Western Europe become ever-more-dependent on Russian gas

The New Neo Posted on by

Western Europe seems determined to ally itself with Russia:

Weeks after getting the European Union’s approval for a gas pipeline across the Baltic Sea, Russia is moving ahead with its plans to construct a new Black Sea pipeline into Western Europe. Moscow intends to extend the existing Turk Stream pipeline that links Russia and Turkey to supply Western Europe with gas, German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported…

The move will further strengthen Russia’s position as a geopolitical player in Europe. President Donald Trump has been critical of Germany over its dependence on Russian gas. “Germany, as far as I’m concerned, is captive to Russia because it’s getting so much of its energy from Russia,” he said during the NATO summit meeting last summer.

Currently, Russia amounts to 40 percent of gas import to Europe. This energy dependence is expected to grow further as Chancellor Angela Merkel moves ahead with a radical environmentalist agenda, phasing out all the existing coal and nuclear power stations in the country.

The German political establishment is deeply implicated in Moscow’s plans to expand its energy infrastructure westwards. Chancellor Merkel’s predecessor, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, is head of NordStream AG, the multi-billion dollar Russian company that owns the Russia-to-Germany pipeline.

While Berlin continues to entangle itself into Russian pipelines, it increasingly relies on Washington for its security needs.

Note Germany’s antipathy to nuclear power plants, although power plants are probably the cleanest efficient energy source today.

I don’t think that Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony…

The New Neo Posted on by

…was the longed-for silver bullet to kill the monster Trump.

I think it must be very frustrating for the left and the NeverTrumpers. If they truly believe the man is corrupt and an idiot (and I think that most of them do believe that), then why is he so difficult to dispatch? Why does he keep escaping from the traps they’ve set?

Well, one of their many problems is relying on someone like Michael Cohen to be believed. Of course, Trump made the mistake of relying on Cohen for a while. But back then, Trump was using Cohen for some rather dirty tasks, such as paying off people threatening lawsuits or salacious stories.

Now we learn that Cohen is in further trouble. His testimony may end up earning him additional criminal charges.

And then there’s this from Trump:

All in all, I think we can safely say that Cohen has been a disappointment to Trump’s opponents, whether they admit it or not.

AOC is making a list, checking it twice

The New Neo Posted on by

And threatening those who’ve been naughty not nice:

After more than two dozen moderate Democrats broke from their party’s progressive wing and sided with Republicans on a legislative amendment Wednesday, New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reportedly sounded the alarm in a closed-door meeting Thursday and said those Democrats were “putting themselves on a list.”

The legislation that prompted the infighting was a bill that would expand federal background checks for gun purchases, the Washington Post reported. But a key provision requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be notified if illegal immigrants attempt to purchase guns saw 26 moderate Democrats side with Republicans.

According to the Post, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi scolded her wayward center-leaning colleagues, telling them: “We are either a team or we’re not, and we have to make that decision.”

But Ocasio-Cortez reportedly took it a step further. She said she would help progressive activists unseat those moderates in their districts in the 2020 elections, the report said. Her spokesman Corbin Trent told the paper that she made the “list” comment during the meeting.

“She said that when activists ask her why she had to vote for a gun safety bill that also further empowers an agency that forcibly injects kids with psychotropic drugs, they’re going to want a list of names and she’s going to give it to them,” Trent said, referring to ICE.

There are at least three things about this story that I find of interest. The first is how it illustrates AOC’s sense of her great power. She’s a freshman House member, very freshman. But she’s not the least bit reluctant to threaten her seniors and the people who are supposedly fellow members of a party that would like to present a united front and often does present that front.

But it makes perfect sense that AOC would have no qualms about challenging any of them—and that even includes Pelosi (who on this particular occasion was also chiding the wayward members, but without the explicit threats to primary them). After all, AOC got her political start by primarying a man who was almost as powerful in the House as Pelosi, and winning. She knocked him off his high horse and never looked back. This takes remarkable and overwhelming self-confidence and assertiveness, and AOC has those things to spare. She is unafraid—that is, arrogant and swollen with pride at her accomplishments, as well as her huge popularity. This makes her extra-dangerous to more moderate Democrats, the few relics of that type who happen to remain in office.

