I didn’t even know that the old Cold War CIA front Radio Free Europe was still active until I came across an interview at its site with a Washington analyst named George Barros.  He said everything that I have been picking up elsewhere about the new generation warfare that Ukraine is developing to frustrate, starve of materiel, and drive out the Russian invader in the south of the country.  The interview is beneath the fold.

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A Yanasa TV video setting out the prospects for extremely serious global food shortages from 2023.  The moral: grow what you can, if you can.

Hat-tip to Wandervogel, commenter at The Current Thing.

There is a lot of noise in our corner of the political world about the protests by Dutch farmers against government restrictions on the land-use of nitrous oxide.  Farmers Weekly explains:

Thousands of farmers in the Netherlands have taken part in protests against Dutch government plans to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

The protestors blocked motorways with columns of slow-moving tractors as farmers descended on the Dutch parliament buildings in The Hague.

Amsterdam and other cities were also brought to a standstill as farmers torched straw bales, spread slurry across streets and let off fireworks, according to the Associated Press. In some cities, dozens of farmers were arrested after violent clashes with police.

Sporadic violence also broke out between police and farmers at the largest rally last week, which drew an estimated 40,000 protesters to the town of Stroe.

The protests coincided with a parliamentary vote on a proposed £22bn programme to halve agricultural emissions of nitrous oxide and ammonia by 2030.

In some areas, close to nature reserves, the policy is tougher still, with 70-95% reductions targeted.

... despite the protests, the Dutch coalition government, led by prime minister Mark Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, approved the proposals.

Following the vote, the Netherlands House of Representatives released a statement which said: “The honest message is that not all farmers will continue in business. Those who do will have to farm differently.”

The protests have been going on since 22nd June.  The farmers have regularly blocked roads and picketed outside distribution centres and supermarkets.  They moved their focus today to Groningen Airport Eelde, located in the north-east of the country.

Mark Rutte’s government is accused of interpreting EU regulations on farming nitrogen use far more strictly and ideologically than any other national government in the union.  Anti-globalists, of course, see the hand of the WEF in the whole affair.  A pithy comment by a poster at ZH with the handle Kramerica Industries explains:

It’s all part of the WEF plan:
- they can’t force you to eat bugs and weeds (making you weak and docile) while you have access to meat, dairy and normal food (thus farms got to go)
- they can’t make you rent their electric golf carts if you have access to ICE vehicles and cheap (traditional) energy
- they can’t make you live in rented pods and never exit the megacities (leaving the planet to them), while you have access to private property, ICE vehicles and again, CHEAP ENERGY
So now you see how they arranged their chess pieces.

Apropos the natural evolution issues raised in the piece I posted two days ago on the main page, the DT reports:

Britons are evolving to be poorer and less well-educated
Natural selection favours people with lower earnings and levels of attainment, because smart rich people have fewer children, study claims

Britons are evolving to be less well-educated and poorer because smart rich people are having fewer children, a new study has suggested.

Researchers have found that natural selection is favouring people with lower earnings and poorer education, with the next generation likely to be one or two percentage points lower in educational attainment than today.

Evolution also appears to be favouring people with a high risk of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), major depressive disorders and coronary artery disease, as well as younger parents and people with more sexual partners.

Prof David Hugh-Jones, lead researcher from University of East Anglia’s School of Economics, said: “Darwin’s theory of evolution stated that all species develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual’s ability to compete, survive and reproduce.

“We wanted to find out more about which characteristics are selected for and against in contemporary humans, living in the UK.”

...

The team looked at data from more than 300,000 people in the UK, taken from the UK Biobank - a long-term project investigating the contributions of genetic predisposition and environmental exposure to the development of disease.

What Do Hugh-Jones’s team finds, not to put too fine a point on it, is that welfaring the feckless and poor to breed increases the size of the underclass relative to the rest of society, which reduces national IQ and leads eventually to Idiocracy (as per the 2006 film of that name).

The study appears not to mention race and immigration - no doubt, he wouldn’t get funding if it did!  That aside, one wonders that scientists find it necessary to confirm the obvious.  But, then, there are rigid political positions ... the blank slate, in particular, but also racial sameness and the unpopularity among the liberal classes of social conservatism and judgmentalism ... which require to be regularly falsified.  Not that the holders of these religious beliefs will make the slightest adjustment because of their negative consequences, of course.

The German Chancellor at the delayed Davos shindig, as reported by the DT:

Olaf Scholz has warned that the era of globalisation that powered the German economic miracle is “coming to an inevitable end” after Vladimir Putin’s “thunderbolt”.

