Filme- Wind River (last scene)

Wind River - Ending Scene (HD)

Há "filmes". E depois, há Filmes!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGNbVMgJfj8

The Spectator - Why did we need the Supreme Court to tell us what a woman is?

 

(personal underlines)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-did-we-need-the-supreme-court-to-tell-us-what-a-woman-is/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=BOCH%20%2020250419%20%20House%20Ads%20%20GK+CID_93ae478f2c7b5b13f0f66a0507e9e15b

Why did we need the Supreme Court to tell us what a woman is?

Brendan O’Neill16 April 2025, 12:59pm

Activists gather outside the Supreme Court after today's verdict (Getty images)

How did it come to this? How did we arrive at a situation where it fell to a court of law to tell us what a woman is? That’s my overriding emotion today. I’m delighted the Supreme Court has ruled that a woman is legally defined as a person with female biological characteristics. But I’m gobsmacked that we apparently needed five judges to tell us something our species has known since we first came down from the trees.

The ruling of the Supreme Court is fantastically sensible. It unambiguously states that the sex-based rights outlined in the Equality Act 2010 are based on biological sex. So where the Act refers to ‘women’, it means biological women. And where it refers to ‘sex’, it means biological sex. This means it is now the law of the land that, legally at least, the word ‘woman’ does not include men who identify as women – no, just women; real women.

The ruling is a devastating blow for the Scottish government. It had argued that trans people with a gender-recognition certificate are entitled to sex-based protections. In other words, a man with a piece of paper saying he’s a woman should be free to waltz into women-only spaces. But it was challenged by the heroines of For Women Scotland, who insisted that only people born female – actual women – should enjoy the sex-based protections of the Equality Act. And they won.

We should relish this rare victory for reason in these volatile times. A government certificate no more makes a man into a woman than Rachel Dolezal’s fake tan makes her black, and it’s wonderful that the highest court in the land now recognises this. For the purposes of equality law, the ruling says, ‘the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man’. This means that legal protections for women ‘necessarily exclude men’.

Yes! This is what so-called ‘Terfs’ – i.e. women who understand science and desire equality – have been arguing for years. That men have no place in women-only areas. Whether it’s a 6”5 fella with a beard or a man who’s been prescribed estrogen and given a government document saying ‘WOMAN’, he should be excluded, by virtue of his sex, from women’s spaces. This ruling restores the dignity of women that the trans ideology so enviously undermined.

My favourite part of the ruling is its reliance on the everyday understanding of words like ‘men’ and ‘women’. The ‘ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words’ is that there are certain ‘biological characteristics that make an individual a man or woman’, it says. It should be ‘self-explanatory’, it continues, that when people say men, they mean men, and when they say women, they mean women. It should ‘require no further explanation’.

What an excellent assertion of the universalism of our language, of the fundamental truths contained in the words we use. Ours is an era of wilful obscurantism. We’re instructed to use alien phrases like ‘ciswomen’ or ‘genderfluid’. We’re told we shouldn’t ‘assume someone’s gender’. We must inquire about people’s pronouns. This cruel imposition of a strange new tongue has chipped away at our common, centuries-long understanding of sex and truth. So how refreshing to read this ruling that says it’s all ‘self-explanatory’ – men are men, women are women, The End.

And yet, that question lingers: why did we need this? It is surreal, and more than a little shaming, that women had to go to the courts to establish what a woman is. To fight not only for the rights of women but for the reality of womanhood. To say to the world: ‘Men are not women!’ It is a testament to the lunacy of our times that we needed judges to tell us what everyone over the age of five once automatically knew: that women are real, and they don’t have penises.

This morning, women across the UK were essentially waiting to hear their fate. They waited to hear whether their rights to privacy and dignity would be restored or further shattered. Lesbians waited too, curious to know if their hard-won right to have their own, bloke-free spaces would be upheld or dismantled. All found themselves at the mercy of five judges. That should never have happened. Nothing better captures the regressive tyranny of identity politics than the fact that women’s rights and lesbian rights teetered so precariously on the edge of destruction.

What sweet relief, then, that the judges made the right decision. But the garlands should go to For Women Scotland. Through their tenacity, they have struck the most brilliant blow for women’s rights, scientific truth and Enlightenment itself. Everyone – male and female – owes them a debt of gratitude.

The spectator - The extraordinary scale of the crisis facing the next pope

 (personal underlines)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-extraordinary-scale-of-the-crisis-facing-the-next-pope/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020250424%20%20AL+CID_f8886a55a9543a67c17946fd8130582b

The extraordinary scale of the crisis facing the next pope

Damian Thompson

At 9.47 a.m. on Easter Monday we heard the words ‘con profondo dolore’ from a cardinal standing in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta. Two hours earlier, Pope Francis ‘è tornato alla casa del Padre’ – ‘had returned to the house of the Father’. Most people won’t have noticed a curious detail: the cardinal was speaking Italian with a pronounced Irish brogue.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the papal ‘Camerlengo’, was born in a Dublin suburb. Or, as a tabloid put it: ‘Interim Pope is a bloke called Kevin from Dublin.’ That’s an exaggeration, but the Camerlengo does occupy centre stage when the See of Peter falls vacant. He confirms that the Pope is dead. Traditionally, he would tap his head with a silver hammer, but now they use an electrocardiogram. Cardinal Farrell sealed Francis’s apartment; he’s organising the funeral and conclave.

