Tag: Stupid people

Null Set

History

From that Yglesias twat:

Name one.

Seriously.  I have studied Nazi Germany extensively for well over half a century — both as an amateur historian* and as a serious student (as part of my Western Civ major) — and I’ve yet to come up with a single Nazi “idea” that can be called good.

And I don’t accept the red herring about aeronautics and blitzkrieg, for instance.  Those were engineering and military ideas conceived by Germans, not Nazis;  and in many if not most cases, they predate the NDSAP’s assumption of power in 1933.

If you exclude any “good” Nazi ideas that weren’t related to making war, propaganda or genocide more efficient, or furthering the Nazis’ obsession with race, you’re not going to find any.

Ich habe Dachau gesehen.

Oh, and please don’t even think of the “medical advances” made by using concentration camp inmates as guinea pigs, because that just turns my stomach.  Ditto the “miracle” of keeping their industrial centers going despite the Allied bombing, which they achieved only through extensive use of slave labor.

So as a piece of provocative writing, Yglesias’s little statement is cute — but it’s also specious.  The Nazis had no good ideas, and to even suggest they did is either malicious or moronic.

*I first read Shirer’s Rise And Fall back when I was in high school, and have re-read it maybe a dozen times since.  Ditto works from Erich Manstein and a host of other military figures.  Even that slimy little shit Albert Speer’s Inside The Third Reich  has been on my bookshelf.  And the lasting impression from all of them is that the Nazis were absolutely hopeless, at everything.

Canceled Entertainment

Drive Time, Sports

Great moments in bad timing, #435:

Formula 1 is going to have to cancel the two Grand Prix races in April, because the venues (Bahrain and Saudi Arabia) have become an unwitting victim of Operation Kick Shi’a Iranian Ass.

This sucks big time….

…although strictly speaking it serves F1 right because they should never have given the Arabs so many Grands Prix in the first place.

The races can’t be rescheduled because the calendar is full and there’s no room at the inn.

But in the grand scheme of things, it’s irrelevant because the new “formula” in Formula 1 has turned the races into even more boring spectacles than they were before, which is saying something.

I have a simple fix for their “boring” problem, by the way (although they won’t want to hear it):

Ditch those pathetic half-Duracell / half-tiny-turbo engines (1500cc?  WTF?) and replace them with gasoline-powered 2.5-litre V16s, screaming their lungs out and deafening spectators at 18,000rpm.  And let the drivers drive, instead of forcing them to be battery-power managers.

And then I’ll show you all around my unicorn garden.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD, Wars & Other Fun Games

From this guy, talking about the Iranian Ass-Kicking Exercise and BritPM Starmer’s reaction thereto:

“Progressive realism has met reality: when the chips are down, nobody cares about international law; nobody cares about tolerance and diversity; nobody cares about human rights; nobody cares about doing the right thing. They care about winning.”

Yup.  It works at both the macro- and micro levels, btw.  (see:  Righteous Shootings)

Lockdown / Shutdown

Education, Plagues and Poxes

I know that this is just stating the obvious, but here it is anyway:

Babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic are ‘falling behind’ on key milestones including talking and crawling because of a lack of social interaction, early learning staff and scientists have warned.

Studies have also revealed children born after March 2020 are less likely to be able to vocalize than their peers were at this age, and are yet to develop social skills such as sharing and waiting their turn — leading to more fights.

Scientists suggest a lack of social contact with family and relatives due to restrictions is behind the shift.

The long-term impact of the pandemic on children is not yet clear, but experts have warned keeping children away from their peers for so long with lockdowns is bound to have harmed their development.

Look, I’m not remotely an expert on this stuff, but it’s a well-known fact that childhood learning (particularly during the early years) requires continuous stimulation — and by “continuous” I mean uninterrupted.

While it is generally acknowledged that children’s brains are absolute sponges when it comes to learning, it is also true (to continue the metaphor) that letting the sponge dry out during the process, even for short periods of time, can affect its absorption capacity.  And once that is lost, there is no recovery of the ability.

So for the (dubious) purpose of saving a few lives, an entire group of children has been irremediably harmed.

A paper published in JAMA in January this year that looked at 225 children born in 2020 revealed babies were less likely to be crawling and smiling at themselves in a mirror within six months. It also showed they had reduced social and problem solving skills.

And a UK-based survey of teachers released last month found those teaching children in the early grades were now seeing more biting and hitting in the classroom than previously.  [New Wife reports the same from her preschool, incidentally]

British-based charity Ofsted has also suggested in a report that after reviewing more than 280 educational settings, children are struggling with basic skills such as writing and speaking in the wake of the pandemic.

