Baffled European

Category: Winning hearts and minds

  • Racists are just idiots

    It’s time to take a stand against racism. The president signed an orange order back in February to address a brewing humanitarian crisis. This is the atrocious way that some whites have lost out in South Africa.

    It breaks the heart. To see these fine specimens, descendants of the great Aryan race, reduced to their present state of online influencers and lifestyle coaches. To make amends for this historical slight, the USA is chartering a jet to fly 49 across the Atlantic, where they can go back to the good old days of blacks being second-class citizens.

    The South African government treats this as the silly political point-scoring that it is. But freedom of choice and all that – they can go if they want to. Probably it will be a relief that they no longer have to deal with a bunch of pampered whiners.

    OK, I have a couple of questions.

    First, why is this necessary in the first place? These people are obviously racially superior. Their pure Nordic stock is clear to all who see them. So why are they doing so badly? Why doesn’t their race simply raise them above the subhumans around them?

    Second, since the US government is explicitly recognising the evils of racial discrimination, why don’t they stop being immensely racist in all their other policies?

    Can’t complain too much. They can make themselves look stupid and squander money. Go ahead.

  • Pope Innocent XLVII

    JD Vance was the last visitor that Pope Francis received, so he should really be prime suspect for the latter’s death shortly afterwards. There’s no evidence for any wrongdoing, of course, but a one-way trip to El Salvador seems appropriate for a crime like this.

    Now there is the idea that the president should be the next pope. Some bootlickers, Lindsay Graham prominent among them, suggested that it would be ideal to combine the Papacy with President of the United States. When asked, the president himself said “I’d like to be pope. That would be my number one choice”.

    All very silly and you could pass it off as a joke of some sort, albeit a joke with no obvious setup or punchline. But now he posts an AI picture of himself dressed as Pontifex Maximus. If this genuinely is a joke, I’ve really lost the thread by now.

    Catholic bishops don’t find it funny anyway: “There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President. We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.”

    It’s so annoying that the administration consists entirely of trolls and edgelords. They throw out random insults, lolcats and memes, then move on. Don’t care. In the past they would have been banned for this nonsense, but it’s too late for that.

  • Holiday in Cambodia

    Two 19 year old German women decided to take a trip to Hawaii. A day later, after being strip-searched and interrogated for hours, they were deported back to Germany. Appalling, of course, but at least it’s not El Salvador.

    This sort of thing has been going on since the start of the new administration, but is not letting up. As a result, the number of visitors from Europe to the USA has dropped by 30%. Still more Canadians are avoiding the country: they’ve been threatened with annexation as well.

    It’s obviously a bad thing for the tourist industry, which looks to be in big trouble if this continues into the summer. By coincidence, the effects of the trade war should hit at the same time.

    I think I’ve worked out the strategy.

    There are 12 million people working in tourism. Hotels, shopping, events, guides and so on. At the same time, there is a shortage of people to staff the new factories. Sewing machines, welding, assembly, packaging, that sort of thing.

    If the new factories are all ready in time, and if they manage to sort out the supply chain problems, these extra workers will come in handy. Provided their skills are transferrable, and maybe also if they are in the right location. Could work.

    Maybe this is what the president means when he says the tourism collapse is “not a problem”. He’s looking forward to the new tourist resort in Gaza.

  • Vladimir, STOP!

    The Art Of The Deal. A book that was not written, or even read, by the man named as its author. Despite this, he enjoys a reputation for being a deal-maker. People must be listening to what he says about his great business successes and believing him.

    A notorious boast was about achieving peace in Ukraine within 24 hours. Three months in and the USA has finally negotiated a peace deal. They have found the best way to do this is to only talk to Russia and agree a modern-day Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but not secret.

    A senior Russian general was blown up in a car bomb in Moscow earlier today, which is presumably Ukraine’s answer to the proceedings.

    The EU and NATO have also rejected the terms. This is what happens when you don’t include all major stakeholders in the negotiations. So it is a non-starter and a big waste of everybody’s time.

    What next? Presumably, the USA will abandon the whole process and blame Ukraine, the EU, the woke mind virus or anything. The result is that we are exactly where we were before the master negotiator took over, but that the USA has now made itself look extremely foolish in front of the whole world. It has alienated its friends and allies, while demonstrating its weakness to everybody else.

    Maybe they will have more luck with the trade war they have started with China. Useless, they are, utterly useless.

  • Life hacks

    I put some shelves up over the weekend. Years ago, I discovered the best way to do this is to not bother measuring anything. Just put a couple of marks on a spirit level and drill holes according to those. Everything is always the same distance apart, as well as level. There has to be limits to how far this method goes, but it is so easy, there’s nothing to go wrong.

    Canadians have developed a similarly idiot-proof way to boycott USA goods in shops. One conscientious person checks a product for the country of origin. If it is the USA, they put it back on the shelf, but upside down. Everybody who comes along afterwards can see the upside down product and not buy it. They all know the code.

    It is all getting a good response across the country. The backsliding and stupidity south of the border is bad enough, but somehow expected. The threats of annexation are worse. All of this is pushing Canadians together. A massive 85% of the population now describes itself as being “proud” to be Canadian. That’s even higher in Quebec, of all places.

    This wave of nationalism is notably different from that south of the border. Maga is driven by imagined resentments and a sense of exceptionalism. Canadians are under no illusions about their own power, but want to engage with like-minded others, in order to assert their independence.

    Meanwhile, the USA loses power and influence.

  • Did they use AI for this?

    I’m starting to understand the purge of academics in USAian universities. The regime is not interested in anything they have to say. So why pay for them?

    The new tariffs were announced today. A seemingly random set of numbers, all with huge increases. It didn’t take long to work out what was going on. They have taken the total trade with each country, divided it by the trade deficit with the USA and set this percentage as the new tariff. Essentially, they have converted the US trade deficit into a tax on US citizens.

    Why stop at that point? If tariffs are so good, why not set them at 1000%?

    A few countries have been spared, such as Russia, Belarus and North Korea. For most countries, there is a flat rate of 10%, including the Heard Islands, which are uninhabited, except for penguins. They’ve also hit Diego Garcia, a US naval base, with the same tariff.

    It’s not merely the idiotic policy, but the way they are pursing it. Resentment about countries “cheating” and “victimising” the USA. Vietnam is one of these countries, but all of South East Asia is being clobbered by a policy designed to drive everybody into the arms of China.

    An incredible quote by SoS Howard Lutnick, who said the EU “hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak.” How can anybody say stuff as stupid as this?

    These people are lunatics.

  • You’re unwelcome!

    The USAians don’t want people visiting their country. There have been a number of cases recently of Europeans and Canadians being “disappeared” by the US border police. Taken by ICE agents and locked in a cell for a couple of weeks without access to lawyers or the outside world. A French scientist was refused entry to the country because he had been critical of the baby in charge. At least one USAian has also been caught up in the fun.

    Presumably this is the new regime sending a message that they’ve been a soft touch for too long and they aren’t going to be nobody’s pussy no more, no sir.

    At any rate, this new policy is already having an effect. People are being scared away. Scientists are cancelling their attendance at conferences, for example. That’s the immediate response. It’s likely that some future conferences won’t even be held in the USA because of the paranoia and xenophobia.

    So they’ve succeeded in their aims of isolating the USA further. What happens next? Does the USA remain a world leading place for business, science and culture? Does the rest of the world accept this maltreatment and continue to look up to the USA as a role model?

    I suspect the USAians think that there will be no negative consequences to their actions at all. I’m sceptical. We’ll have to wait and see if this new approach is a success.