Not everyone is happy about this. Farrell, who has spent most of his career in the United States, is distrusted by many in the Church. He has been accused of lying about what he knew about the allegations against his friend, the recently deceased Theodore McCarrick. McCarrick was defrocked by Francis in 2019 after he was exposed as a serial predator of young men – an open secret in the Vatican and the American church for decades.

On Monday, Farrell stood in front of the sanctuary alongside the papal master of ceremonies, plus two of the most powerful men in the Vatican. They were Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the secretary of state, and Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the Pope’s chief of staff.

These three embody the problems that beset Francis’s papacy and which will cause huge dilemmas for his successor. They have all been accused of compromising truth for power. Their secretive operating style characterised the pontificate’s decision–making.

Francis was a charismatic pope loved by most of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, who make up 18 per cent of the global population. He was particularly beloved by the poor for his rhetoric about the marginalised. But few of them grasp the scale of the crisis in the Church – and even fewer are aware that it was made worse by a pontiff whom the media insist on calling the ‘people’s pope’. His leadership was marked by favouritism and poor judgment.

The next Vicar of Christ will face challenges that dwarf those that confronted any incoming pope in living memory. The Church is mired in doctrinal confusion; its structures of government are fragmented; sexual scandals have been hushed up at the highest level; and it is staring into a financial abyss.

Francis liked to rule by personal decree. He sacked top lieutenants without explanation, and mysteriously promoted others. Which brings us back to Kevin from Dublin. Cardinal Farrell was ordained in 1978 as a priest of the Legionaries of Christ, a movement of conservative priests founded in Mexico by Fr Marcial Maciel (1920-2008), a recruiter of seminarians and a serial sex abuser. Maciel assaulted at least 60 minors, mostly young boys, and fathered six children by three women.

As a young priest, Fr Kevin Farrell was one of the movement’s rising stars. Yet after Maciel’s atrocities were exposed, he claimed to have met the founder only two or three times. This week a former Legionary, Robert Nugent, posted a video to YouTube claiming Cardinal Farrell was lying about that, and Farrell’s insistence he knew nothing about the activities of ‘Uncle Ted’ McCarrick, despite sharing a house with him in Washington.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell beside Pope Francis’s coffin, 23 April 2025 Getty Images

Questions about Farrell’s honesty did not slow his ascent. In 2016 he was bishop of the middle-ranking diocese of Dallas; within a decade he was Prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, Camerlengo, President of the Vatican’s Supreme Court and sole administrator of the Vatican’s pension fund. How?

Perhaps someone will ask during the conclave. The cardinal-electors will not be able to escape the ghost of Theodore McCarrick. He was for many years the Church’s chief fundraiser, securing hundreds of millions of dollars in donations and making secretive disbursements to bishops everywhere. Many knew of his reputation and said nothing. They include cardinals who will be voting in the Sistine Chapel next month – and their enemies will use it against them.

One who will be worried is another of the powerful trio who stood at the sanctuary on Monday, Cardinal Parolin. During Francis’s illness he missed no opportunity to present himself as deputy pope, and he won’t welcome any discussion of his ties to McCarrick. He will be especially sensitive about the help McCarrick gave him in negotiating a notorious deal with Beijing that gave the Chinese Communist party almost total control over the Chinese Catholic Church. Cardinal Joseph Zen, the former bishop of Hong Kong, has accused Parolin of ‘telling lies shamelessly’ about that.

Parolin is also implicated in the catastrophe of the Vatican’s finances. He was secretary of state when his employees laundered eye-watering sums of money to fund disastrous investments, such as the purchase of a former Harrods warehouse in Knightsbridge that cost the Vatican £120 million.

Others were set up as fall guys for this debacle, including Cardinal Angelo Becciu, Peña Parra’s predecessor as chief of staff, and six other defendants who were sentenced to jail in a Vatican trial. The authorities appeared to deprive the accused of due process.

Under Francis, secular and canonical laws were bent so often by Vatican power-brokers that, in the words of one insider, ‘this place has turned into the Wild West’.

London’s High Court witnessed the Vatican’s casual approach to the truth last year, in a lawsuit in which Archbishop Peña Parra gave evidence. The papal chief of staff admitted he had signed off on a $5 million invoice he knew to be ‘completely fictitious’. He denied being ‘a liar’, but told lawyers: ‘You said that I was not honest. I accept that.’ This financial skulduggery by Francis’s closest associates – and, before him, those of Popes John Paul and Benedict – was motivated partly by panic over Vatican finances. Documents obtained by the Catholic website the Pillar show that a decade ago the Holy See pension fund had an unfunded liability of almost €1.5 billion. That debt has grown.

