I almost never do this.

The email below is from a long time reader and good friend Ron.  He lives in Hungary, and his wife is Hungarian.  She is the one who explained that for many Hungarians, Ronald Reagan is the only president they admire.  He alone did something about Eastern Europe rather than make promises and then hand them over to the Soviets.  They also give some great insights about life in the often misunderstood Eastern European world; insights that match wahat I've heard from other immigratns from that region.  I make no promise that everything below is spot on accurate or without bias. But Ron is a good, thoughtful individual.  Not only does he know and speak Gallic, which is its own level of awesome, but he has a deep, thoughtful way of looking at issues in the Church as well as in the world.  Having lived in Europe, Ireland and now Hungary, he comes at things from an angle I can't always see. 

So I have copied the entire email below.  If nothing else, it counters the narrative that apparently the Church and its leaders have adopted that everything is awesome, Obama is awesome, Democratic Socialist countries in Europe are awesome, and except for a few evil Capitalists and racist Conservatives, the world could pretty much come together and live in happy peace.  At least this is an alternative viewpoint to that.  Enjoy

"There is about the current international situation the atmosphere of fiasco."

That sentence pretty much sums up the world situation. What follows is a small collection of examples.

Europe is hopeless: http://www.politico.eu/article/eu-eyes-isil-sleepers-for-next-major-attack-terrorism-isis-paris-bataclan-counter-terrorism-islamic-state-european-strategic-intelligence-and-security-center-syria-iraq-war/

 They hope to buy off Turkey, kinda like they did the Barbary Pirates, I guess:

http://in.reuters.com/article/europe-migrants-turkey-smuggler-idINKCN0VO24M

So much for that. And there's a lot more Mid-East "refugees" who will be coming along, too.

Here's an article on Saudi Arabia's coming demise:

Start Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom

				Start Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom Saudi Arabia is no state at all. It's an unstable business so corrupt to resemble a criminal organization and the U.S. should get ready for the day after.
				View on www.defenseone.com	Preview by Yahoo

It was never a real country anyway, just a mafia-type family operation using Allah as an excuse to "make its bones".

 

Nigeria is about to blow up, too:

Nigeria coming apart: http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/08/nigeria-is-coming-apart-at-the-seamsbiafra/

Even if the government calms the Biafra storm, its standard refusal to consider demands for regional autonomy all but guarantees that another insurrection will emerge somewhere else in the country. Making matters worse is the demographic time bomb that ticks faster each day in Nigeria. A dramatic “youth bulge” has turned grievances of the type felt by young Igbos into a national security risk in marginalized communities across the country. Every few years, young people from one of these communities rise up and shake the country’s unity. Ethno-regional separatist groups such as the OPC in the southwest, Boko Haram in the north, and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta in the oil-rich deep south are notable examples.

Yet the government has no viable plan for dealing with uprisings like these beyond sending in the army. Two years ago, the former national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, revealed that Nigeria’s military was deployed in 28 out of the country’s 36 states —  a fact that suggests it has become more of an internal occupation force than a defender against external aggression.

And Poland will "be dead by 2020"...

http://www.ozy.com/provocateurs/the-man-who-says-poland-will-be-dead-by-2020/60638 

An Excerpt: 

The direction that Poland is going toward? A crippling brain drain, Sowa says, with one-third of a population, including two-thirds of university graduates, emigrating, leaving an aging society where the vast majority work in “precarious job positions,” earning barely enough to make ends meet, and pensions are 200 euros. “If this is not a social disaster, then what is?” Sowa asks rhetorically. The son of noted academic Kazimierz Sowa, he delivers these broadsides from the vantage point not of one of the unlucky who are leaving but of the “lucky” who can stay. And watch the masses leave.

“Look at me,” Sowa says. He cites his publications: four books and more than 100 articles. He cites his full-time university position. “And I make … 800 euros net,” he says. “I once told that to a German colleague and he thought I got the English numbers wrong and meant 1,800, not 800.”

