain Cottineau as the leader of the criminal organization, choosing instead to refer to him as a "32 year-old family assistant in Loire-Atlantique."

Cottineau was well-known in Loire-Atlantique for his political activism, which included advocacy for the LGBT community, youth, and minority populations. In 2021, he stood for departmental elections under the banner of La France Insoumise (LFI), a left-wing political party that has a hard-line "zero-tolerance" policy on "sexist, racist, anti-Semitic or LGBTIphobic remarks or behavior" amongst its members.

Comment: This is truly disturbing. Lock him up and throw away the key.

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Star of David

Best of the Web: Making America Great Is All About Israel

Philip Giraldi
Unz Review
Thu, 27 Feb 2025 18:53 UTC
Brian Mast IDF uniform GOP meeting
Florida Congressman Brian Mast openly wears the uniform of the Israeli military to a GOP conference meeting October 13, 2023
It's the overwhelming sentiment in the White House and Congress

After Donald Trump began to pull together his cabinet and inner circle it became pretty clear that the overwhelming tie that bound the group together was its embrace of Israel and everything that it is doing. There were even jokes that the top cabinet officials had apparently been selected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel himself to reflect the fact that the Jewish state would be calling the shots for Trump even more than they did with the spineless Joe Biden. The handover of power was confirmed for all to see when Trump invited Netanyahu to the White House, the first foreign head of state to be so sanctified. While in Washington, a grinning Netanyahu was beguiled to learn of a crazy scheme to either kill or throw all the remaining Palestinians out of what was once Palestine and turn the ruins of Gaza into a high-end beach resort. Since that time, Trump has assured a delighted Netanyahu that no Palestinians would be allowed to return to visit what was once the site of their homes and communities.

So okay, those of us who had not yet learned to accept the occasional genocides carried out by Israel on its neighbors are now quickly learning to understand that the enabling role played by Joe Biden in the massacres of the Arabs was about to accelerate to a higher gear, which would include the clearing of the West Bank and incorporation of parts of Lebanon and Syria after the two million or so pesky Gazans are removed. Nevertheless, there were still some surprises to come and I must confess that some developments as well as recent comments made by Trump's team have been astonishing even if one expected the worst.
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Cult

Best of the Web: Pathocracy rising: How economic systems breed deviants

Harrison Koehli
Political Ponerology
Mon, 24 Feb 2025 19:42 UTC
Mikhail khazin book cover economics
The author and his latest book.
Khazin's economics and spreading liberalism, one coup at a time

Ilya Khotimsky was kind enough to send me summary of a book he translated: Russian economist Mikhail Khazin's Recollections of the Future: Modern Economic Ideas. (Khotimsky's summary is published here on SOTT.) I'm no economist, but a few of Khazin's ideas stood out to me. First, his book focuses on what Khazin calls "crises of capital effectiveness" (CCEs), examples of which include "the 1900s crisis of banking liquidity, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and the stagflation of the 1970s." The last one erupted in 2008, and these crises only end "when access to new markets [is] achieved."

Khazin argues that the current crisis cannot be resolved from within the existing economic model. The only two solutions are to retain the dollar-based system at the expense of losing the American industrial base, and recovering domestic manufacturing but dissolving the current global system.
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Snowflake

Best of the Web: Deepest snow in Japan passes 7 meters (23 feet)

Patrick Thorne
snow-forecast.com
Tue, 25 Feb 2025 13:32 UTC
nnnnnnn
The deepest snow stat being reported from Japan has now passed 7 metres (23 feet), the deepest reported by a ski area anywhere in the world for several years.

Tengendai Kogen Ski Area near Yonezawa City in Yamagata prefecture is posting the world's deepest snow at 7.2m (nearly 24 feet). At least seven more ski areas in Aomori, Gunma, Nagano and Niigata are reporting 6m/20 feet+ bases.

Japan's seriously snowy winter 24-25, with heavy snowfall continuing this week, is thought to be in part thanks to this winter's El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate system in the Pacific.

Things started well with Niseko having the best December in 68 years. Hakuba, one of the regions posting a 6m+ base at its Happo One ski area, has had absolutely phenomenal snowfall all winter.

Pictures from Ben Thorpe of Japan Ski Experience in Niseko.


