How Many Frequent-Flyer Miles Would it Cost to Send Ursula von der Leyen Non-Stop to Hell?

Uncle Volodya says, “Desperate and dammed persons share an affinity for flirting with danger; an infectious case of erotic morbidity fetters them to self-destruction.”

You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We’d all love to see the plan;
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We’re all doing what we can

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is, brother, you’ll have to wait…

The Beatles, from ‘Revolution‘

English is the language of a people who have probably earned their reputation for perfidy and hypocrisy, because their language itself is so flexible, so often light-headed with statements which appear to mean one thing one year and quite a different thing the next.

Paul Scott

Everyone is familiar with the quote, “The first casualty, when war comes, is the truth”. But there must be something special about this war – something unique and rare, which inspires public figures to heights of bullshit scarcely attainable without going on oxygen. And none has pushed the upper envelope of the craposphere the way Cowsmonaut Ursula von der Leyen has. Consider, for example, her parallel-universe speech to the World Economic Forum (WEF) on May 24th. We’ll get back to that in more detail, and I am confident that, like me, you will be shaking your head in wonder at its apparently-deliberate falsehoods. But first, a bit of background on Ms. von der Leyen; many of her colleagues in the European Clown Circus refer to her as ‘VDL’ because they are lazy, and so are we, so I’m going to refer to her the same way in this piece if that’s okay.

VDL is said to have been a ‘late bloomer’ in politics, completing medical studies and living for several years in the United States with her family before deciding to enter German politics. But she certainly started as she meant to go on, a series of disastrous failures of leadership and imagination as she quickly worked her way up to a black belt in incompetence.

“Fixing the German army, which had been starved of resources for years after the end of the Cold War, was a herculean task. Von der Leyen blamed many of the problems facing the armed forces on her predecessors. Now in her fifth year atop the ministry, she can no longer point fingers.

Her biggest failure at the ministry may have been in not winning over the officer corps and troops. As a woman in a male-dominated universe, von der Leyen was never going to have an easy task. But current and former aides describe her management style as distant and defensive. She surrounded herself at the ministry with a small group of aides who kept tight control on the flow of information. Many interactions with rank-and-file troops were in the form of photo-ops, which often showed the minister in dramatic poses alongside military equipment.

She offended many service members by saying publicly in 2017, after the discovery of a right-wing extremist in the ranks, that the Bundeswehr suffered from “weak leadership at various levels.”

Well, she was right about that; leadership at the very highest level sucked like a black hole. But I think we are well past the novelty phase of feminine leadership where you are being made to look like a failure because you’re a woman. It didn’t stop the political system from letting her hand-pick another woman – Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer – to succeed her, and she promptly proposed Germany acquire a first-strike nuclear capability as a deterrent to ‘Russian aggression or provocation’. Both these individuals were useless as a chocolate teapot at their jobs and it had not a thing to do with their gender, and everything to do with their overall uselessness at leadership. However, being a useless leader has not prevented VDL from pole-vaulting to leadership of the entire bloc.

And she might have offended some service members as Defense Minister of Germany, but by God it did not stop the Defense Ministry from trying to protect her from accountability by wiping her official phone records even after the Bundestag had ordered her phone held as evidence in an investigation.

Lindner also gave an exasperated interview to public broadcaster ARD on Friday, in which he described the Defense Ministry’s continued failure to produce the phone data, even though the Bundestag had declared the phone should be classified as evidence several months ago.

“First they said von der Leyen’s phone could not be found, they didn’t know where it was,” he said. “A week ago they said it was in the ministry, but only von der Leyen knew the PIN code, and yesterday they confessed that the relevant phone data had been deleted in August.”

Sound familiar? She might have only lived in the United States for a couple of years, but she certainly picked up a few tricks – remember the interrogation tapes from Abu Ghraib that were destroyed by the CIA even after a direct order to preserve them as evidence? And the woman who ordered them destroyed went on to be CIA Director from 2018 to 2021; poor thing, they probably promoted her because they felt guilty for picking on her because she is a woman.

The truth – according to a report by influential German publication Der Speigel – is that VDL has cocked up everything she touched since entering politics, blamed it on her predecessors, and shaken the dust of her last shattered ministry post off her heels too quickly for her to be punished for it . By the time investigators get their shit together, she has already moved on.

