An unlikely mix of the sacred and profane: Porcaro has priests and incense and holy water but also AC/DC, studded leather, piercings, and tattoos

…on the occasion of the Assumption, the Catholic celebration of the Virgin Mary’s ascent to heaven … [the] festival of the Madonna of the Bikers, which organizers promote as the largest motorcycle “pilgrimage” in France — there are few aspirants to the title — attracted nearly 10,000 motorcyclists from across Europe … to [Brittany's] soggy wheat fields of Porcaro, population 650

writes the New York Times' Scott Sayare.

It was an unlikely mix of what Roman Catholic Bretons call the “sacred and profane”; many came to pray, many to carouse, a surprising number to do both.

There were priests and incense and holy water and much solemnity and prayer, but also AC/DC and studded leather, body piercings and tattoos and, beginning well before noon and lasting well into the night, the consumption of prodigious quantities of alcohol.

…The program [in the “French bikers’ capital”] features two Masses, the blessing of the bikes, and a 45-mile “pilgrimage” ride through the fields and dark forests of central Brittany, in addition to several non-denominational rock concerts and ample supplies of beer and wine.

…“There are never too many problems,” [Marine] Perrichot said, recalling with a laugh when a gentleman rode his motorcycle into the ground-level barroom several years ago. “We can’t complain,” she said. “They’re all adorable.”

…“The essential thing for me, as a priest — as a biker-priest — is to show this community that God is close to them,” said Father Audrain, who rides a BMW F 800 ST and has helped coordinate the Madonna of the Bikers since 2007. “My work, in the first place, is about making God seem all right, and making the church seem all right.”

“It’s tricky,” he noted.

The Peoples’ Republic of Cheech and Chong

Not Getting your Bong Hits?

Then you need more Europe, not less Europe. That’s what it’s for, man.

Thousands of “drug tourists” sweep into this small, picturesque city in the southeastern part of the Netherlands every day — as many as two million a year, city officials say. Their sole purpose is to visit the city’s 13 “coffee shops,” where they can buy varieties of marijuana with names like Big Bud, Amnesia and Gold Palm without fear of prosecution.

It is an attraction Maastricht and other Dutch border cities would now gladly do without. Struggling to reduce traffic jams and a high crime rate, the city is pushing to make its legalized use of recreational drugs a Dutch-only policy, banning sales to foreigners who cross the border to indulge. But whether the European Union’s free trade laws will allow that is another matter.

If open borders means anything, it means no seeds and twigs

The case, now wending its way through the courts, is being closely watched by legal scholars as a test of whether the European Court of Justice will carve out an exception to trade rules — allowing one country’s security concerns to override the European Union’s guarantee of a unified and unfettered market for goods and services.

Buds being a “human rights” thing, the way everything is these days...:

In recent years, crime in Maastricht, a city of cobblestone lanes and medieval structures, has included a shootout on the highway, involving a Bulgarian assassin hired to kill a rival drug producer.
Mr. Leers used to call the possibility of banning sales to foreigners a long shot. But last month, Maastricht won an early round. The advocate general for the European Court of Justice, Yves Bot, issued a finding that “narcotics, including cannabis, are not goods like others and their sale does not benefit from the freedoms of movement guaranteed by European law.”

Mr. Leers called the ruling “very encouraging.” Coffee shop owners saw it differently.
“There is no way this will hold up,” said John Deckers, a spokesman for the Maastricht coffee shop owners’ association. “It is discrimination against other European Union citizens.”

So it’s ‘completely legal, taxed, and regulated’ and people still shoot each other over it. I though that fumez le shit was supposed to lead us into a healthy, child-friendly, crime free “promised land” where police resources aren’t wasted.

It’s not like they’re doing this for recreation or anything. It’s like “medical”, and goed with coffee and cheetos, and peanut butter, and... and... and y’know, they’re working on getting insurance to cover it.

I Want Your Money

I want your money…

One Difference Between America's Oil Spill and Chile's Mine Collapse

Offhand, and apart from being disasters, America's oil spill and Chile's mine collapse couldn't be more different. Especially the following: it seems that, compared with BP, the mining company that employed the trapped miners has a truly and undeniable safety record that can only be called shoddy ("Three people have died at its mines over the past six years, and the company clocked up 42 fines from mining watchdogs"). In spite of that, AOL's Theunis Bates has this to say:

San Esteban's owners have said it is too early to blame them for the accident. "Now is not the time to point fingers or ask for pardons," said Alejandro Bohn, joint owner of the mining company, according to The Daily Telegraph.

