*frappáns klisé cím itt

thick

These days I cannot decide:

1)  Who is more stupid?  Eva from Hungarian Spectrum or ‘Viking’?

2)  Are they willfully thick or just painfully ignorant?

CCCP

NWO forwards an article on one of my favorite irritations, the Left and their undying adoration and apologia of things Communist:

Let’s eliminate from our inquiries the idea that Fidel was somehow better than the rest of them, better than Honecker and so forth. Those cigars, those battle fatigues, that beard. Kinda cool, no? No. Death sentences for those who want to flee, prison sentences for dissidents, gags for the press, jail for homosexuals, ruinous central planning for the economy, his support for a nuclear first strike against America, his opposition to any kind of reform, his four-hour long speeches, his personality cult. Fidel Castro was just like the rest of them.

So if we want to understand Ms Harman’s response, it is not enough just to think about Cuba. We have to understand why parts of the Left, people who think of themselves as impeccably liberal, still think of communism as an heroic doctrine and communists as basically well meaning and a bit “alternative”. It’s a pervasive attitude that goes well beyond politicians. Go to Tate Modern and you will find an exhibition of Soviet art - workers joyfully producing tractors or some such. In the bookshop you can buy a book of posters from the cultural revolution. Hitler memorabilia is not on sale. They wouldn’t dream of having a room full of artfully designed Juden Raus! posters.

Type ‘CCCP’ into Google and chances are you will see an ad like this:

CCCP Soviet T-Shirts
Hammer and sickle ornamented,
Russian style T-shirts.
www.threadpit.com

Somehow, that is cool among the douchebaggy Left. But no one mainstream seems to be peddling swastika t-shirts….

Goddamn Global Cooling !?

Time to fear global cooling! Let’s see if the environmentalists can figure out how to profit, expand their influence and further engineer their brand of neo-socialism.

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to wipe out nearly all the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year’s time. For all four sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn’t itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
…
Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

Caveat: It has never been ‘proven’ that carbon dioxide acts to warm the planet. While it is widely accepted currently, so was geocentrism in its day.

But the Reds Greens are ready for global cooling. They call it ‘climate change’. See climate change is THE unifying theory. It explains every-fuckin-thing. More hurricanes a year in the Southern Hemisphere than average. Climate change. Fewer hurricanes than average. Climate change. Budapest has a warmer summer than usual. Climate change. Colder than usual winter. Climate change. One of the (African?) storks that nests in the VarangyMami’s village shows up 3 weeks early or 4 weeks late. Climate fucking change. As if we had never witnessed any sort of variation in either weather or climate.

Look, all you need to use is the tinest modicum of skepticism and reason.

1) It is not clear if global warming/cooling is happening.

2) If ‘climate change’ is happening, it is not clear that it is anthropogenic.

3) If it is anthropogenic, it is not clear that it is bad!

4) If it is bad, it is not clear humans can prevent or stop it.   

A lot of ‘if’-s there, no?

Humans like to creat narratives to explain past, present and future complex events. We are most likely evolutionarily engineered to do so. That is to say, while we think we are employing reason and higher abstract thought, yet we literally create intellectual illusions by taking the ‘facts’, making them fit the story theory, and most importantly ig-fucking-noring the:

a) known unknowns

b) unknown unknowns

There are plenty of both, and by definition, we don’t know how many! Don’t get me started on climate ‘modeling’. As honest person who has worked with any sort of modeling, be it financial, economic or whatnot, will tell you: Garbage In, Garbage Out. Again, the intellectual fraud. Irony is that people who claim to be ‘scientists’ (and typically anti-religious) take climate ‘modeling’ on faith!  Fuckin’ ironic douchebags.

Bottom line: Nobody knows what and how, if anything, is happening.

BTW apparently Artic sea ice is, er, back.

Pretty primitive

World traveler, culinarian and chef Anthony Bourdain slams Romania:

 

Even WITHOUT cameras, looking just for a relaxed meal, we’d often enter a near empty restaurant, ask if a table was available—and have the waiter tell us “No” in the surliest of terms. WITH cameras—asking if we could shoot was an invitation to either an instinctive “NO” or an invitation to gouging. As waiters and hosts it seems, work on salary—rather than tips, no one really seemed to care about more business, promoting their business or even making more money. People are still uncomfortable in general about being filmed. Understandable, given Romania’s history that many would be reluctant to have their picture taken—as this rarely led to anything good back in the bad old days.

But to describe Romania as particularly friendly? Not really. I’ve been all over the world. Over 50 countries. On the friendly scale? Romania not exactly in the top 40. The food—on camera, off camera? Didn’t matter. It was mostly pretty primitive. Soups may taste good—but they don’t make interesting television. I could lie. But I ain’t gonna.