It also makes AOC dangerous to the Democratic Party as a whole—if in fact she is miscalculating on the readiness of Democratic voters and of America to make a Great Leap Forward into Our Glorious Socialist Future.

The second thing the story illustrates is her ruthlessness. That’s somewhat related to the first characteristic, but somewhat separate as well. I don’t think any consideration of kindness or restraint would hold AOC back from doing whatever she found necessary politically or otherwise, and she would do it to fellow Democrats without batting an eye.

The third thing I noticed is embedded in this quote by AOC’s spokesperson: “She said that when activists ask her why she had to vote for a gun safety bill that also further empowers an agency that forcibly injects kids with psychotropic drugs, they’re going to want a list of names and she’s going to give it to them…”. Note the vague mention of “activists.” Who are these activists, and isn’t AOC one of them? Of course she is. But there are plenty more behind the scenes (for example, I have written a post about the Justice Democrats who have been promoting and advising AOC for quite some time). She is fully on board with them (and they with her) and is their telegenic frontwoman. And it is likely that there are other activist groups that she is tight with as well.

If you think about it, though, why would AOC have to give a list of this type to any leftist activist worth his or her salt? It’s not as though the way members of Congress voted on the bill is a secret. The list itself, and the handing over of the list, is just window-dressing. What she is really saying to these people is not about handing over a list; it is a warning that she and the Justice Democrats et al will unleash the activist kraken on them.

In one sense this is good. Who on the right doesn’t want to see the Democrats shoot themselves (metaphorically) in the foot? Only thing is—the damage depends on whether the growing number of leftist officeholders and would-be officeholders in the Party have overestimated the eagerness of the American public to elect them. It also depends on what else those leftist activists may have up their sleeves. I have no doubt that they are not just going to slink off into the sunset if AOC herself is primaried next time, and loses.

NOTE: For those who didn’t get the kraken reference, or just want to watch again:

Some #MeToo advocates get a wakeup call

The New Neo Posted on by

This is exactly why due process matters. It’s not just an altruistic abstraction. The crocodile may eat you and your loved ones last, but the crocodile will eat you because it’s insatiably hungry:

A few days ago, Lisa Borders, the CEO of Time’s Up, a group affiliated with the #MeToo movement to fight for victims of sexual harassment and abuse, resigned from her position. The reason was startling. Her son, Garry “Dijon” Bowden Jr., had been accused of groping a woman during a “healing session” in Santa Monica.

Borders didn’t step down as CEO because of embarrassment or proximity to someone accused. She stepped down because she is planning to vigorously defend her son, and this wouldn’t align well with the work of an organization that preaches zero tolerance for “discrimination, harassment or abuse.”

Or, in the words of Sir Thomas More:

No Korean deal

The New Neo Posted on by

For decades, North Korea has been an intractable problem. President after president, both Democratic and Republican, tried and failed to secure a deal that made sense, and yet deals that didn’t make sense were made.

Of course, I’m not sure what deal makes sense when you’re dealing with someone who is willing to break his word and is not dealing in good faith, as North Korea’s leaders (not just one, but two) have both been over many decades. My personal opinion is that Kim Jong-un will only make a bona fide deal if enough pressure (including economic pressure) is brought to bear on him by enough parties (including China) that he sees no alternative to a bona fide deal. And even then, who knows what lurks in the heart and mind of Kim Jong-un?

However, walking away from a deal that is really no deal at all is a necessary move, to show that North Korea is not just going to automatically get the lopsided deal that it wants.

“It was about the sanctions,” Trump said. Pompeo expressed optimism that they would ultimately reach a deal, as did Trump. They are now headed back to the United States.

Here’s Trump’s press conference:

Thinking about history

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: There’s been a lot of arrogance and ignorance about history lately, particularly from the “woke” crowd. Which makes me think that a repeat of this old post might be in order right about now.]

I’ve just spent a fruitless hour trying to find the source from which I’d copied the following Allan Bloom quote some time ago. Somehow I’d lost the link, and now I can’t find it again.