"Now is not the time to point fingers or ask for pardons". That is San Esteban Primera (i.e., the culprit, one from whom you might expect such a statement) speaking, not the country's president or government or, indeed, anyone independent but, still and so far, that seems a far cry than what we heard from Barack Obama's White House after BP's oil spill…

"The Peasants are Revolting!"

On the Basic Concept of "The Revolt of the Masses"

Luís Afonso Assumpção, a mechanical engineer in Porto, and part time sage looks at those that call themselves “radical” in this world, and finds no radical novelty in their thinking, that there is something about them that has never changed, and that there is something akin to a personalization of drama in their actions , but also a consistent laziness and incapacity to deal with life’s challenges.

The Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset wrote in the first half of the twentieth century (before the Second World War!) A fundamental study to understand what we call "modernity", or a personal description-my-"the intellectual decay as counterpoint to the material and scientific progress. "

It’s called "The Revolt of the Masses"
The edition I have in hand (Portuguese), on page 80 summarizes the fundamental thinking of the brilliant Spanish:

"Everything that follows (note: in the book) is a consequence or corollary of this radical structure could be summarized thus: the world organized by the nineteenth century, to automatically produce a new man, give him a formidable appetites, powerful tools of all kinds to meet them: economic, physical (hygiene, health, better than any time before), civil and technical (the tremendous rise in practical efficiency that the average man lacked in the past) . After introducing him all these powers in the nineteenth century but abandoned him at the same, the average man following his natural character, ended up looking inward. Thus, we find ourselves with a mass stronger that of any other time, but, unlike the traditional, tightly closed in and incapable of dealing with anything or anyone else - in short, restless. The things continue like this, Each day you will notice more across Europe - and, as a reflection in the world - that the masses are unable to leave and drive in any direction.

During difficult times that approach for our continent, it is possible that, seized by suddenly anxiety, we enough good will to deal with pressing matters in the direction of modesty.

But this willingness will fail because because the texture of the radical’s soul is inward and brooding. Because they lack the will and the instincts to deal with real problems in front of them, so they won’t. They will want to follow someone, but will not. They will want to hear other opinions, only to discover that they are deaf. "

In short, the reason they seem like losers, and always have, is because those who call themselves “radicals” are, especially when they do it from a position of attention seeking and do it in the same robotic way so many others have.

Think Green and Fuzzy

Even the proponents must get it at this point… it must say something to them when they finally realize that any initiative they believe to be socially positive must necessarily start with not juts the government, but the highest, most centralized part of the government sucking some more capital out of the economy.

Case in point. It could be dateline anywhere, and has little to do with the real value of the necessity being taxed.

Meanwhile “green” levies, that account for around half the average bill, are expected to increase to fund Government energy efficiency schemes and a new wave of “clean” power stations.

ALREADY half. You capiche?

He said: “For every 1% increase in prices, another 40,000 households find themselves in fuel poverty. The Government and suppliers must do more.”

At which time they then need a handwringing politio or Quangonista saying that something must be done for them, and proposes some measure managed at the top of government that will suck more capital out of the economy.

Because it’s for the children, you heartless cretins. Didn’t you know that children are the future? Hate is NOT a family value, etc., etc. Here, make some of your own:

Sarkozy and Sarközi: France's Gypsy-Expelling President and Austria's Gypsy King

It's hardly Thomson and Thompson (Dupont & Dupond) from Hergé's Tintin series, but still, with Nicolas Sarkozy engaged in expelling a number of Romanian Gypsies, Joëlle Stolz points out in Le Monde that the French president shares something with Vienna's Gypsy king (a former garbage collector), namely his name.

Hormis les syllabes d'origine hongroise de leur nom et un goût affirmé pour la politique, ils n'ont pas grand-chose en commun : l'un, Nicolas Sarkozy, est chef de l'Etat français, et glabre ; l'autre, Rudolf Sarközi, visage rond et fières moustaches grisonnantes, n'est que conseiller d'arrondissement à Vienne, où il a travaillé jadis comme éboueur. Il est aussi le porte-parole le plus connu en Autriche de la communauté rom…

Ce "voïvode" peut-il avoir une lointaine parenté avec la famille hongroise de Nicolas Sarkozy – version francisée de Sarközy –, anoblie en 1626 par l'empereur d'Autriche ? "Qui sait ?", se demande Rudolf Sarközi, qui note que ce patronyme est typiquement rom : "Certains, dans un souci d'intégration, l'ont même abandonné de crainte d'être stigmatisés."