Ahhhhhh.  I luv me some Schadenfreude. 

compassionate socialized healthcare

Someone explain to me how single-payer healthcare, which outlaw private healthcare (!), is in any way, shape or form, fuckin’ compassionate or socially just?

All those who think that I wrong —- please email me your comments. 

folk geneticist

I love Serbians, those deranged lunatic criminals, the whole lot of ‘em.

Down the road from the US embassy, a German embassy guard house was burning, while a car was on fire outside the Canadian diplomatic mission. Other embassies targeted included those of Bosnia, Croatia and Turkey.

But the rioters moved to other parts of the city, setting alight a McDonald’s restaurant, ransacking a Levi’s clothing shop and using uprooted street signs and even trees to fight police, who detained dozens.

“Let’s burn everything!” shouted one of the youths who set alight large roadside rubbish bins.

State television switched between images of police fighting the rioters and a simultaneous church service attended by nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church at the nearby Temple of St Sava.

The unrest was the latest in a series of violent incidents following Sunday’s unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian-dominated parliament.

Many Serbs consider Kosovo, which has dozens of Serbian churches and monasteries, the cradle of their history, culture and religion.

Insane.  One of my uncles (apparently a folk geneticist) is convinced that Serbians have ‘bad blood’.  He may not be wrong. 

That said, Kosovo’s independence is wrong.   

Silliness

Were the Beatles to sing Stairway to Heaven. 

Mummy, make them stop.  Make them stop, please.   

főzelék

I have a big soft spot in my three-chambered, cold-blooded amphibian heart for the typical Hungarian néni — why? Because even ugly, evil varangyok have nagymamák. Mine, for example, was one the sweetest, most loving ladies in all of Magyardom —- except if you tried to get on the tram or the metro at the same time as her. For being such a frail lady, she managed to surprisingly, effectively, painfully and repeatedly jab her skinny little elbows into your ribs such that you had to give way. (Strangers mind you, not family.) Always brought a smile to my face, when Nagymama would race a flabbergasted youngster to the door of the metro and beat them back with a furious storm of elbow blows. Like a senior citizen water polo player. Always accompanied with a sly smile and a ‘ne haragudj’.

So, this story does not surprise me at all.

These women (the men are already dead) literally do not have 300 Ft to spare for their doctors’ appointments. Many, again, literally, live on second-day vegetables from the market and eat főzelék, day in and day out, because it is cheap. Not healthy. But cheap.

Nothing else to add.

Contradictions in terms

Kudos to the American Left!  Lefty American economist Brad DeLong stands up to the idiotic and repugnant Lefty Fidel Apologists.

Ken Houghton: Model that one up and show me the results. Your major local trading partner when you were run by a Mob-backed dictator unilaterally refuses to buy your goods, or to import anything to you…

Reply #3: You know, there is something very wrong with an argument that goes (a) Leninist centrally-planned communism is necessary because market exchange is inherently exploitative an destructive, and (b) it’s not Castro’s fault Cuba’s economy is in the toilet—America won’t trade with it. That simply does not compute.

kúrvára hasznos

The other day I was cooking and I remarked to the Varangycsajszi about how much I enjoyed using one particular cooking tool/utensil of ours.

Me:  I love this thing.  It is so fucking handy.  Where did we get it?

VCs:  From blankblankblank, I think.

Me:  No kidding?  Very cool.  At which store did they purchase it?

VCs (entirely nonchalant):  They didn’t get it from a store.  They got it from Tibi cigány. 

[Pause.  Pause.  Pause.  Insert sound of my jaw hitting the floor and clattering around on the cold tiles.  Varangycsajszi recognizes me recognizing the irony - deigns to laugh at me.] 

This family has, over the years, been the subject of multiple robberies commited by gypsies.  Not one.  Not two.  Not three.  Over the last 20 odd years, closer to five.  And yet they buy from Tibi cigány…and no one thinks that is odd. 

Note: Tibi cigány is a friendly and charming peddler thief that comes by now and then —- and, yes, that is what he calls himself.

Irony and then some

Not too long ago I had a, er, ‘conversation’ with a close relative of mine on the topic of healthcare in Hungary.  (I should note he is an ardent FIDSZes.)  Anyhow, he is currently obsessed with the American healthcare model and its, in his eyes, lack of any merit whatsoever.  He takes Moore’s propaganda piece, Sicko, as gospel.  So, you can guess his views on privitization.

Irony is, when he gets sick.  He goes to a private physican.  Always has, always will.  He also has his daughter send him various medications from the States that are either unavailable or unavailable OTC in Hungary.

Cognitive dissonance anyone?    

What are the odds that some crazy and serious shit goes down in Serbia and Kosovo?

Blogs Reviewed

A couple of thoughts on the dying English language Hungarian blogosphere (I am too lazy to link to them all.  You know where they are anyway). 

