Well I don’t know if Kyiv is going to fall tomorrow, but it is obvious there is a lack of…
August 1, 2024
Voila, the “Council of Judges” (OBT) has already submitted to Orban's "reorganization" by the afternoon. https://obt-jud.hu/sites/default/files/ulesek/Osszefoglalo_2024.11.20.pdf
Putin's spokesman, Peskov: "Freezing the conflict in Ukraine [along the existing frontlines] is UNACCEPTABLE for Russia, it is important for…
According to the 2015 contract, Russia would build the the Paks-2 atomic power plant for 12.5 billion euros, from start…
Current US situation: https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/index.html https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/avian/avian-influenza/hpai-detections/commercial-backyard-flocks
A funny ranting on the isolation of Fidesz – even by the Hungarians in Romania.
https://hungarytoday.hu/double-talk-from-the-leader-of-romanian-hungarians-a-political-slippery-slope/
Fidesz claiming that the EPP with Mr Weber (whom I even considered a right winger when we disucssd the EPP wanting to throw out Fidesz some years ago, remember?) shows thei real positin:
To the right of us is only the wall!
I hope they will be even more isolated when Mrs Harris gets elected as US President …
And a detailed analysis:
https://telex.hu/english/2024/07/27/from-the-rational-russians
So the Forint is already “rising” again:
A few days ago it was 391, now it’s
1 € = 396 HUF
The Hungarian nationalists in Romania are a rarity in the EU.
They have insular status in Romania, but they don’t persue national recognition because of a general refusal to speak Romanian at exam level. There is a Hungarian party, but it doesn’t have full reprentation (because of the language issue).
As a result, the priviliges they are granted about schools and higher education are only recognized in Hungary.
Probably, Romania is ok with that.
I’ve always wndered about this, might have written about this before:
We met a couple from omania moore than 30 years ago. She was of Hungarian descent, he German – very nice people who settled quickly in Germany, got good jobs, bought a house …
And they and their children are totally integrated. They visited us regularly in Hungary n the visit of her grandmother but now they’re older and have no connection at all to Romania …
Their children and grandchildren only speak German.
They got no connection to the Romanian political system at all, neither to the Hungarian system.
And of course we know many qualified Hungarians who aren’t thinking at all of returning “home” …
Good for Germany to have so many qualified immigrants – doen’t matter where they’re frm!
Putin*s best friend Orbaistan is getting mre and more isolated.
Now:
The Ukrainian first lady, Olena Zelenska, has attended in Turkey the launch of the Hetman Ivan Vyhovskyi, an anti-submarine warship newly built for Ukraine.
It’s the second of its kind already.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/02/ukraine-war-briefing-turkey-launches-new-ukrainian-warship
I read this Reuters article (https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/resurgent-far-right-conjures-austria-hungary-headache-eu-ukraine-2024-08-05/) and thought how is it possible to discuss a resurgence of the Austro-Hungarian power structure and Orban without discussing Transcarpathia? Which is exactly what the article did.
I remain convinced that even though the Magyar speaking population of the Ukrainian border region is declining critically due to younger male Hungarian speakers (Kárpátaljai magyarok) effectively taking sanctuary in Hungary from conscription and a bloodbath of a war. Fidesz and the mad crew of ultra nationalists look forward to the existing Ukrainian state going into crisis that might allow the Ukrainian Zakarpattia Oblast to spin off and become a Hungarian protectorate, and eventually reincorporated into Hungary. I think it’s a fantasy, but it reappears endlessly as an aspirational objective of the Nagy-Magyarország movement.
Such a crisis for the Ukraine could be manifested by a forced peace agreement that causes the Russian seized territories to be ceded to Putin due to exhaustion in this brutal war of attrition.
I don’t know if Orban has personal dreams of ridding a white horse into Transcarpathia as it’s national savior but there are clearly some in Fidesz that ilyen álmaid vannak.
By the way the Hungarian Catholic Church in Chicago that my grandfather and great uncle helped to found has been downgraded by the Cardinal to a status lower than a parish (see http://www.stephenchurch.org/3.18.21_Decree_RMC13_StStephenKingofHungary.pdf).
Of course the more wealthy historic families of the Church are going to be asked for more money. I don’t see what I call the ancestral arrow cross families putting a lot of money into the pot at this point in particular because many of those families live so far out from the city in what are called the exurbs (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exurb) and have joined English language based parishes that are composed of an amalgamation Eastern European Catholics.