Let's listen to Yaron Matras, an expert on the Roma and a linguistics professor at the University of Manchester in England, where he coordinates the Romani Project: A Q&A on a Mysterious People

And their By Lines come straight from the Office of the Propagation of the Faith

They Appear Entirely Incapable of Irony or Synthesis

As if you couldn’t predict what opinions Spiegel would cherry-pick as being a “unanimity” of opinion in the German press without even knowing what the issue is, we find a strange dichotomous set of articles on their website appearing simultaneously.

On one hand, they honor Sir Winston Churchill for defying a dictator.

A Man Who Loved Danger and Sought Out Adventure

Churchill had killed people in battle as a young man, but he was not particularly struck by the experience. "Nothing in history was ever settled except by wars," the bellicose Churchill believed. He loved danger and sought out adventure. Even when he was in his sixties, as prime minister, he would stand on the roof of a government building in London during German air raids to observe the murderous spectacle from above, while his cabinet ministers fled into the bomb shelters.

And it was good... On the other we find vilification of George Bush for defying a dictator. They start channeling Benno Ohnesorg again, and any other dead flunky that can prop up their argument.

The left-leaning Die Tageszeitung writes:

"The Anglo-American war in Iraq and the subsequent occupation was a severe breach of international law. The collected justifications by the Bush and Blair governments for the war were lies from the beginning. A later attempted justification was the deposing of Saddam Hussein, a dictator who the West and the Soviet Union had backed in the late 70s and armed for his war against the Islamic revolutionary regime in neigboring [sic] Iran."

Indeed...

Hitler berated his rival as a "lunatic," "paralytic" and "world arsonist." Churchill shot back, calling Hitler a "wicked man," the "monstrous product of former wrongs and shame" and said that "Europe will not yield itself to Hitler's gospel of hatred." It soon became clear that the loser in this duel would pay with his life.

Much as the German press did of President George Bush, but then again, who’s to make comparison, other than, say, unceasing irrelevant ones to the Vietnam War, which in any event was a proxy war with the Chinese that the press at that time refused to see.

But we all know that they’re too sophisticated, too intelligent, too worldly to make that sort of shallow comparison.

The Unnecessary Fall of the Apologizer-in-Chief: A counter-history of the Obama presidency

There is no doubt that, if the economy were growing faster, and if unemployment were dropping below 9 percent, Obama and the Democrats would be more popular and not fearing a November rout.

On the left, The New Republic's John R Judis has written a damning (if sympathetic) indictment of Barack Obama's way of governing, a screed that so appalled and infuriated his fellow leftists that the senior editor of The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace — "a man of the left" — has had to pen a defense of the article.

I have been accused of being “hysterical” and “ahistorical,” of glorifying Ronald Reagan, of “moving away from” my “previously clear-eyed stance on the primary source of Obama's troubles,” and of relying on the same “white-working-class Theory of Everything” I have been “peddling … ever since summer 2008.” And that’s just in public. Privately, the criticism has been far more withering and has included words far too incendiary to print in a family magazine. But I’ve spent a lot of time considering some of the (quite thought-provoking and reasonable) counter-arguments to my piece, and I’d like to take the opportunity to respond to them here.

France Punishes Villains of Its World Cup Fiasco

France attempted on Tuesday to draw a line under the national team’s disgraceful departure from the World Cup in June

writes Rob Hughes in the International Herald Tribune.

A disciplinary commission of the French Football Federation, or F.F.F., banned one player, the 31-year-old striker Nicolas Anelka for 18 matches, virtually ending his international playing career.

“We wanted Anelka’s sanction to set an example,” said Jean Mazzella, the disciplinary commission president.

The committee also suspended the team captain Patrice Evra for five games, the vice captain Franck Ribéry for three, and one other player, Jérémy Toulalan, for one.

No action was announced against Raymond Domenech, the team coach at the center of the drama. Jean-Pierre Escalettes had already resigned his role as the head of the federation after the heavy governmental demands for “heads to roll.”