The German Chancellor admitted that Europe’s largest economy faces a “very special challenge” as the industrial powerhouse is hit by soaring energy prices.

Mr Scholz launched a defence of globalisation at the World Economic Forum in Davos but admitted that its era is drawing to a close as inflation rises.

He said: “We are experiencing a watershed; history is at a turning point.”

Germany’s huge manufacturing base has benefited from an interconnected world and cheap energy from Russia. However, the war in Ukraine and trade chaos caused by Covid has forced governments and businesses to rethink supply chains and energy security.

Mr Scholz, the only G7 leader to speak at Davos this year, said that Europe had been struck by a “thunderbolt” from the war in Ukraine and a new “multipolar world” is emerging.

He said: “The special phase of globalisation we have experienced in North America and Europe during the last 30 years, with reliable growth, a high level of added value and low inflation is coming to an inevitable end.

“One reason for this is that the low cost producers of the global south are gradually becoming thriving economies with their own demand, which aspire to the same level of prosperity as we have.

He admitted that globalisation had created losers and said it needs to become more “intelligent”.

This is, actually, big news, not because of the scramble to replace Russian gas and oil or because of the other scramble to keep to the international climate dictates.  No, globalisation is the key condition in which Western globalism in its present technocratic form can function.  A contraction to it implies a contraction to Western globalism.  How that will play out is far too early to say.  But such a vast correction cannot be accommodated by the current Davos model.

The DT reports as breaking news:

Elon Musk has made a $43bn takeover offer for Twitter at $54.30 a share in cash.

The offer is a 54pc premium to its closing price on January 28 before he started buying shares.

The move comes after the Telsa founder was revealed to be Twitter’s biggest shareholder with a 9.2pc holding earlier this month.

Shares in Twitter rose 12pc in pre-market trading to $51.30.

Musk is widely understood to be a free speech advocate.  It seems that we are going to find out how free.

It is headlined What Ukrainians think about the war, Putin, Russia, NATO, Europe – and Britain. A remarkable poll from Kyiv., and it is revealing.  In the middle of all the pain and chaos of war, the pollster Lord Ashcroft has succeeded in sounding out the thoughts of Kievans.  The results challenge those in the West who don’t much concern themselves with the rights and interests of the folk who actually live under the missiles, shells and bombs, never mind their views.  It is, you seem, just too tempting to attack the neocons and usual suspects in “the West” who, it is said, left Putin no alternative but to launch a full scale war against a peaceful people.

From ConHome’s article:

Ukrainians want to stay and fight

Only 11 per cent of Ukrainians agreed “if I could leave Ukraine safely tomorrow for another country I would.” Nearly seven in 10 (69 per cent) strongly disagreed. Only one in 20 (five per cent) of those aged 65 or over said they would leave if they could.

Indeed, 67 per cent said they would be willing to take up arms to defend the country against Russian troops, with a further seven per cent saying they were already doing so. 85 per cent of men and 63 per cent of women said they had already taken up arms or were willing to do so.

Ninety-three per cent said they were willing to help Ukrainian troops in other ways, such as providing shelter, food or clothing, or were already doing so.

Ninety-two per cent said they had a favourable view of President Zelensky, including 66 per cent whose view was very favourable.

Ukrainians do not expect a long war

More than half (56 per cent) of Ukrainians said they expected the conflict to be over by the end of March, with a further 14 per cent expecting it to last up to three months. Fewer than one in ten (nine per cent) said they thought it would last longer than six months. Women and younger people were more optimistic about an early end to military action.

No part of Ukraine is part of Russia – but Ukrainians don’t see Russians as the enemy.

98 per cent of Ukrainians – including 82 per cent of those of Russian ethnicity – said they did not believe that any part of Ukraine was rightfully part of Russia.

While 97 per cent had an unfavourable view of Vladimir Putin and 94 per cent had an unfavourable view of the Russian military (including only 82 per cent saying “very unfavourable”; 12 per cent generously said their view of Russian forces was only “somewhat unfavourable”), Ukrainians see Russians themselves in a slightly different light.

Only 62 per cent said they had a very unfavourable view of the Russian people, with a further 19 per cent saying it was somewhat unfavourable. Fourteen per cent had a somewhat or very favourable view of the Russian people.

Ukrainians consider their future to be closer to Europe

Nearly 19 in 20 Ukrainians (93 per cent) said they considered their country’s future to be closer to Europe than to Russia. This included 78 per cent of respondents of Russian ethnicity, and 84 per cent of those in the east of the country closest to the Russian border.

Nationalists like to talk about honour.  This is honour.