“VdL was in lots of ways a perfect appointment as President of the European Commission. She is good at grand promises, pledges of unity, and commitments to diversity. The problem comes when it’s actually time to deliver. At three major ministries in Berlin, she stumbled from one disaster to another. The vaccine debacle unfolding across the continent won’t have come as any surprise to those who have followed her career. When it came to buying vaccines, the Commission was too late, too chaotic, and too stingy. But when the problems emerged, VdL disappeared, and then tried to pin the blame on someone else: in this case first AstraZeneca, for failing to deliver supplies on time, and then on the British, for investing more, and earlier. ‘It is, to put it bluntly, a pattern that has occurred frequently throughout her career,’ concluded Spiegel.”

Stumbling from one disaster to another. Just the resume you want in the dreamweaver who is inspiring the eggheads at Davos. Well, I think that’s enough stage-setting – lets move on to her recent load of rubbish, introduced at the beginning of the post.

She kicked off her glib pandering – which was probably written for her – by describing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine as ‘Putin’s war of choice’. Is it, really? A war of choice?

Well, that subject could inspire an entire post in itself. Nina Khrushcheva – yes, great-granddaughter of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev – blabbered authoritatively that Putin had no choice but to attack Ukraine because ‘his military people’ would get the notion he is a weakling because they are being insulted by the United States, accused of planning to go to war and the weakling is not responding…so…you know…

“Well, pushed to this because it was – the way it was presented and the way it appeared, there would be – there was an information war, so he’s being accused of military invasion and he was not responding and his military people were saying, well, we’re being insulted by the West. Look at this. They’re maligning our reputation, so we have to show strength, otherwise we look like weaklings. So then then…”

Bet you thought I was making that up. Nope. And her interlocutor helpfully gives her a way to frame Russian thought in a delightfully western way.

“Is it almost one of those things, Nina, where it’s like, if you’re accusing me of this, why don’t I just go ahead and do it?”

And of course she responds, “Exactly.”

Or over at the Association for Mature American Citizens (AMAC), where they alternated between making some excellent points and then drawing the most jelly-brained conclusions from them that can reasonably be imagined. The writer suggested “If Russia does indeed invade Ukraine, then there will be one clear reason: it will be because Joe Biden and his administration have fundamentally misunderstood Russia’s aims and worldview, and thus missed numerous opportunities to deescalate—leaving the Russians feeling (rightly or wrongly) that they have to do something to break the stalemate.” Eureka! Sense at last! And it got better: “A few weeks ago, I outlined my skepticism that Vladimir Putin wished to either conquer Ukraine, or to escalate his long-term conflict with the West—and I stand by that analysis today. Russia’s behavior is a response to the passive aggression of U.S. policy since 2014–behavior that would force any Russian leader, no matter how pro- or anti-western, to take action to break an unsustainable status quo.” Yes! Yes! You’ve got it!

Oh, but then.

“What, then, can they do? There are two politically acceptable options. The first, ironically, is for the Biden administration to take a very hard line. While the Russians cannot withdraw unilaterally, there is a long tradition in Russian history of withdrawing in the face of overwhelming force. If the Russian elite can portray the U.S./NATO forces present as overwhelming, they can justify concessions. These would, of course be painted as temporary, but it would resolve the current conflict without war, and, if it eliminated the problems of the Donbass, might pave the way for improved relations.

Biden has already rejected this option. By ruling out the use of American force, he has advertised weakness. He has not even bluffed. By making clear the U.S. will not fight for Ukraine, he makes it impossible for Putin or anyone else to justify concessions on the basis that Russia cannot win militarily and had no choice but to stand down. The United States has undercut that argument.”

Dear God. The United States is so powerful that even when it is trying to be weak, it cannot help being powerful and sending all the wrong signals. What Putin really wanted was for Biden to be his Daddy, and threaten to take him to the woodshed, so he could honorably back down in the face of overwhelming American strength and offer concessions in an atmosphere of intimidation that every Russian could understand. Christ on a surfboard. I guess that’s the kind of addleation that puddifies your brain when you are a mature citizen.

Anyway, I’m spending way too much time on this, which is a common fault of mine. Suffice it to say Russia recognized early that it was going to be pushed right off the doorstep if it did not start pushing back, so it offered a set of non-negotiable demands which were, to my mind, very reasonable and which would not have cost the west anything to yield. But because it does not like to be told what it can and can’t do, the west blew Putin off and said that sort of arrogance was not going to get Russia anywhere. Ukraine must be allowed to join NATO if it wanted to, and there could be no talk of the west returning to any previous geopolitical position. Then it promptly started publishing invasion agitprop and using it as an excuse to send Ukraine more weapons. Russia correctly perceived this process was never going to stop, and struck. I would like to see any European country placed in the same circumstances, and when it attacked, to hear VDL describe it as a ‘war of choice’.