…The whole controversy sparked a national debate that raised issues of immigration, racism and national pride.

The only “Impending Catastrophe” will be in their Spiderman Underoos

We have long ago heard about the swindle that permitted Germany to use the collapse of the industries of the DDR as a crutch in the fake carbon-emission sainthood contest, but the extent to which it was employed by the rest of Europe is stunning. They managed to rig up a situation where they were under roughly the same, if not better obligations in the arena of new-chastity, than underdeveloped countries.

On closer inspection, Germany thus got off with what is in fact a remarkably light emissions reduction “burden.” Thanks to the sharing of the German emissions windfall, other members of the EU-15 were let off the hook altogether.

For instance, France. In his victory speech in May 2007, president-elect Nicolas Sarkozy lectured the United States on the fight against “global warming.” “A great nation like the United States has the obligation not to obstruct the struggle against global warming,” Sarkozy intoned, “but, on the contrary, should take the lead in this combat, since what is at stake is the fate of all humanity.” It was easy for him to say. Many commentators have noted that France covers by far the greater part of its electricity needs with nuclear power and hence has only a limited dependence on fossil fuels. Less well known, however, is the fact that under the EU “bubble” arrangement France has no obligation to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions at all. It is only supposed to hold them steady at 1990 levels.

Using any cheap “exceptionalism” as a scarlet letter against the erst of civilization is nothing new to Europeans. After all, this helpless, pitiful giant needs some source of pride. Why not then, after all, invent a myth about your superiority? What? They’ve never don’t that before?

All told, seven of the 15 EU member states forming part of the EU “bubble” have no emissions reduction requirement. Five members of this group are indeed permitted to increase their emissions. Greece, for example, is permitted to increase its emissions by 25 percent; Portugal by 27 percent. According to the European Environmental Agency’s 2009 report on “Greenhouse gas emission trends,” of the eight EU-15 members that accepted reduction tar-gets, only Germany and the U.K. are on track to meet them.

Strangely enough it was convenient to identify themselves in the victimhood affirming tomes that they’re familiar with the cast themselves as a set of loose, unconnected, near third-world countries. It sort of makes the otherwise vile sounding bravado about being the big, huge, superpower, wave o’ the future sort of silly – after all, it’s an equally pathetic and implausible notion.

As for the 12 current EU member states that were still just candidates for EU membership at the time of Kyoto’s adoption, these countries got even better deals. Cyprus and Malta were simply left out of Annex I. The other countries, all of them “post-Communist” Eastern European states, were assigned reduction targets of either 6 percent or 8 percent. But they were classified as “Economies in Transition” and as such permitted to opt for a year other than 1990 as their base year or to use the average over a period of years.
The choice of 1990 was already sufficiently advantageous for many of these countries, but, unsurprisingly, some of them opted to employ a base year or period upstream of 1990 when their still Communist-era industries were pumping out the maximum amount of CO2. It is thus likewise no surprise that almost all of these countries will meet their targets without any difficulty. Miceal O’Ronain has calculated that by the end of 1998, Romania’s CO2 emissions, for example, had fallen by a whopping 56 percent from its emissions levels in its Kyoto base year of 1989. This means that Romania’s nominal “obligation” to reduce emissions by 8 percent was in reality a license to increase them by more than 100 percent.

Yeah, yeah, clean and green, how dare you drive an SUV, blah, blah, blah.

What we are talking about here are nations – whole nations employing the emotionally manipulative tricks of teenagers and trying to call that “a brave, bold step”, a near Jesus-like sacrifice for the future of humanity for which they should be thanked, if not prayed to. In fact what they are is summed up best in the false premise behind their scheme at COP15: they want the rest of the world to hang a millstone around their neck so that they can seem more competitive, AND saintly, AND to sell you their expensive, ineffectual rubbish like windmills and solar panels.

You exist to be used, but they care, dontcha know. They care more than you.

Not their kind of Trannies

In a “heroic” act of trashing a crop, activist types trashed about 70 vines of transgenic GM grape vines at the Agricultural Research station in Colmar overnight. Once again, they are behind the curve in l’hexagon, and it wasn’t even a commercial crop.

Police and gendarmes arrived promptly on the spot where about 70 men sat around the fields still holding reapers in the enclosure to 7:00.

