The Netherlands Capital has long had a reputation for being a quaint old city full of canals with much of its industry based on tourism — some come to see the Rijksmuseum and the Anne Frank house where her family hid from the Nazis for 4 years until they were betrayed — but the majority go there for legal drugs and be spectators (or clients) of the Red Light District where as well as sex emporiums you can see the human zoo.
The problem is that as well as tourists, the city is a magnet for all the sleaze in Europe and Spanian comments that unlike in the Hood, men on the street don’t look happy types.
When I last went there in 2010 the aroma from ‘coffeeshops’ (wacky baccy smokehouses) was one of the city’s features and there are still plenty of them. In 2008 the city decided to ban Magic Mushrooms (hallucinogens) because too many people were making pests of themselves, including by throwing up everywhere, and you assume, occasionally falling into canals, but Magic Mushrooms are now “Magic Truffles” with the same active substance. You can’t help wonder if Advertising Agents are big customers for them given some of the commercials we see, including for the BNZ and telcos.
But the whole scene includes the standard hard business types that the Dutch have a reputation for being (I’m told the jokes people make about Jews apply equally to the Dutch) so don’t expect too much to be happy-go-lucky, they expect their money. At least city authorities try to keep the place clean, unlike in the Hauptstadts of Ursula’s and Herr Merz’s Reich; Brussels and Berlin respectively.
Most Hungarians came to take his achievements for granted and won’t appreciate what they had until it’s gone.
The EU- and Ukrainian- backed Hungarian opposition just won a two-thirds supermajority in the latest parliamentary elections that ended Viktor Orban’s 16 years in office. His crushing defeat followed the EU earlier freezing €17 billion in allocated funds on rule of law pretexts, Russiagate conspiracytheories derived from wiretaps of Orban and his Foreign Minister, and Ukrainian energy blackmail as well as threats. Leftist-Globalists like Ursula von der Leyen, Alex Soros, and Donald Tusk predictably celebrated.
While the aforementioned factors played a role in turning public opinion against Orban, several other ones were arguably more important. For instance, he’s an older politician who naturally doesn’t appeal as much to the youth as his relatively younger rival, Peter Magyar. He’s also been in office for 16 years, so the opposition played on anti-incumbent sentiment, to which end they blamed him for the stagnant economy despite him doing his best given the circumstances. Corruption accusations also abounded.
The socio-political system that Orban built will now be dismantled since the opposition’s two-thirds supermajority enables them to change the constitution. Witch hunts against conservative-nationalists, beginning with him and his Foreign Minister on Russiagate-related grounds, also can’t be ruled out. His policies in support of traditional values might soon become a thing of the past. Although Magyar claims to be an immigration hardliner, he might reverse course to please the EU, thus flooding Hungary.
On the economic front, decoupling from Russian energy could lead to price spikes, though he might move gradually to avoid squandering the goodwill that he has among the electorate. The same goes for his plans to replace the forint, Hungary’s national currency, with the euro. Therefore, while meaningful change is afoot, it might not happen right away. Nevertheless, the end result will be the weakening of Hungarian sovereignty and possibly its outright loss, thus reversing Orban’s hard-earned achievements.
Likewise, Hungary isn’t expected to retain its reputation as Europe’s conservative-nationalist bastion, with this instead shifting to Poland, which was in a friendly competition with Hungary for this title till its own (admittedly very imperfect) conservative-nationalists were “democratically deposed” in fall 2023. Last year, however, Poland narrowly elected a conservative-nationalist president and the former ruling party with which he’s allied might return to power after fall 2027’s next parliamentary elections.
Polish conservatism differs from its more well-known Hungarian and German variants in being explicitly anti-Russian. It also envisages Europe in junior partnership with the US instead of truly sovereign and opposing the US when their interests diverge. From the Polish perspective, this is a necessary cost for ensuring continued US support against Russia and “pragmatically” recognizes the limitations to European leadership, but it’s of course controversial and unpopular outside of Poland and the Baltic States.
All in all, the EU, Ukraine, and liberal-globalists across the West will be emboldened by the dramatic way in which the “Battle for Hungary” ended, which will facilitate the EU’s transition to de facto war footing. Orban stood in the way of this but now he’s been “democratically deposed”. Others such as like-minded Czechia and Slovakia might try to replace Hungary’s role, but they’re considered more vulnerable to EU pressure, including Color Revolutions. The EU’s march to war with Russia might therefore be inevitable.
A great idea for councils, from the Labour Party(!)
Now that we’ve got your attention… we’re serious. The Labour Party constitution contains a real gem. We doubt Willie ‘democracy has changed’ Jackson has read his party’s constitution, but here it is:
“All political authority comes from the people by democratic means, including universal suffrage, regular and free elections with a secret ballot.”
It is the first principle in their Party Constitution, and we couldn’t have said it better ourselves. If democracy means anything, it’s that the majority can vote the bastards out.
Democracy amounts to an anonymous, bloodless, pink slip for bad leaders. How much better would the world be if the [Ukrainians] or Iranis could send their leaders one?