And apparently – according to VDL – such an attack comes ‘straight out of another century’; presumably a measure of its barbarism and savagery. Such descriptions of course do not fit the NATO attack on Libya, which resulted in the former leader being sodomized with a bayonet by NATO allies and partners. Or the coalition-of-the-vassals attack on Iraq, which resulted in the former leader being lynched by NATO allies and partners. Turns out he didn’t actually have any weapons of mass destruction, after all – but what the hell, that’s for the next time you do something. So far the leader of Ukraine, perhaps hoping for martyrdom, has instead had to settle for addressing the UN by video link, to a standing ovation, and subsequently being showered with enormous aid packages of cold, hard cash, because he’s such a cute little rascal in his army T-shirt.

“Ukraine must win this war. And Putin’s aggression must be a strategic failure. We will do everything we can to help Ukrainians prevail and retake the future into their hands.”

Permit me a brief sidebar, here; do you know how the President of the European Commission is ‘elected’? I put it in sarcasm marks, there, because a process of being appointed by your colleagues is not an ‘election’ in any real sense of the word, any more than the choice of who will be the Democrats’ candidate in the Primary is an ‘election’, because there is no public vote – the candidate is chosen by the party members.

So here you have an individual who has been a bowl of elbows at every ministerial job awarded, but most notably painful as a sandpapered hemorrhoid as Defense Minister, sagely advising the entire European Union on the only acceptable outcome of a war which is not being fought in the European Union. A war which must see the whole world line up on one side, confronting Putin. No matter what it costs.

And it will cost, believe you me. It already is. I’m sure you remember The Netherlands proudly announcing it was not going to open any account with Gazprom and pay in rubles for energy. Up yours, Putin.

The Dutch get about 15% of their natural-gas supply from Russia. Doesn’t seem like such a big number – until you try to replace it. And besides, it’s too dangerous, having so much money under the oversight of a foreign bank – they might seize it, for some bullshit reason. Which is sort of how we got here. Russia was expected to keep its money in foreign banks, and trust that it would be safe. Europe and the United States ‘froze’ the funds – another word for ‘stole’ – and have since mused that perhaps they will give the money to Ukraine, which is dancing around their knees on its hind legs with its tongue hanging out, wagging its stubby tail. In fact, let me show you a financial phenomenon you might never see again in a lifetime, one which illustrates just how over the edge the west is. Russia is being pushed into default on its foreign bonds because new sanctions have cut off the account it uses to pay its debts. The clever-clogs sanctioneers are congratulating themselves on their latest trick; although Russia has plenty of money and has shown no unwillingness at all to pay its debts…the west will not accept its money, so that it can be made ‘a financial pariah’. They say so, in so many words.

“Defaulting nations are usually bankrupt or unwilling to pay. Russia, though, has hundreds of billions of dollars, and earns billions more weekly from oil and gas sales. So the circa $40 billion of foreign bonds outstanding — with around $2 billion in payments due by year-end — should be easily manageable. Moscow also wants to pay, to avoid getting lumped in with the poor and chaotically governed nations which typically default. But a welter of sanctions by the United States and the European Union prevent it from sending money through the global payments system. An exemption that allowed U.S. owners of Russian sovereign bonds to receive payments has now expired.

That is pushing Russia towards default by blocking the path by which payments would reach bondholders’ bank accounts.”

So the holders of foreign bonds are going to get screwed out of their money so that the west can say Russia is a welsher that does not pay its debts, because sanctions prevent it from paying. Reason has left the building. I hope that has helped readers to understand the depths to which the Leaders Of The Free World will sink to have their own way. Because it perfectly illustrates why they deserve to lose.

Anyway, the Netherlands, before I wander too far off the path. I wanted to point out that prices for all fuels are at record highs, although the Dutch Energy Minister claimed they were perfectly fine with having their Russian supplies cut off. The reference I previously cited announces “Denmark could be next!” – and they were right. The Danes were next, along with the Germans. It’s just one company in each case, but it is most definitely I’ll-see-your-bullshit-and-raise-you. Where is that headed? You know. Potentially, to a global energy crisis that will surpass the  hair-raising market undulations of the 1970’s.

“The global economy has largely been able to withstand surging energy prices so far. But prices could continue to rise to unsustainable levels as Europe attempts to wean itself off Russian oil and, potentially, gas. Supply shortages could lead to some difficult choices in Europe, including rationing.”

