Dispatches from Vilnius

Given that all of Eastern Germany voted for AfD in the 2025 national parliamentary election, it is not a big surprise they took Saxony-Anhalt . I suppose it is the sheer size of their majority that shocked poll watchers as this was supposed to be a close election. It had been close the last time but the CDU won and was able to form a majority state government. Now, they can only hope no one is willing to form a coalition with the ultra right-wing party and that they will able to form a government with the minority place holders. It might be time to consider moving the capitol of Germany back to Bonn if this pattern holds up. For whatever reasons of their own, East Germans are pining for the days before the Berlin Wall came down, with AfD local party leader, Ulrich Siegmund , riding around on an old East German Schwalbe moped. This imagery really seemed to appeal to voters, who have some sort of misplaced nostalgia for life under the iron curtain. The Soviet Union had cleaved off the n...

Everything seemed to be going fine. The US and Canada were on the cusp of a mutually beneficial trade agreement that would have ended more than a year of bitter discord. Then entered Howard Lutnick , US Secretary of Commerce and one of the "architects" of Project 2025. He was unhappy with some of the proposals on the table and demanded they be removed, essentially throwing months of negotiations out the window. Lutnick being the asswipe that he is, blamed it on Canada's last second demands, particularly as the pertained to heavy-duty trucks, but Prime Minister Carney was having none of it. Lutnick's demands infringed on Canada's sovereignty and he called his negotiators back to Ottawa. Trump was left high and dry after boasting a deal would soon be struck because of his hardball tactics. Instead, he has nothing.  Now we see the countries poised to engage in a trade war that will hurt both sides but probably the US worse, as Americans import from Canada far more th...

Or the unmaking of The Odyssey We haven't heard much from the tech billionaire now that The Odyssey has itself become a billionaire. That's pretty impressive for a historical drama. Chris Nolan's magnum opus has grossed more than The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur , adjusted for inflation, films that commanded a huge audience in their day and became long-running syndicated movies on television. It makes you wonder if Elon will really risk making his own AI version given it is not likely he will top those numbers. Money has a way of shutting up people. Even Ben Shapiro was forced to concede it was "a grand spectacle with a fascinating moral core," although he still reserved criticism for some of the casting, calling Elliot Page a "pebble in the shoe - irritating, bothersome and unnecessary."  Page had a minor but very significant role as Sinon, a character lifted from The Aeneid that Nolan used to wrap a number of loose ends together in his three-hour ...

Some images are easy to spot as fake and give us a good laugh . Other images and stories seem tantalizingly real and so we spread them because they suit our cognitive bias. Facebook is filled with them. There is absolutely no fact-checking going on social media these days and so viral stories proliferate and find their way into feeds everywhere. Exhibit A:  Trump attacks Caitlin Clark — and gets a response he won’t soon forget. This one told the story of Trump accusing Clark of being "too woke" with Clark responding at a packed arena, “The president of the United States says athletes should stay quiet,” Clark began. “But sports have always been about more than wins and losses. They’re about teamwork, respect, and believing that everyone deserves a fair chance.” None of it is true but it played well on facebook. A friend of mine picked this story up and ran with it as it suited his views. Clark has actually been attacked for being silent on political issues, choosing to stay ...

It's amazing how easy it is for politicians and pundits to flip. A couple recent examples are John Fetterman and Bill Maher. Here they can be seen together on " Real Time " lamenting the direction the Democratic Party is taking and how they are seriously considering switching parties or voting for Republican candidates, VP Vance in Maher's case , whom he also recently interviewed.  To this point Fetterman has considered himself a Democrat. He even took a progressive stance in his 2022 run for the Senate before suffering a massive stroke. Takes a lot to bring down a big guy like that but he spent much of his campaign in the hospital. Since then it has been hard to tell where he stands. "Libertarian" perhaps? A convenient moniker for those who no longer want to align themselves with a political party, but here he was supporting Trump's ballroom because he thinks it will give the president better protection, Trump's foreign policy  including the Iran W...

Ever since Belarus completed construction of its twin Ostrovets nuclear power plant near the border of Lithuania, we have periodically been issued potassium iodide (KI) capsules through the local pharmacy. The first packet got crushed in my wallet. The second I now house in a stainless steel pill tube attached to my key chain. The idea is that if we were to experience a nuclear explosion similar to Chernobyl, the tablets would buy us some time during evacuation. From what little I've read about KI , it is not really suitable for someone my age, but the state health department issued the tablets to everyone just the same, recommending 130 mg. for those over 12 years old. I suppose an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in this case, especially after watching the HBO mini-series Chernobyl, which was largely filmed in Lithuania . No one really understood why Belarus needed this power plant. Russia financed and constructed the reactors for its vassal state, starting in 2013,...