They said some teachers even said they had seen youngsters lack confidence in group activities, and struggle to share and take turns.

Similarly, Brown University scientists, who assessed 1,000 children, found there was a 23 percent dive in ‘pandemic’ babies scores in three cognitive tests.

Any time in the future that the Panic Purveyor Set (e.g. Fauci) suggests that we isolate ourselves in the Covid-19 manner, we should set about them with baseball / cricket bats (apply according to national preference).

For the children.

Food For Thought

Bureaucracy, Economics, Gummint, Marxists

Here are a few A.I. videos that I think are worthy of consideration, so if you care for the thesis — and you might, because it’s all very much focused on the economic scenario in various countries and not so much on politics (although the two are pretty much entangled, as you will see).

The first has to do with Canada;  the second with France; the third with the EU and the fourth with the U.K.

Finally, if you want to see yet another (but shorter and more superficial) article which (because it’s CNN) looks at the actions rather than the motivations behind the actions, there’s New Zealand.  And if you want to really chuckle, note that the fleeing New Zealanders are mostly heading for Australia — as the video calls it, “the new Argentina” (and to be clear, they’re referring to Peronist Argentina, not the Argentina of Milei).

Now the chilling bit.  If you distill all the events in the above, it will become clear that even with MAGA, with DOGE, and with all the Trumpism reorgs, the U.S. is heading down the same path.  The manifestations thereof are well known:  the citizens of ur-European soviets (New York, California and Illinois, etc.) fleeing their failed states for states that aren’t being run into the ground by their respective state governments.

And the spoiler:  all the above — all of it — can be ascribed to Marxism and the mindset it creates.

New Direction, Wrong Direction

Corporate Fuckery, Management

Sometimes I wonder how people stay afloat.  Here’s the latest example:

Mercedes’ upcoming baby-G was supposed to be the cute, chunky electric-only gateway into G-Class ownership. But the automotive market is changing fast, and so are Benz’s plans, as it reacts to cooling demand for EVs in some markets, especially for its own electric cars. As a result, the boxy SUV will now come with hybrid power.

Internally nicknamed Little G, Autocar reports, the compact, GLB-sized, two-row off-roader is due in 2027 and will still be available as a pure EV. But a companion hybrid model is now in development, using the turbocharged four-cylinder from the latest Mercedes-Benz CLA sedan.

The change speaks to a wider reset inside Mercedes. The company has stepped back from its earlier EV-only plans, with CEO Ola Källenius confirming it will keep selling combustion models well into the 2030s to stay flexible across different markets. Tepid demand for the electric G-Class has, by most accounts, helped concentrate minds.

Okay, I would ordinarily be crowing at MB’s total stupidity in chasing after the Net Zero-inspired push to all–electric-and-only-electric mantra, and gleefully pointing at their corporate privates at having to change course.  Been there, done that.

But here’s where stupidity crosses the line into gibbering idiocy, because about that four-banger they’re going to use?

The hybridized 1.5-liter unit is designed by Mercedes and built by Horse Powertrain in China, a joint venture involving Geely and Renault.

So much for that vaunted German engineering and manufacturing prowess, hey?

Now let’s just talk a little about MB’s other idiocy, this time in marketing:

After years of speculation and teasers, Mercedes-Benz’s smaller G-Class is finally edging closer to production, The compact G-Wagen sticks closely to the blocky proportions of its full-sized counterpart, aiming to carry over much of its tough, go-anywhere character.

Shrunk in scale but not in identity, it’s being positioned to take on Land Rover’s downsized Defender in the growing premium off-roader market.

The whole point of the G-wagen is that it represented a badass vibe:  mil-spec toughness, powerful engine, and serious offroad capability.  The fact that it had the aerodynamic qualities of a brick and used gasoline faster than you could throw it out the window in 5-gallon cans was just another middle finger to the eco-fairies, and the G-wagen’s stratospheric price made its target market all the more likely to be use it mostly in suburban commuting rather than where it outperformed almost every other UV on the market:  in challenging offroad adventuring.

In short, the G-wagen was always just an exercise in conspicuous consumption (both of money and of fuel), as was (and is) the Range Rover.

What I find quite risible is that MB is going to use the “Baby G” (good name, guys) to compete with the effeminate new version of the Defender (on which I have poured scorn before).

Here’s what’s going to happen:  Baby G is going to cannibalize sales from Big G, not from the Defender.  And as Big G’s sales start to dip, the marketing rationale for Big G will likewise start to erode until MB has to pull it off the market.  And the massive profits currently earned by Big G will be replaced by the much-smaller profits from Baby G.

You heard it here first.