Rationing: now there’s a word Europeans are eager to hear when the economy is still floundering about in an effort to recover from the disaster of imposed restrictions associated with the COVID pandemic.

“Joe McMonigle, secretary general of the International Energy Forum, said he agrees with this depressing forecast from the IEA…”We have a serious problem around the world that I think policymakers are just waking up to. It’s kind of a perfect storm,” McMonigle, whose group serves as a go-between for energy producing and consuming nations, told CNN in a phone interview.”

Just waking up to? Are you shitting me?? If VDL is just waking up to the possibility that doubling down every month or two on more sanctions – and padding the narrative with creamy nonsense so the idiot proles will lap it up – is pulling the world straight down the road to hell, then she is in an unreachable coma. Bring over that saxophone, will you? Uh huh; play the solo from “Never Tear Us Apart” directly into her ear – there!! I swear I saw a blink!

Oh; wait a minute. What about renewables? Dear little windmills? Miracles from Greta Thunberg’s Tickle Trunk? Isn’t this crisis a blessing in disguise? An opportunity for a single hard push to tip the doubters and the reluctant of Europe into green-power Nirvana?

No better pin to puncture that balloon than Tim Watkins, my go-to for Dear Little Windmills rebuttals. What do you say, Tim?

“Governments – at least prior to 2022 – have cared little about the impact of policies on energy bills.  This is why, for example, a host of “green” levies and subsidies were added to people’s electricity bills by the Blair government, and now account for a quarter of the bill.  The reason for doing this was to avoid EU government spending and state aid rules… something which, ironically, no longer matters because of Brexit.  The bigger problem though, is that successive governments have rigged the market in favour of NRREHTs generators.  That is, suppliers must buy up wind, solar and biofuel power first, while gas and coal come last.  This means that NRREHTs generators effectively pass the cost of intermittency onto gas and coal generators whose overheads are far greater and whose electricity is more expensive because they are at the back of the queue.  This, in turn, means higher prices for businesses and households as the price of gas goes up. ”

The ‘intermittency’ he speaks of is the periods when there is not enough wind to generate anything close to enough electricity to satisfy even modest consumer demand, like the day that post was written, when wind power was providing 1% of the UK’s electricity. The UK has the world’s largest offshore wind farms, and that was written in January, before the current conflict in Ukraine and the dizzying upward spiral of gas prices. Don’t forget – just because a wind turbine’s blades are turning does not necessarily mean it is generating usable electricity. Wind turbines generally begin to produce usable power at around 6 mph, and a cutout operates above 55 mph to prevent damage to the turbine. Moreover, the most reliable electricity generator from a consumer point of view is one which can be stepped up at times of peak demand. At which times the wind is almost never blowing at the right speed to generate a reliable supply of electricity without significant supplements from another energy source.

“In fact, the true capacity value of a wind turbine is the kW or MW of generating capacity that is available at the actual time of peak electricity demand on the electric grid serving the area. The true capacity value of a wind turbine or “wind farm” is generally less than 10% of nameplate capacity and often 0% or slightly above — simply because, at the time of peak electricity demand, the wind isn’t blowing at a speed that will permit the turbine to produce any or much electricity. Claims of wind turbine capacity value have been exaggerated by wind industry officials and lobbyists, by regulatory agencies, ISOs, RTOs, other grid manager’s arbitrary decisions.”

The very real danger here is that incompetent zealot know-nothing talking heads like Ursula von der Leyen are going to pull the rug out from under Europe’s feet in an effort to force it onto a green-energy grid ‘for its own good’, because the population is too ignorant and self-centered to make rational life-changing decisions such as are better made in the rarefied atmosphere of the halls of power. A leader who is ‘a perfect appointment as President of the European Commission, good at grand promises, pledges of unity, and commitments to diversity ‘ is also a perfect choice to lead the world into irreversible disaster, predicated on the pigheaded certainty that ‘something will turn up’ to make the sugarplum cheap-energy dreams come true if only someone is bold enough to take the plunge.

Which brings me to the part of her risible blather to the WEF that most infuriated me.

“Today, Russian artillery is bombarding grain warehouses across Ukraine. Deliberately. And Russian warships in the Black Sea are blockading Ukrainian ships full of wheat and sunflower seeds.”

How much are the citizens of Europe paying this charlatan? £29,340 a MONTH!!!! And a team of researchers at her beck and call, and she still resorts to utter horseshit like this?? Let me ask you this, Ms. von der Leyen – don’t you think for that completely off-the-scale salary, you could spare enough time to research a speech that isn’t even an A4 page, single-spaced, for accuracy?