Comment: Other heavy snowfall reports for the country in February:

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Snowflake

Best of the Web: Japanese ski resort receives staggering 3 meters of snow in 3 days


SkiAsia.com
Sat, 22 Feb 2025 13:44 UTC
A buried chairlift at Kagura Ski Resort on February 19, 2025.
A buried chairlift at Kagura Ski Resort on February 19, 2025.
Ski resorts in Yuzawa Town in Japan's Niigata prefecture have endured one of the most chaotic weeks in recent memory, with strong winds and heavy snowfalls burying chairlifts and forcing lift closures.

Kagura Ski Resort bore the brunt of the storms, reporting three metres of snow in just three days, forcing a total suspension of lift operations on Wednesday and Thursday and partial closures at other times.

GALA Yuzawa ski resort was closed for the day on Friday - the first time is has ever completely closed due to heavy snowfall, according to a post on Snow Japan.

A Facebook post from Kagura on February 20, which has now had more than 4,000 engagements, apologised for the interruption and pleaded with followers for their understanding.


Comment: Other heavy snowfall reports for the country in February:

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Gold Seal

Best of the Web: Hypernormalization

Simplicius
Dark Futura
Sat, 15 Feb 2025 00:00 UTC
cultural leitmotifs
In 2016, the BBC published a defining documentary by Adam Curtis titled Hypernormalisation. The term itself was taken from a Soviet scientist named Alexei Yurchak, who introduced it in his 2006 book, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, as a way of explaining the uncanny normalcy bias effect that had gripped Soviet citizens living amidst a decaying political system. More specifically:
He says everyone in the Soviet Union knew the system was failing, but no one could imagine any alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens alike were resigned to maintaining the pretense of a functioning society. Over time, the mass delusion became a self-fulfilling prophecy, with everyone accepting it as the new norm rather than pretend, an effect Yurchak termed hypernormalisation.
The definition of self-fulfilling prophecy can be viewed in the vein of Nick Land's hyperstition:
hyperstition (plural hyperstitions)

A cultural belief (especially a work of fiction) that makes itself real; a cultural self-fulfilling prophecy where some cultural idea or hype truly brings about the thing it describes.
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Better Earth

Best of the Web: Rebuilding ties, finding common ground, Ukraine peace negotiations: key takeaways from Russia-US talks in Riyadh


RT
Tue, 18 Feb 2025 22:05 UTC
lavrov rubio saudi
© Getty Images / RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTRY / HANDOUTRussian and US delegations meet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has described the meeting with the US delegation as "useful" as both sides look to re-establish contacts

Russia and the US have taken the first steps towards normalizing relations after an impasse which lasted years under the Joe Biden administration.

Delegations from Moscow and Washington met on Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss the restoration of diplomatic ties, future Ukraine peace talks, and an upcoming summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump.

The Russian team included Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, presidential aide Yury Ushakov, and Russian Direct Investment Fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev. Representing the United States were Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and special envoy Ambassador Steve Witkoff.

Here's what the sides said following the meeting, which lasted nearly 4.5 hours:
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Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Krakatoa Blows

James Howard Kunstler
kunstler.com
Mon, 17 Feb 2025 20:58 UTC
trump cbs interview kamala harris lawsuit
© AP Photo; Reuters Photo; Screenshots/CBS NewsPresident Trump's legal team expanded its lawsuit against CBS News after the release of the unedited transcript of the "60 Minutes" Kamala Harris interview.
You've got to wonder who at CBS-News thinks it's a good idea to quadruple down on mendacious grandstanding when the network faces a $20-billion lawsuit from Donald Trump — for assisting Kamala Harris's campaign (aka election interference) — while the FCC under new Commissioner Brendan Carr questions the network's license to operate on the grounds of "news distortion" and violation of the broadcast news fairness doctrine.

So, on Sunday night February 16, CBS's flagship news show, 60-Minutes, pitched a doubleheader of knowingly faked-up feature pieces intended to scramble American minds to benefit the Party of Chaos and its manager, the US Intel Blob. The first piece was a sob-story on how sad and unjust DOGE's deconstruction of the USAID money-laundering operation is. Yeah, boo-hoo. They interviewed several part-timers and consultants pretending to be long-term employees of the outfit. Complete horse-shit, and they knew it. What really matters is that a whole lot of bureaucrat grifters (and politicians) won't get paid anymore. . . and the Blob won't be able to soften-up faraway nations for plunder with its color revolutions and other hijinks.
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