At least (for now) Hungary has some good economic news:

Hungary has some good economic news to report:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-12/hungary-s-economy-expands-faster-than-expected-on-industry-surge

Growth probably remained strong in the first quarter, slowing only to 3 percent, Economy Minister Mihaly Varga told state television channel M1 on Friday. The pace of expansion probably helped push the budget deficit to below 2 percent of output, the Economy Ministry said in an e-mailed statement.

Though my wife tells me only about 20 percent of younger Hungarians are religious. Without the moral underpinning, no society can survive.

As for the US, forget it. Putin is running rings around us: Anthony Codevilla

Vladimir Putin's Foreign Policy Is More Effective Than Ours

				Vladimir Putin's Foreign Policy Is More Effective Than O... Vladimir Putin will soon be the unchallenged masterof the Fertile Crescent, while the United States will have become irrelevant there.
				View on thefederalist.com	Preview by Yahoo

Richard Fernandez

https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2016/02/16/taking-a-chance-2/

The current administration turned American hegemony into a "cash for clunkers" scrappage program and rued the consequences.  John Kerry told European allies in Munich:  "It’s pretty obvious that probably never in history have we been dealing with as many hotspots, as many failed or failing states all at one time, not to mention a Kim Jong-un and a nuclear program and other challenges all at the same time. So everybody here understands that. You wouldn’t be here otherwise."

They were at Munich hoping to hear that America would save them.  Imagine their disappointment.  What is interesting about the game is that not just America but all the players have been steadily losing since 2008.  America's loss was not Europe's gain.

There is about the current international situation the atmosphere of fiasco.

https://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2016/02/17/remain-overnight/

It may also suggest an implicit consensus that it would be best to avoid risky undertakings for the remainder of the Obama administration and prepare instead for the serious threats that the administration's mistakes have unleashed. Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev warned of a new "world war" at the recently concluded Munich security conference. Foreign Policy writes, it's "crunch time for Washington and Beijing in the South China Sea" as satellite photos showed China fortifying its new island bastions with missiles.

"Is there anything Washington can do to slow China’s land grab?" it rhetorically asks? The answer is: probably not with the current leadership of the free world. Nobody really wants to follow president Obama into a crisis. The Russia/Iran buildup continues, fueled as the Free Beacon notes by cash the Obama administration gave Tehran itself.  Russia is now increasingly in command of the Syrian Army fighting beside an Iranian "foreign legion", eliciting nothing more than a squeak from the president.   There are warnings it is now time to start preparing for the collapse of Saudi Arabia without the expectation of being able to prevent it.

No solutions appear possible for the present.   Plans appear to focus on the world after Obama. Resigned to the fact that migrant inflow cannot be stopped, European security forces are preparing to fight ISIS sleeper cells in the cities of the old continent. 

The Bamster won't even go to Scalia's funeral: 

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/02/17/president-obama-refuses-to-attend-scalia-funeral/

In none of those other cases was there such a personal animus on the part of the president toward a justice. Scalia's scathing dissents on Obamacare cases no doubt angered the president. And just recently, Scalia was part of the majority that struck down the president's climate change plans. It's no wonder that the president will find something else to do this weekend than go to Scalia's funeral -- probably play golf.

Stay classy, Bam.

Meanwhile, all that "good-old-American-knowhow" has fled. Our defense contractors apparently are hopeless parasites.

You-all heard what an utter fiasco the F-35 fighter plan program is. (Only an idiot would try to build one plane that had to do just about every warplane role imaginable. Only the king of idiots would even consider buying such a plane.) I've been reading about the LCS ship program for the Navy. Utter fiasco. 

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/the-usas-new-littoral-combat-ships-updated-01343/ for a more sober appraisal of the LCS ships.

Naval analyst Raymond Pritchett has pithily described the current compromise as:

“…3000 ton speedboat chasers with the endurance of a Swedish corvette, the weapon payload of a German logistics ship, and the cargo hold of a small North Korean arms smuggler.”

This above is a serious article indeed, with massive facts reported.

You know, all this ought to convince anyone who's not room temperature that government is staffed, populated, crawling with idiots. What other conclusion can one draw?

No wonder Donlad Trump is roaring through the primaries with huge chunks of the vote. Whatever.