Unless Ukrainian troops are taking refuge in grain warehouses, Russian artillery is not bombarding them. There is absolutely no evidence of this. And the conditions which keep foreign grain-carriers in Ukrainian ports are entirely imposed by Ukraine. This is not a matter of opinion or conjecture, but is spelled out in the reports of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), the global regulatory authority for marine transport of cargo. Via Moon of Alabama:

“At the start of the conflict approximately 2000 seafarers were stranded aboard 94 vessels in Ukrainian ports. 10 vessels have subsequently safely departed the Sea of Azov and 84, merchant ships remain, with nearly 450 seafarers onboard.

The Council (C/ES.35) on 10 and 11 March agreed to encourage the establishment, as a provisional and urgent measure, of a blue safe maritime corridor to allow the safe evacuation of seafarers and ships from the high-risk and affected areas in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to a safe place in order to protect the life of seafarers, and ensure the mobilization and commercial navigation of vessels intending to use this corridor by avoiding military attacks and protecting and securing the maritime domain.

The Russian Federation has informed IMO that it had established a humanitarian corridor, to provide for the safe evacuation of ships once outside the territorial waters of the Ukraine. Despite this initiative, there remain many safety and security issues which hamper access to the corridor and the ability for ships to depart from their berth in Ukrainian ports.Ukraine’s ports are at MARSEC (maritime security) level 3 and remain closed for entry and exit. Sea mines have been laid in port approaches and some port exits are blocked by sunken barges and cranes. Many ships no longer have sufficient crew onboard to sail.

Ukraine also provided their preconditions for the safe evacuation of ships from their ports. These include an end to hostilities, the withdrawal of troops and ensuring the freedom of navigation in the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, including carrying out mine-sweeping activities with the involvement of Black Sea littoral states.”

Just a few days ago, May 31st, a cargo ship loaded with rolled steel departed Ukraine for Italy…from Mariupol. Now that the city is under Russian control, the harbor has been cleared and swept for mines and cargo departures have resumed. Theoretically, Ukrainian grain could be shipped from Mariupol. Is there need? VDL says there is.

“Global wheat prices are sky-rocketing. And it is fragile countries and vulnerable populations that suffer most. Bread prices in Lebanon have increased by 70%, and food shipments from Odessa could not reach Somalia.”

But it won’t be. Because then Putin would not be losing and humiliated. Getting more grain into a market where the price of wheat has shot up over 60% above its previous level is irrelevant to the greater goal of wiping that smirk off Putin’s face. Fragile countries and vulnerable populations be damned.

Is there no penalty to be imposed for lying? For simply acting as a bullhorn for the Ukrainian press service? If you’d like an example of completely-fabricated bullshit that was nonetheless spread around the globe with the clear aim of sparking fury and hatred, here’s one. The Ukrainian Ombudsman for Human Rights was just fired because her unsubstantiated evidence-free bodice-rippers about Ukrainian women gang-raped by Russian soldiers were deemed to be hurting Ukraine’s international credibility. Mind you, you’d never know that if you got the story from Filters-On CNN, which reported dryly that she was fired because she had failed to effectively discharge her human-rights responsibilities. Not a whisper of rape was mentioned. Yet it was only her stammering deflections upon being confronted by journalists who could not find any witnesses in the towns and locations specified who had even heard of the incidents described that sunk her – there is every reason to believe that had she never been asked to account for her lurid fakery, she would still be a valued spreader of Ukrainian propaganda.

One more directional jink before we wrap this up. Most everyone is familiar with the bizarre spectacle of the assembled crowd at The Glorious Maidan jumping up and down on the cue “Who does not jump is a Moskal”, the derisive Ukrainian term for a Russian. Here’s a smaller-scale example, on the Kiev subway. Most of you are also familiar with walking hate-factory Irina Farion, the self-appointed guardian of the Ukrainian language, who so infuriated parents with her lectures to kindergarten-age children that if their names sounded Russian, they should move to Russia that they initiated a lawsuit against her. The torchlight parades in homage to Stepan Bandera, through the streets of Lvov. The chants of ‘Moskali to the gallows’ or ‘Moskali to the knife’.

Show me corresponding organized expressions of hatred toward Ukrainians in Russia. And bear in mind, please, the hatred of Russians by Ukrainians is being eagerly nurtured and curated by European bureaucrats like von der Leyen.

Back to the wisdom of the Liverpool lads who brought us in:

But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is, brother, you’ll have to wait…