Our Cardinal Blase Joseph Cupich is the child of Croatian immigrants to the USA and is a fluent Croatian speaker. Cardinal Blase Cupich was raised in the Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in Omaha, Nebraska. That parish actually began to exist in 1907, when a small number of people of Croatian descendants met with Father John Zaplotnik in the home of Nicholas Mickells to celebrate Mass in their native language.
Its origins are similar are very similar to the parish in Chicago my grandfather and great uncle founded. The Ustaše (Croat fascists)in significant numbers got into the USA after WW2 by claiming the communists were persecuting for being Catholics, I don’t know the history of the Cardinal’s family but they immigrated to the USA after the war. So like myself he was likely raised in a community where old fascists or supporters of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were preponderant.
Alojzije Stepinac (far right) with two Catholic priests at the funeral of President of the Croatian Parliament Marko Došen in September 1944.
Stepinac was made a cardinal by Pius XII in 1953
The irony, which Fidesz does it’s upmost to ignore, is that due to employment in EU, the educated and skilled, tax-paying work force in Transcarpathia, has diminished to high levels of negative economic growth.
How they figure a transition to more reliance on Hungarian state subsidy for meeting the needs of a rapidly ageing population will improve anything there, is beyond me. But of course, the party entrepreneurs will be happy.
“Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 (^N225) has experienced its worst-ever daily selloff on Monday, amid panic selling triggered by fears of a possible US recession that is spilling over to European markets.
At the close in Tokyo on Monday, the benchmark index was down 4,451.28 points, or 12.40%”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-stock-markets-black-monday-japan-nikkei-122346910.html
Japanese central bank raised interest rates. Yen > Euro > US dollar
Wharton’s Siegel urges the Fed to make an emergency 0.75% rate cut.
—-
Hungarian economy:
electric car sales are down —> fewer electric batteries are needed —-> Orban’s 100% bet on Chinese battery factories will backfire.
Walz + Muslims > Shapiro
MN + MI > PA
10 + 15 > 19
Harris just chose Walz for her VP.
Shapiro has dodged the issues related to orthodox settlers in Israel too much and would have increased the size of the expected demonstrations here in Chicago if he was selected.
Right now the city of Chicago is in legal battles with supporters of the Palestinian resistance movement, and even Jewish opponents of the Israeli coalition government over the demonstration routes and the proximity to the DNC itself.
The problem will really be with what is called the Black-bloc anarchists who will literally attack police lines to provoke violence. There is no way of knowing how many will show up.
Black Blocs operate without hierarchy. They are temporary groups formed for a specific protest. Black Blocs do not exist before and after a given event. They may even try to attack major shopping districts in Chicago during the DNC. There also could be attempts by largely African American street gangs or crime crews to start looting around the city. There is a lot of stress in this town right now.
I was totally opposed for Chicago hosting the DNC, it’s a big financial looser for the city government and the taxpayers here, especially more wealthy homeowners who pay significant property taxes like my wife and I do. In fact we and many other
higher value homeowners are in litigation over our assessments for property taxes right now.
By higher value homes inside of Chicago our home was calculated to have a market value for purposes of taxation of about 328,212,000 forints. The proposed increase would be around 15% and increase our yearly property taxes significantly.
Poorer Chicagoans often either own homes at a fraction of our current value, pay rent in the private market that can easily be 730,000 forints a month, or are in public housing or public subsidized housing which is often very inexpensive but requires a very low income. Big American cities have huge financial problems.
Shapiro wrote his negative opinion about the “Oslo accord” in a student newspaper in 1993.
He was basically right.
pp 9 & 10
Campus Times, September 23, 1993:
“Student view: Peace not possible” by Josh Shapiro
[…]
“I do not believe that the Israelis and Palestinians have achieved peace, nor do I believe that this will mark an end to the “blood and tears”.
[…]
Although I am an advocate of peace, I am also an advocate of realism.
[…]
Palestinians will not coexist peacefully.
[…]
They are too battle-minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland”
I prefer not to have a potential bloodbath on our doorsteps here in Chicago over Harris selecting a VP who is seen as pro-Israel.
Harris came under verbal assault from pro-Palestinian supporters today in Detroit Michigan.
She tried meeting with them and not surprisingly they wanted an end to US weapons shipments to Israel. Harris would not agree with that.
The gun slingling, saber rattling agendas of the world seem to make their way to the higher agendas of American politics (or maybe just chicago).
What happened to US integrity???
I lived in the US for four years, from 67 to 72, but never heard of foreign conflict-agendas as local matters.