But I thought I’d present the quote anyway because—like so much of Bloom’s oeuvre—it shows his uniquely facile mind and brilliant observations.

It was from an audio recording of a lecture that Bloom had given back in (to the best of my recollection, anyway) the mid-1980s. I had tried to transcribe it faithfully, complete with hesitations and idiosyncrasies and audience reaction. Bloom—whom I’ve written about before several times, mostly in the context of discussing his wonderful and highly-recommended book The Closing of the American Mind, was a professor of philosophy for most of his life. He was exceedingly familiar with the outlook of university students, primarily in America but also in Europe. Note that what he said back then describes trends that have only intensified since:

You know, we’ve all read history. Everybody, you know, world history, and weren’t all past ages maaaad? There were slaves, there were kings—I don’t think there’s a single student who reads the history of England and doesn’t say that that was crazy. You know “that’s wonderful, you gotta know history, and be open to things and so on,” but they’re not open to those things because they know that that was crazy. I mean, the latest transformation of history is as a history of the enslavement of women, which means to say that it was all crazy—up till now.

Our historical knowledge is really a history which praises, ends up praising, ourselves—how much wiser [voice drips with sarcasm] we are, how we have seen through the errors of the past…Hegel already knew this danger of history, of the historical human being, when he said that every German gymnasium professor teaches that Alexander the Great conquered the world because he had a pathological love of power. And the proof that the teacher does not have a pathological love of power is that he has not conquered the world. [laughter] We have set up standards of normalcy while speaking of cultural relativism, but there is no question that we think we understand what cultures are, and what kind of mistakes they make.

Bloom was not a cultural relativist; he believed it was a pernicious influence that had taken over American education. Time has proven him correct, hasn’t it?

AOC says Trump’s wall is like the Berlin Wall

The New Neo Posted on by

Of course it is. Isn’t that obvious?

They both are walls. They both are high. They both are strong. They both have towers with guards ready to shoot anyone who—okay, scratch that.

They both are built to imprison the people of the country that constructed them—okay, scratch that, too.

Here’s what AOC said:

I think it’s [Trump’s proposed border wall] a moral abomination… I think it’s like the Berlin Wall. I think it’s like any other wall designed to separate human beings and block out people who are running away from the humanitarian disasters. I just think it’s wrong.

I wonder whether AOC thinks the locks on her door are a moral abomination. After all, many of the people who might try to get in without her permission are probably poor or otherwise suffering in some way. Who is AOC to keep them out?

AOC is hardly alone in her argument; it’s actually quite popular on the left, and has been heard long before AOC burst on the scene. And yes, it would be nice to have endless compassion for every suffering human being in the world and mend their broken lives, whether they are in fact dealing with “humanitarian disasters” or not (poverty and leftism in Latin America is certainly a disaster, but it’s one that AOC would like to inflict on all of us).

We don’t have the power to mend the lives of every human in the world, of course. And as a country we (just like AOC with the locks on her doors) have not only a right but a duty to make decisions about who comes into our house, why, and in what numbers. That’s what legal immigration is all about.

And that is most definitely not what the Berlin Wall was about. One doesn’t have to know much history to know that. AOC is either ignorant of the barest basics of history, or she thinks that her constituents are ignorant, or both (yeah, yeah, the old knave/fool question). But don’t imagine that her argument falls on deaf ears. Many people—mainly young, perhaps, but not limited to the young—are indeed just that ignorant.

[NOTE: A post on a related subject can be found here.]

Trump and North Korea: the meeting as a distraction

The New Neo Posted on by

Actually, if you go to the CNN article that Adams is referencing, you’ll see that its author Julian Zelizer (political analyst for CNN) isn’t really contending that Trump is going to the meeting in order to distract us from convicted perjurer Cohen’s testimony, despite the headline that would appear to indicate that it’s the case (a headline which was probably written by someone else, as headlines often are—but someone who certainly knows that a lot of people just read headlines and not articles).