"We acted in a non-violent manner, and openly. The publicly funded GMOs test crops are carried out in open fields and we do not want that," said Olivier Florent.

INRA, which was not yet reached by early Sunday morning, was the site of the September 2009 sacking of 70 GMO vines that institute was conducting tests on since 2005.

Sod off, Swampy!

Olivier Florent, referred to here in the news item as a “voluntary reaper”, as though he was just helping out during the harvest season, is in fact a Green Party MEP candidate, and is a spokes-being for “Vaucluse sans OGM,” and organization that is trying to sign up towns to be GM-free zones, total dismantling of nuclear power generation, etc. You know the type. Always generous in wasting others’ human energy.

Implied to be a concerned local, he is in fact from Cavillion (Aix-en-Provence), a town 660 km from Colmar.

Go, Denmark! Denmark to the stars!

If all goes well, in the very near future Denmark will become the fourth nation to put a man into space

writes Walter Jon Williams (tak til Instapundit).

The unique thing about the Danish rocket is that there’s no government money involved. The rocket is funded privately.

Putin must be Wondering: how many Divisions do “the Concerned” Have?

With apologies to Stalin and Pope Pius XII, or something, because former professional protestor and de facto KGB tool Catherine Ashton is the one forced to provide the amusing and impotent expressions of “concern” these days.

Ashton 'concerned' by Russian missiles in Abkhazia

I’ll bet you are. I realize that you’re all misunderstood geniuses, but what exactly is it that are you going to do about it?

Southern French City to Unveil Statues of Lenin, Mao, and Perhaps Stalin

The latest idea to germinate in the egomaniacal brain of the leftist leader of the just-as-leftist Southern French region of Languedoc-Roussillon, writes Anne Devailly in Le Monde (for years, Georges Frêche has been attempting to have the region renamed Septimanie), is to bedeck the city of Montpellier with statues of the greats of the 20th century, ranging from De Gaulle, Churchill, and FDR to Lenin, Mao, and perhaps Stalin.

ontpellier avait déjà sa place Zeus, ses statues de Robespierre, Danton et Périclès. Ce panthéon va bientôt être complété, selon la volonté de Georges Frêche, par les statues en bronze de 3 mètres de haut de dix grands hommes du XXe siècle : Lénine, de Gaulle, Jaurès, Churchill et Roosevelt, bientôt rejoints par Golda Meir, Nasser, Mao Tsé-Toung, Gandhi et Mandela.

…celui qu'on appelle parfois le « Roi de Septimanie » avoue dans la foulée qu'une statue de Staline pourrait, pourquoi pas, trôner à Montpellier un jour ou l'autre : « L'homme n'est pas un chef d'Etat, c'est un bourreau », mais « il y a, entre deux massacres, un moment capital pour Staline : c'est Stalingrad. N'oublions pas que ce sont les Russes qui ont changé le cours de la seconde guerre mondiale. » Pour cette raison, Georges Frêche verrait bien Staline rejoindre les dix déjà élus. « Un jour, oui. Mais il faut attendre, attendre que ça mûrisse. Les gens ont du mal à comprendre que lorsqu'on glorifie un homme, on glorifie les moments les plus importants. »

Montpellier already has its Zeus Square and its statues of Robespierre, Danton, and Pericles, writes Anne Devailly in Le Monde.

This pantheon will soon be joined, according to the wishes of Georges Frêche, by 3-meter-high bronze statues of ten important men of the twentieth century: Lenin, de Gaulle, Jaurès, Churchill, and Roosevelt, soon joined by Golda Meir, Nasser, Mao Zedong, Gandhi, and Mandela.

…The man sometimes called the "King of Septimania" admits that one day, a statue of Stalin might — why not — be unveiled in Montpellier: "The man was not a head of state, he was an executioner." However [the "but" moment comes here], "between two massacres, there is a defining moment for Stalin: Stalingrad. Let's not forget that it was the Russians who changed the course of the Second World War." For this reason, Georges Frêche wouldn't mind seeing Stalin join the ten already chosen. "One day, yes. But we must wait, wait for it [for the idea] to mature. People have difficulty understanding that when a man is glorified, he is glorified for the most important moments" [of his life and his career].

Our New Nomenklatura will have Latin Names

“It’s a human rights issue”

Switzerland : The EU :: The EU : The World

In other words, parasites seeking protection at someone else’s cost.

