90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, December 16, 2022

The Night the Lights Went Out in Europe A continent transforms into a third-world banana republic

Politico Europe, a publication marinated in green politics, has named Russian President Vladimir Putin as one of its “power players of the year” — for, in the publication’s words, “advancing Europe’s green agenda.”

“By invading Ukraine and manipulating energy supplies to undermine European support for Kyiv, Putin has achieved something generations of green campaigners could not — clean energy is now a fundamental matter of European security,” the news outlet explained approvingly.

It went on to note that Putin “invaded Ukraine after the EU had spent two years laying the foundations of its Green Deal program for zeroing out emissions by 2050. That meant the policy machinery for a total remake of the European energy economy was already moving. All it needed was a nudge.”

You would have to be pretty severely afflicted with Climate Change Derangement Syndrome to celebrate a silver lining in Putin’s murderous attack on Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Europe has sprinted so far ahead of the United States in its quest to end the use of fossil fuels that many U.S. politicians, environmentalists and media voices look on with envy.

But how is Europe’s Green New Deal going now that Putin has given it “a nudge”?

So far, the results are, to say the least, unencouraging. Euroland has been thrust into an epic energy crisis with electricity rationing, power outages, $10 a gallon gas and citizens encouraged by governments to use candles for lights and burning wood for heating purposes. Germany is reopening shuttered nuclear plants to avoid perpetual blackouts. It’s a return to the Dark Ages in Europe — and the climate change lobby is loving the return to chaos and mayhem.

This might be a slight exaggeration, but not much of one. The government in France has now warned of acute energy shortages this winter with drastic steps to conserve. As one publication put it, Paris, the City of Lights, may have to turn off the lights in the weeks and months ahead if it’s a cold winter.

Officials in Paris have decreed that local authorities must prepare power outage plans “that would reduce consumption of electricity by up to 38%.” Wait, there’s more: “The French government said it was working alongside the Ministry of Education to develop plans to close schools in the mornings if the area is to be impacted by rolling blackouts.” It sounds to me like climate change is the new COVID-19 for militant lockdowns and curfews.

Germany’s energy shortage is so severe that one of the fastest-growing energy sectors is coal. That’s because the Germans have declared war on natural gas, so because of the self-inflicted energy crisis, they are forced to use an energy source that emits more greenhouse gases. Wood is also becoming a major source of heating homes. The Dark Ages are back.

Then there is the calamity that is unfolding in Switzerland. This is a country that is anything but a heavy-handed socialist state, but now thanks to the “energy state of emergency,” which is the norm in Europe, the Swiss government has announced it will ban the use of electric cars for “nonessential” journeys. At the same time, it is encouraging people to take the train to shop for their groceries, but it has admitted that train service may also be disrupted.

That’s not all. The government is also drawing up plans for dealing with blackouts that include reducing store hours by up to two hours per day, heating systems in nightclubs to be turned off and other buildings to be heated to no more than 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Online streaming services and game consoles could be banned. Christmas lights might be turned off, and all sports stadiums and leisure facilities could be closed.

Is Europe turning into a third-world banana republic?

All of this brings us to a stark reality. Europe has gone all-in on wind and solar power, and the experiment has failed miserably. These fringe energy sources don’t work and aren’t scalable for industrial economies. And the more it doesn’t work, the more it requires police state interventions with fascistic controls over the economy and personal behavior. All of these assaults on freedom and prosperity are in the name of...

The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1234

Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,

Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.

If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.

Please Leave Silently Into The Night......

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1934

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

Girls With Guns

Visage à trois #655

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #835

Mother of Child Rape Victim Sues Virginia Soros Prosecutor in Federal Court

Steve Descano's office had to offer a plea deal after failing to share evidence on time

The mother of an 11-year-old rape victim is suing a George-Soros backed prosecutor in Virginia who let the boy’s rapist walk free, alleging the prosecutor’s actions violated the minor’s civil rights and made him fear for his physical safety.

Amber Reel in November filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of her son after Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney Steve Descano (D.) let the rapist walk. Court filings show Descano was months late in sharing necessary evidence before a September trial, dooming the case and forcing his office to enter into a lesser plea deal with the rapist the same month. Ronnie Reel, who was released on time served, had faced life in prison for forcibly sodomizing the minor. Reel is the victim’s uncle.

This is the second high-profile case in the last month where the Soros prosecutor freed a dangerous offender. In December, Descano struck a plea deal that would clear the record of a man who fired his gun into a crowded Virginia bar. Soros donated more than half a million dollars to Descano’s 2019 campaign.