Zelizer’s propaganda is actually rather subtle. He wonders whether Trump’s North Korea meeting in Vietnam will be enough to distract us from not just the Cohen hearings but the entire brouhaha that Democrats have been pushing since day one with the goal of either impeaching Trump or assuring his defeat in 2020. In writing about that, he is somehow raising the importance of things like the Cohen hearings over the North Korea situation, one that has plagued so many previous presidents for decades, has been resistant to anything even remotely resembling a solution, and is of vast geopolitical importance.

He extends this metaphor by talking at length about Nixon’s Watergate scandal, threatened impeachment, and subsequent resignation, and balancing it all against Nixon’s foreign policy successes that didn’t save him from having to resign. Now, some people might read that and consider it a tragedy, thinking about what followed Nixon’s resignation in terms of the course of foreign affairs. Others rejoice at what happened to Nixon, and some of those see what’s happening with Trump right now to be some sort of equivalent to Nixon’s actions regarding Watergate, and worthy of the same or worse end.

Democrats keep hoping, hoping, hoping for the smoking gun against Trump. If not Cohen, then someone else. If not today, then tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And everything else—every single achievement of Trump’s—is merely a distraction from that.

[NOTE: At present, the photo at the top of Zelizer’s CNN article is of three equal-sized headshots in a row (I think that the photos periodically have been changing to a video and then back again, but I’m describing the photos). The first is of Trump, the second of Kim Jong-un of North Korea, and the third of Michael Cohen. Co-equal in size and importance.]

On telling a patient a dementia diagnosis

The New Neo Posted on by

I was initially startled when I clicked on a link to this New Yorker article and discovered that, although it’s in a brand new issue, it’s written by Oliver Sacks. I have long been a Sacks fan (in addition to a Sox fan), but I’m well aware that he died some time ago (2015). Does the New Yorker hold its non-political pieces for that long prior to publication?

The article itself is short, but treats the very interesting topic of whether doctors should tell dementia patients their diagnoses, and under what conditions:

If there is a serious, perhaps life-threatening or life-altering condition, what should one tell the patient, and when? How should one tell the patient? Should one tell the patient? Every situation is unique, but, for the most part, patients want to know the truth, however dire it is. They want to hear it delivered with tact, though, and with a sense, if not of hope, then at least of how such life as they have left can be lived in the most dignified, fulfilling way.

Such telling assumes a whole other order of complexity when a patient has a form of dementia, for here one is intimating a sentence not only of death but of mental decline, confusion, and, finally, to some degree, loss of self.

When I was a child, patients were not routinely told their diagnoses for terminal illnesses like cancer. The idea was that it would only destroy their quality of life and since there weren’t many effective treatments it also wouldn’t do any good. Yes, it would help them get their affairs in order, but other than that the benefits seemed small compared to the drawbacks.

That all changed many many decades ago. Now, with the internet and many more types of treatment that can extend life (or even at times perform what amounts to a cure), patients not only are told their diagnoses but can do enough research to deluge a doctor with facts or even “alternate facts.” Some patients opt out of knowing that much; it’s a personal decision. But just about everybody is told the news, complete with percentages and/or chances for short- as well as long-term survival, and choices for treatment. It sometimes can be overwhelming, although my guess is that most patients are in favor of truth-telling in these sorts of circumstances.

But a diagnosis of progressive dementia such as Alzheimer’s is in a different class. For some people, it may even be more terrifying than a diagnosis of a terminal illness would be, for exactly the reasons that Sacks states. For example, I know a couple of people whose reaction on being told they had cancer (in one case, rapidly terminal cancer) whose reactions were to crack the mordant joke, “Well, at least now I know I won’t get Alzheimer’s.” That how frightening the latter is. And I know two people with a dementia diagnosis—one probably Alzheimer’s, one just mild cognitive impairment that may or may not ever get worse—and it’s shaken their lives, lives that were already shaken by the problems they were having that led to their diagnoses in the first place.

I don’t have a solution. But my own rather bleak observation is that if it’s really a progressive dementia situation, the person will eventually end up forgetting his or her diagnosis even if told. Of course, in the meantime (which can be years and years and years) does that person want to be under the cloud of the diagnosis or not? Again, there’s the advantage of getting enough warning to put one’s affairs in order, but otherwise, until better treatments develop, I just don’t think it likely that it would help most people to be told, although I am virtually certain that individual differences in reactions abound.