Hungarian Spectrum 

Interesting subject matter.  Academic, condescending tone and dry timbre makes for painful reading and a lot of head-shaking.  Typically poor understanding of economics common to most academics.  Also, uses the word ‘blog’ incorrectly and irritatingly.  You don’t make a blog when you post something — you create a post or you post on your blog.  Learn it already.  Fuck me.    

Pestiside.hu

Don’t want to say this, but over there it is same shit, different day.  Erik could get off of his ass and do a detailed Stink column now and then to stir some shit up.   

Another Year on Hungarian Soil

Painfully wholesome.  Painfully boring.

Big Logie’s Missus

Dunno.  Closed blog.  And people think I am conceited? 

Brandon

No updates for a while.  Could be dead.  Overrated anyhow.

Budapest Underground

Sometimes insanely good photographs.  Other times, not so much.  

Bulizunk!

Effectively dead.  Thank God. 

Contemporary Nomad

Four ex-pat mega douchebag writers who just won’t fuckin’ stop.  You can OD on the fumes of self-absorbtion (and stupidity) emanating from this rank blog.  

Csíkszereda Musings

Sometimes insightful.  Oftentimes, unbearably naive.   

Dumneazu

Some Jewish dude’s de facto foodie blog with lots of pictures. 

Flash to Bang (Catherine Foley)

Dead.

Further Ramblings of a N.Irish Magyar

Dead.  Was fairly entertaining at one point in time.  Jaffa Cakes is MIA elsewhere on blogs.

Gabi’s Narnia

Sickly sweet. 

Hungarian Accent

So bad, my eyes bleed whenever I read it.   

Hungarian Lessons

Dead.

Jade(d) Poetry

No idea.  Looks self-absorbed and even more sinful, boring.   

Kzaam Demolition Network

Dead.  Apparently re-animated. 

Oystein’s Medblog

Dead.

Pestcentric

Posting infrequently.  Rather insightful, interesting and entertaining.  

Searching for Utopia

Dead. 

The Great Hungarian Experiment, Take Two

Not worthwhile criticizing.   

Vándorló  

Hasn’t made good on his promise to start blogging again.  Should I be grateful? 

*frappáns klisé cím itt

Largely pissing in the digital wind.  Worthless.  And terribly boring these days, I might add.   

Nessie

I must confess, I luv this.  Truly, you couldn’t make this shit up. 

File under:  Blame ‘Global Warming’ for everything.

 

LEGENDARY Nessie hunter Robert Rines is giving up his search for the monster after 37 years.

The 85-year-old American will make one last trip in a bid to find the elusive beast.

After almost four decades of fruitless expeditions, he admitted: “Unfortunately, I’m running out of age.”

…

Despite having hundreds of sonar contacts over the years, the trail has since gone cold and Rines believes that Nessie may be dead, a victim of global warming.

That is his hypothesis.  Presumably, anthropegenic, global warming killed the Loch Ness Monster.  Let me posit a slightly more probable hypothesis:  Nessie doesn’t exist and neither does AGW.

Un-fucking-believable.     

pointless political exercise

NWO continues his devastating email fusillade on my political positions:

Varangy:

Ok.  In the last couple of days you have:

(1)   effectively admitted the March 9th referendum is a pointless political exercise, and given an honest choice you would support doctor visit fees and hospitalisation fees (other than for seniors) and tuition fees:

My position is a little more nuanced than that.  Granted, I have been too lazy to flesh it out, but, yes, in broad terms I agree with the above.  

(2)   just acknowledged that a healthcare finance system built upon private insurance companies and the competition among such insurance companies is the best way to reduce healthcare costs, and presumably, to provide higher quality services in the long run; and

Yep. 

(3)   on another web site, said that Koka is “100% correct” in his call for substantially lower taxes and a concomitant reduction in government spending.

Yep, once again.  

BTW, you are basically correct on all of the above.

Thanks.  I know.  :) 

But having said this, is it not time to admit that your knee-jerk support for FIDESZ and Orban is now completely untenable?

(Insert sound of car screeching to a halt)  No.  As I have said before, some of my family suffered quite a fair bit, in various different ways, under the Communists and I posit that we did not suffer as nearly as terribly as many others had.       

SzDSz may be as corrupt as the next guy and may be even more politically clumsy than the other parties, but as compared to the other parties-damned by faint praise, I admit-on the issues that really count they are just better.  Come on, admit it.

NWO

I, again, do agree with them on more than a few issues socio-economically.  But that is b/c I am largely a libertarian.  What I cannot forget or forgive is that SzDSZ has made a deal with the devil.  How they can pretend to stand for individual liberty and make deals with the very same people who stomped on that same liberty for the previous 40 or so years is beyond me.

SzDSZ believes in nothing.  Nothing except that can further their power and influence.

They are scum who happen be right on a few positions.