A grand jury had already indicted Reel in February for sodomy and aggravated sexual battery, and the case was set for trial in September. But Descano’s office didn’t share evidence with the public defender before trial, bungling Reel’s prosecution with its "woefully, woefully missed" deadlines. The case’s presiding judge said Descano’s office did a "disservice to the victim" and was "very concerning to the court."

Because he dodged a felony sex crime conviction, Reel won’t have to register as a sex offender and won’t be barred from holding jobs in schools or other places that would put him near children. The victim and his mother in their suit say Descano’s "deliberate indifference represents egregious conduct that is shocking to the conscience."

"We have to deal with feeling like we’re in danger," Amber Reel told Fox 5, which first reported the lawsuit. "There’s other kids out there. He’s going to move into a neighborhood. What if there’s a school down the road?"

A spokesman for Descano did not respond to a request for comment.

The victim also claims Descano lied by saying it was the first time his office had failed to submit evidence for a case. The prosecutor missed deadlines for evidence in January on a case involving a man who solicited a minor online for sex. The case was dismissed in July due to Descano’s failure.

Fairfax County circuit court chief judge Penney Azcarate confirmed in court that Reel’s case was "not the first time" she saw a failure by Descano’s office lead to charges being dismissed, according to a September court transcript. By failing to provide evidence, Azcarate added, the office had broken the law.

Nor was it the first time Descano lied over the course of the Reel case. According to the federal lawsuit, the prosecutor said he would keep the victim and his mother abreast of any plea negotiations in accordance with Virginia law but then failed to do so, adding "insult to injury," they say.

Even Reel’s defense attorney piled on after the case was dismissed, telling Fox 5 that Descano’s office tried "to make excuses for their failure to do their job."

Last week, a group of crime victims asked Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin (R.) and Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares (R.) to investigate Descano "for possible neglect of duty, misuse of office, incompetence, and violations of the civil rights of crime victims." One of those victims was the owner of the Virginia bar threatened by a gunman Descano let off easy this month.

"Steve Descano’s office has shown more concern for those who commit crimes than those who...

The hatred of the accomplished Musk and the worship of the hollow man Bankman-Fried are sad commentaries on how liberalism has descended into progressivism and ultimately into Stalinism.

Before the midterm November elections, Sam Bankman-Fried was a left-wing billionaire heartthrob.

He properly grew up on the Stanford campus, where his parents were well-known left-wing activist law professors. He went to a tony prep school and on to MIT.

Bankman-Fried mocked society’s bourgeois capitalist conventions by dressing and looking like a slob in cut-offs and T-shirts.

Indeed, he bested the nose-ring, Charles Manson-esque appearance of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. He outdid the all-black, Steve Jobs copy-cat get-up of another fallen leftist icon, the now-convicted felon Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos infamy.

The Left canonized Bankman-Fried for the hundreds of millions of dollars he created out of thin air and channeled to left-wing congressional and state candidates, Joe Biden, and a host of “progressive” causes under the cool slogan “effective altruism.”

For decades hence—or so Bankman-Fried promised—his cryptocurrency company FTX would churn out billions. Its politically correct gifting won exemptions from the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Democratic-controlled congressional oversight committees.

The loud-talking, left-wing slob promised billions of dollars more in gifts to come. He was knighted as the successor to the kindred financial market manipulator and progressive “philanthropist” George Soros.

SBF may have been a sloppy, immature fool, but he was no dummy.

He had learned early on that loud leftist talk, big promises of philanthropy, and huge cash infusions to the media and leftist candidates—all under the veneer of “effective altruism”— ensured de facto immunity for his Ponzi schemes from both bad press and government investigation.

Then, suddenly, the midterms were over. Powerful financial interests were screaming their millions had vanished at the hands of SBF.

The Republicans took the House. They promised embarrassing hearings, with Bankman-Fried the loose-talking star villain. And so—presto!—he was finally indicted by the Biden Department of Justice.

Bankman-Fried, in desperation one last time, had turned to his old props of raggedy dress, nerd talk, and contrived naivete.

His schtick no longer worked. Too many leftists were embarrassed that they got too much money from him. Too many exposed “regulators” had known what this wannabe Madoff character was up to before the midterms.

The now albatross Bankman-Fried was loud and everywhere, then suddenly not—and won’t be again.

In contrast, consider how the Left now despises Elon Musk as much as it once worshiped Sam Bankman-Fried.

Musk once mixed vaguely liberal politics with a David-versus-Goliath self-confidence, as he took on Big Auto and Big Space—and won.

But then he turned to Twitter and Big Tech. Or, rather, Musk realized Silicon Valley was no longer the irreverent embryo of boy geniuses he remembers from his youth, which outsmarted and preempted the...