Such a sorrowful and difficult topic.

[NOTE: The Sacks article also discusses the importance of a familiar setting and familiar role in orienting dementia patients, with some fascinating examples.]

Michael Cohen testifies

The New Neo Posted on by

I didn’t watch it, because (a) I’ve been very busy today (b) I’m not an auditory person and prefer reading to hours of listening, and (c) Michael Cohen is an untrustworthy witness.

As for (c), it doesn’t mean that everything Michael Cohen says is a lie. It merely means that the man will say whatever he thinks he needs to say in order to help himself and/or to hurt those at whom he’s angry or against whom he wants revenge.

You can find live blogging of the hearing at Legal Insurrection.

Those who hate Trump will try to elevate Cohen’s anti-Trump testimony to the level of revealed truth. Those who don’t, won’t. Cohen is about to go to prison for perjury, among other things. He has plenty of motivation to lie and plenty of willingness to do so, as well as plenty of practice at it.

Something’s going on between India and Pakistan

The New Neo Posted on by

And it’s not the least bit friendly:

Pakistan says it has shot down two Indian military jets and captured a pilot in a major escalation between the nuclear powers over Kashmir.

India said it had lost one MiG-21 fighter and demanded the immediate and safe return of its pilot.

Pakistani PM Imran Khan said the two sides could not afford a miscalculation with the weapons they had…

They have fought three wars since independence from Britain and partition in 1947. All but one were over Kashmir.

“The latest trend in dieting is not dieting”…

The New Neo Posted on by

…says the title of this Atlantic article. Aside from its Zen koan-like contradiction, the title is a little bit misleading—if, like me, you’re old enough to remember that “intuitive eating” as a diet strategy has been around for many decades. Somewhere (I know not where; perhaps in my ex-husband’s voluminous library of the old books I didn’t want?) there is an old diet book on the subject. To the best of my recollection it’s about three decades old—and that sort of time frame for the diet trend of intuitive eating is actually acknowledged in the article many paragraphs in.

So it may be the latest trend, but it’s an old trend in dieting:

Both Tribole and Bahr [advocates of intuitive eating as a non-diet diet] find that in the first week or two, new adherents of intuitive eating do sometimes binge on the things they had always tried to skip. But the two researchers say the vast majority of their clients quickly habituate to burgers or donuts and then crave the variety and nutrition represented by the “healthy” foods they once used as punishment.

“Vast majority”? I very much doubt it. I tried it long ago, and I never stopped wanting to binge on forbidden foods. The non-diet diet requires (or at least, required past tense; I haven’t read its new iterations) an enormous dedication to following rules, although the rules were different than the usual ones. I’m doing this from memory, but the eater had to decide whether he or she was hungry or just wanted to eat, what degree of hunger was present, and what his or her body wanted as opposed to his or her mind and/or emotions.

I never mastered it, and I didn’t know a single person who did. And sorry, even most dogs will overeat if the food is available, and I doubt they have a concept of “forbidden” for treats. Although who knows—maybe they pick up on our messages about what foods are especially yummy.

From the article:

The theory is that if you can have pizza whenever you want, it feels less essential to eat it until you’re uncomfortable when the opportunity presents itself, or to seek out the opportunity at all. Telling yourself you can’t have something, meanwhile, gives it undue power and allure.

Nope; didn’t work that way. Telling yourself you can have all the pizza you want is almost impossible to believe, because you know you can’t. You know that you can’t keep eating pizza indefinitely, although some people might like to, and not just because it’s forbidden. The intuitive diet requires that you disbelieve what you’ve believed for most of your life, and somehow trick yourself into thinking lots of pizza is just fine, and then realize it’s really not pizza that you want.

As it is, I happen to like healthful foods anyway, and eat them often. I don’t eat much junk. But I still crave it, and I still would like to lose ten pounds.

[NOTE: Puleeeze folks, let’s not get into the old Taubes low-carb solution. I’ve discussed many many times how that approach backfired on me. I’m in a hurry and don’t have the time to link to those posts, but a search on the blog for something like “carbohydrate” or “Atkins” or “Taubes” might get you there.]