Even the shooting of Robert Kennedy, was treated as a local incident, although the shooter was identified as a Palestinian.
Russian troops occupied the center of New York from the southern direction yesterday !
(New York of Donietsk, that is…)
The Ukraine eastern defenses are about to collapse. Fortress Toretsk is next to New York.
They are also steadily fighting towards Pokrovsk
The Ukranian situation is changing at the moment.
A surprise attack in the Kursk region gives Ukraine a great psychological advantage
as it’s considered Russian “holy ground”, but poorly defended.
If the Ukrainians get a foothold there, Putin will have to be very creative about selling a victorious story about the situation.
Rumor has it that casualties run 10 to 1 in favor of Ukraine.
Interesting development in the Ukraine war.
Appearently, Ukraine found a weak spot in the Russian defenses near the north-eastern front and made deep advances without too much risk. They force Russian air forces to retreat and make Russians insecure about Putin’s war-narrative.The fact that emergency measures are in force, tells many Russians that there is little control.
How this develops, we shall see, but the fact that Ukraine cut a deep seem into Russian territory must be cause for concern in the Kremlin. If Ukraine mines the territory (which they might not do), Russians deal with real war at home.
Unfortunately, the Ukrainian incursion is just a side show. The Ukrainians want Russia to redeploy troops from the south, but this is not happening.
Russian troops now fully control New York and only 8 km from Pokrovsk – Ukrainian defenses seem to be collapsing in the Donietsk region.
“Lithuanian Defence Minister Laurynas Kasciunas said on Tuesday [Aug 13] Russia was moving troops from its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad to the southern Kursk region”
In other words, the Kursk incursion did not force the Russian leadership to weaken their advance in the Donietsk region.
The complete end of financial privacy for non-Orban voters.
The Hungarian National Bank and the Tax Authority are willing to provide the newly created “Sovereignty Authority” with the details of bank accounts and tax returns of anyone the “Sovereignty Authority” requests.
https://atlatszo.hu/kozugy/2024/08/12/kiperelt-keresek-maganszemelyek-bankszamlairol-is-kimutatasokat-kert-a-szuverenitasvedelmi-hivatal/
Olympic rankings.
There is NO official olympic ranking – individual athletes compete, not countries (Coubertin’s original idea)
Method #1
gold; silver; bronze
#1 USA: 40; 44; 42
#2 China: 40; 27; 24
#3 Japan: 19; 11; 13
#4 Australia: 18; 19; 16
#5 France: 16; 26; 22
[…]
#14 Hungary: 6; 7; 6
Method #2
gold + silver + bronze (favored in the US, because US is always first by this ranking)
#1 USA: 126
#2 China: 91
#3 Great Britain: 65
#4 France: 64
#5 Australia: 53
[…]
#13 Hungary and Brazil: 19 medals each.
Method #3
gold= 7; silver= 5; bronze=4; 4th place= 3; 5th =2; 6th= 1 point(s)
(preferred in Hungary in the 1960s)
#1 USA: 798 points
#2 France: 434
#3 Britain: 432
#4 Australia: 351
#5: Italy: 334
[…]
#13: Hungary and New Zealand: 147 points each.
Method #4
“probability ranking”
#1 Australia
#2 France
#3 Great Britain
#4 Netherlands
#5 USA
[…]
#8 Hungary
https://m4sport.hu/olimpia2024/eremtabla
https://www.olympicnationalrankings.com/
Clearly method # 4 is best …
Defending Hungarian Olympic gold medalist Aron Szilagyi was denied a four-peat in a major upset against Canadian Fares Afra in the men’s individual sabre fencing Round of 32. Szilagyi lost 8-15 in the match. Was a disappointment even for myself who is a supporter of the US Olympic team.
He was a great champion. My daughter was the captain of the University of Illinois women’s fencing team and was highly ranked on the college level and was the US Army champion.
The Olympic level is a whole different story and even though she had private coaching and training she could not make the US team for the 2016 cycle while she was pursuing her doctoral degree in agricultural economics and retired from competition.
She told me she simply couldn’t train enough to make the team while pursuing her academic career. Really the Olympics requires giving up or significantly delaying advanced degrees for training.
https://x.com/trumpdailyposts/status/1823578049545429280
I do not thrust this Magyar Péter. Not at all.
Stating well-known facts, Olympia would be good for Hungary??
And only after publicity for the good case.
He never picked a side and claimed that he was on the right side.
Only he and his followers.
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