After announcing his own chain of Trump-approved gas stations selling petrol at $3.47 a gallon, the 47 in honor of his presidency, petrol prices have skyrocketed again with these gas stations holding the bag. Interesting how long they keep these super low prices? I suppose his backers thought prices were coming down anyway, so they wouldn't have to eat too much with these special offers. But, and it is a might big But, Trump started the war all over again, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz once again, and oil prices have jumped to $85 a barrel.  Trump claims everything is under control but with more service men and women dead , as Iran hit American bases all over the Gulf States, you have to figure nothing is under control. This is a war spiraling out of control with few signs Trump will be able to rein it in, largely because his ego is too big to ever admit defeat. He gave us a good taste of that this past week as he re-litigated the 2020 elections yet again, claiming there was wi...

We tend to give persons a pass when they are terminally ill or dead out of respect, but do these two men deserve any respect? Mitch went out of his way to stack the Supreme Court, first by refusing to consider Pres. Obama’s nomination for Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat in 2016, despite his death coming in February with 11 months remaining in Obama’s second term. Then by stuffing the court with Amy Coney Barrett when Ruth Bader Ginsburg suddenly passed away in September of 2020. You can say this was just shrewd politics, but Mitch tried to justify his earlier position on Scalia by citing the “ Biden rule ,” and then turned right around and broke it when he saw a golden opportunity to have a 6–3 advantage on the Supreme Court. We all know what happened next . Lindsey is an equally smarmy character always sucking up to whoever is in power. For years, he was given a pass because of his close relationship to John McCain, whom many considered a man of great moral character. Lindsey hoped to ha...

It was bad enough Vanilla Ice got cancelled as a result of thunderstorms, but the whole party came down to a fireworks show that looked like a 6-second reel put on replay for 40 minutes. Trump, who promised to speak until 4 in the morning if he had to, lasted just shy of 40 minutes , turning the celebration into another one of his screeds as he railed against "communists" and other foul creatures raining on his parade. This celebration was doomed from the start but only got worse as it creeped closer to the big day. There was only a feeble attempt to rid the reflecting pool of algae. In the end, the park service put a big construction fence around the pool so that curious visitors wouldn't stick their hands into the toxic sludge that had already killed numerous ducks  thinking it might be a marsh. The massive quantity of hydrogen peroxide only served to further erode the special blue paint that flaked off in chunks, but authorities continue to claim someone went at it wi...

If you want to know the real reason this war ended with a whimper it is that the US ran out of long-range missiles. According to reports , the military depleted 30 - 45 percent of its Tomahawks, JASSM's and critical interceptors in the first month of conflict. It simply couldn't sustain this war without putting boots on the ground, which Trump was loathe to do. So, we heard a lot of bellicose words for three months before Trump finally gave in and is now trying to make the proverbial silk purse out of a sow's ear. This is why he had everyone laughing when he entered a G7 meeting, proclaiming " I'm the boss ." The purported " deal " has raised more questions than answers, especially this 300 billion USD private fund allegedly set up to spur Iran's economy. Seems most of it is coming from the Gulf States, which is surprising given how much they are at odds with Iran and its proxies in the Persian Gulf. That figure has now grown to a whopping 425 ...

Musk is now a trillionaire. Hip, hip hooray! The megalomaniac can call himself the richest man ever thanks to this AI boom that is leaving not just individuals, but stock exchanges scratching their heads as to how a company can be worth $1.77 trillion without generating any profit. S&P 500 says it will be at least a year before it lists Space X , as it has no means of assessing its viability on the market. No matter, SpaceX stocks jumped 20 percent on the big day, sending Elon over the top, as he owns 42% of the stock in this company. The S&P decision is a big deal as it means our retirement plans won't go toward funding SpaceX for at least a year. Americans have more money tied up in this index than any other index through retirement plans, and if Congress gets its way, Social Security will get tied into it as well. Republicans want to make the roughly $2.5 trillion in asset reserves available to the market, as the fund is being rapidly depleted under the Trump administrat...