Le Figaro: Le Petit Suisse stuck in Europe’s rump

Choice words. It’s a practice they seem to enjoy.

The U.S. Constitution and why a Republic

Cubanology's Jose Reyes has

found a series of videos that will help and aid you in understanding the U.S. Constitution. These videos presented in a classroom setting by Michael Badnarik , explain exactly the intentions of our founding fathers and demonstrate, without any doubt, why it is the best and most logical system of government. Basically it covers and defends every possible illegal and obstructive scenario which an elected government attempts and forces you to do.

Remember, When Seconds Count, the Police are Just Minutes Away

René Galinier, 73, ill, and robbed 3 times before shoots two women who try to rob him on the 5th of August. This act of self-defense, of course makes him the subject of handwringing, pedantic “débats,” and such-like, most of which expresses outrage that he’s been remanded to the crowbar hotel, and the usual stuff otherwise. Such as?

Such as stock blather about how this all has to do with poverty, gaunt waifs stealing apples to live, etc.

When you’re 73, the ability to use a weapon is a blessing, and a leveler against threats from hoods that are twice your size, one-quarter your age, malicious, and take advantage of those who they think can’t strike back.

Unaware that he’s an old French guy, a bunch of them are getting seized up on his saying after the fact:

"J'étais en danger avec cette sale race"

as if that would have made the attack any different. The indignation of the more polite is perhaps somehow believed to be able to change the path of brass in flight or something.

This strange penchance for expecting people to be able to mentally time travel seems to create all kind of expectations in, what we are told, is some sort of nirvana of civilizational civility. The Avocat Général stated openly that legitimate self-defense doesn’t apply to this case, and that Yosemite Sam can’t even be released into house arrest, especially now that the case has made it’s way into the media - as if that’s supposed to change legally relevant prior events too.

What’s hilarious in all of this, is the strange standard of privacy involved. The two women are called “les blessées,” or the injured, and we can’t know their names, but the victim’s name is all over the place.



Excuse me, but can’t you read?

The Tea Party Movie

The Tea Party documentary film…

Űbernomics?

"Superman is wearing black, red and gold this year, Germany's national colors," said Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Group in Brussels

While market and economy watchers looked at the rise in German, French, and Italian GDP as a momentary consequence of currency fluctuation.

When was the last time the New York Times front page featured a headline with the words "German Surge"? I bet never since WWII.

Maybe they just like to imagine themselves in tights, or the point where they will imagine the implausible and illogical to stroke their own chickens:

In annualized terms, the German economy expanded about 9 percent in the second quarter, said Andreas Scheuerle, an economist at Dekabank in Frankfurt. That puts it on a footing with emerging markets like China and India.

Don't get wrapped around the axle, Axel. This isn't about German workers' souls, Keynsian government Astroglide, or any other over-emotionalized inference.

The data came with a few clues as to what it can tell us about the near term: to the same variant as with GDP growth, France and Italy also did well to a lesser degree, commensurate with their growth in exports. In other words, the champions of Q2 in order were Germany, Italy, and then France.

It's backward looking, and correlates to the 2 months following the Euro bottoming out at $1,18 which discounted anything exporters are able to sell, and we know where the exporters are.

While we find that again the gap between German and Greek and Irish bond rates widening, an indicator of low confidence, we may find another bifurcated outcome. If the net effect will be another soft spot for the Euro, the exporters will be busy again, and the entire eurozone population will have lost purchasing power again.

The rather small amount of that growth being attributed to domestic consumption follows toward the end of Q2, with worker activity higher and a rising Euro.

Some in Europe can’t but help and find signs of their inherent human superiority in a one-time / one quarter currency induced bump. It’s a silly thing to do when there are people seriously talking about an economically lost generation:

"Europe fears for its lost generation," the Czech daily Hospodářské noviny declares, leading with the claim that the level of youth unemployment is now the highest since the second world war. A report by the confirms that five million young Europeans were without work in 2009, with Spain the worst hit, with 40% of young people jobless, followed by the Baltic states

Obviously looking to take it out on ‘the Man”, the UK’s Independent asks:

"Who would want to be 18 today?" it asks, when even those who get into college are likely to emerge into a depressed job market weighed down with debt.

It’s the usual dichotomy of wavering between megalomania and imaginary humiliations and the like.