The old Labour Party would never have let a Council stack decision-making committees with unelected people, then give them voting rights to outvote the elected members. The old Labour Party had people who’d gone half way around the world and risked their lives to stop that sort of thing.
Somewhere along the line they lost their way. Somewhere between Roger Douglas and Jacinda Ardern, perhaps around the time of Helen Clark, when the Local Government Act was passed, in 2002.
That Act says, in Section 31 of Schedule 7: “The members of a committee or subcommittee may, but need not be, elected members of the local authority…” In other words, you can stack a committee. Originally the idea was to get, say, an Accountant on an audit committee.
Now the Far North District Council is stacking its various committees with iwi representatives who can vote, diluting the power of those elected and creating a new political order. Some are elected, subject to regular and free elections with a secret ballot, others appointed because of their background. It is anti democracy.
What if you don’t like this? Here’s what happens:
The first ever image in Free Press, we you need to see it.
This protest is organised for when the Council will debate appointing Māori representatives to a committee en masse. A mass haka, a ritual whose historic significance is to intimidate before a war will be brought to a place of debate.
The people attending are told ‘our sovereign voice is being challenged yet again by systemic racism.’ There’s lots there.
‘Our’ sovereign voice means Māori sovereign voice. The words appear beside ‘toitū te iwi Māori,’ ‘sustain the Māori people.’ ‘Our’ means our race.
It says Māori people have their ‘sovereign voice’ challenged. But how? All people in the Far North who are 18 or over have the right to vote. They elect Councillors who speak for them and if they don’t like it they can vote them out.
It seems that’s not enough. They need to somehow influence what happens inside besides voting. Having made it an us vs. them racial issue, the poster says the Māori sovereign voice is being challenged by ‘systemic racism.’
You’re either with us or against us, and if you’re not with us you’re racist. Imagine gathering people outside a building by telling them some of the people inside are against them because of their race, that those people are racist.
Sounds like something the media would see as important and send a few cameras, right? Don’t hold your breath.
ACT Local Councillor Davina Smolders is a New Zealand hero. She has stood alone asking hard questions of the Far North District Council, and so far got the Minister for Local Government to ‘engage’ with the Council (with a little help from ACT).
There is a simpler solution. Only people who are elected can vote. ACT MP Cameron Luxton has a Members Bill to amend Section 31, and do just that. Unfortunately Local Government Minister Simon Watts said it wasn’t a priority to adopt Cameron’s Local Government (Restoring Democratic Integrity) Amendment Bill.
Nobody who is not subject to regular and free elections by secret ballot should ever wield political power, on that we agree with old Labour.
It there’s one thing the Leftist Legacy Media love even more than stoush it’s severe weather events. This past Sunday those who could be bothered with them were at least treated to the sight of TV 1 News’ young activist reporters sent to the windiest places looking at if they were about to get their blocks blown off. 🙂
by Ryan Bridge
The storm for the most of the North Island was a fizzer.The TV news struggled to find pictures of anything actually happening other than a few trees down and reporters breathlessly doing pieces to camera in the wind.
In Auckland where I live most shops were closed and they didn’t need to be.
There is a risk of the boy who cried wolf.
But I also don’t think need to have an existential national conversation about whether this was over-hyped.
The forecasters do their thing. They tell you what is coming. Or their best guess of what’s coming. Then it’s up to us to make our own decisions based on the information, our own experience and personal judgement.
The businesses who decided to close yesterday before anything had actually happened lost a day’s trade. The one’s who didn’t, didn’t.
Maybe next time they’ll make a different call. After all, Auckland was only under an orange watch.
The media coverage was over the top. It always is. Remember they make money off events like this. Eyeballs on screens. I noticed before every video on the stuff site yesterday showing ocean lapping at sand dune, there was an ad for Tower Insurance playing.
They do what they do.
But you can’t tell MetService to not to report the weather.
They’re damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
We’re all responsible for our own lives. Ultimately we can decide if we’re safe enough to stay home or go to get a flat white from the local Robert Harris.
And if you want to go out kite-surfing or surfin in their storm, all power to ya. You might die, or you might have an awesome Sunday, wither way it’ll be your informed choice to do so.
Ryan Bridge is a New Zealand broadcaster who has worked on many current affairs television and radio shows. He currently hosts Newstalk ZB’s Early Edition — where this article was sourced.
You can’t help wondering when the diesel supply gets low if we’ll see all non-electric passenger trains powered by coal as they were decades ago. It would probably boost patronage!
They want to liberate their homeland from the ultra-corrupt, neo-Nazi regime imposed on them by the Obama administration and NATO in 2014.
Presenter Patrick Lancaster says, “I am near the Russian-Ukrainian frontline to show you something unique. In this video, you will see how former Ukrainian soldiers “”Maxim Krivonos” volunteer detachment” prepare to launch deadly kamikaze drones AGAINST UKRAINE FORCES. We will dive into their training process, find out how they work, and understand their motivation. This is not just a battalion, but a group of people who, according to them, are fighting for a “new Ukraine” against the current government.”