Francis cannot be entirely blamed for the Vatican’s financial crises or sexual scandals since they are rooted in problems going back at least 60 years. Likewise theological conflicts over women’s ordination and the status of divorced or gay Catholics. But all these worsened under his pontificate. As a result, the answer to the question ‘Does the Catholic Church permit blessings of same-sex couples?’ is the same as the answer to the question of whether divorced-and-remarried people may receive Communion: it depends who you ask. Catholics who obeyed the Church’s teachings and those who challenged them were left baffled. This confusion has undermined the morale of the clergy too.

Francis indulged progressive pressure groups with the nebulous concept of ‘synodality’, but ruled out women deacons and said rude things about homosexuals. He lashed out at traditionalists who attended the Tridentine Mass – the ancient Latin liturgy – but rejected liberal demands for a total ban.

Given that his pontificate was so contradictory – championing the poorest while indulging those who abused their power – it is too early to judge his full legacy. There is one subject, however, on which Catholics cannot wait for the verdict of history. Inexplicably, Francis extended his personal protection to a string of convicted or suspected sex abusers. Perhaps the most appalling example is the artist Fr Marko Rupnik, accused of the sexual assault of many young women, including nuns. Rupnik was kicked out of the Jesuits, but Francis refused to defrock him. Meanwhile the Vatican communications office promoted Rupnik’s sinister art right up until the Pope’s death.

There are perhaps a dozen other scandals which swirled through the Vatican when Francis was Pope that have never been fully investigated, if at all. For years, everyone in Rome has been saying: ‘It will all come out when he dies.’ Dealing with the fallout will be left to the next Supreme Pontiff.

It is a burden that many might decline to bear. The conclave may elect a cardinal Bishop of Rome but papal authority is bestowed on the new man only when he utters the word ‘Accepto’. In reality, any cardinal who has reached the final ballot will almost certainly have decided to accept. But there have been cardinals who took themselves out of the running mid-conclave; they didn’t want the job.

This time round, given the scale of the task ahead, who could blame a nervous papabile if he follows the example of the Servite cardinal St Philip Benizi, who in 1271 is said to have fled the conclave and hidden in a cave until the election was over?

Livro - Salazar (António Ferro)

Ler esta entrevista de António Ferro a Salazar, e ouvir os trogloditas, perdão, os 1372 jornalistas e 3401 comentadores de hoje "makes me wonder"...

Reflexão - Um Estado Islâmico na esquina mais próxima (Rodrigues do Carmo)

 (sublinhados meus). Bem escrito, bem pensado, bem antevisto...

https://observador.pt/opiniao/um-estado-islamico-na-esquina-mais-proxima/

Um Estado Islâmico na esquina mais próxima

O Ocidente precisa de se recordar de onde veio. Defender os judeus é recusar que sejam novamente o alvo preferido. Nomear o islamismo e o “antissionismo” como ameaças não é intolerância, é lucidez.

José António Rodrigues do Carmo 

14 ago. 2025, 00:18

Comecemos pelo diagnóstico, que não é para estômagos sensíveis: em 2024, os incidentes contra judeus na UE, aumentaram 84%. Judeus agredidos na rua, lojas vandalizadas com a estrela amarela, crianças aconselhadas a esconder certos símbolos no caminho para a escola. Enquanto isso, partidos “moderados”, incluindo o “nosso” PSD e o Dr. Marques Mendes, entretêm-se numa corrida de 100 metros livres para ver quem condena Israel mais depressa e bem.  Lá longe, a ONU guterrista continua no seu número de desfaçatez: elege o Irão para comissões de direitos humanos e cospe relatórios contra Israel com a cadência dos sinos da aldeia.

E olhando para certos bairros europeus, surgem ideias tão absurdas que a reação imediata pode ser um esgar incrédulo e um sorriso trocista. Depois, primeiro estranha-se, depois entranha-se. E a realidade começa a tratar de apagar o sorriso. Uma dessas ideias é, por exemplo, num tempo em que se reconhecem estados que não existem, a súbita proclamação de uma zona libertada islâmica, quiçá um califado, não nos desertos poeirentos do Médio Oriente, mas num bairro de Paris, numa parte de Bruxelas, ou até no Martim Moniz.

Há fonteiras, há povo, há um proclamador inflamado, há idiotas úteis. Que mais é preciso?

Parece disparatado? Inverosímil?

Tão inverosímil como um primeiro-ministro com milhares de euros escondidos numa estante ou um Dr. Rangel a ameaçar o reconhecimento de estados imaginários?

E, no entanto, aqui estamos: numa Europa onde tudo acontece, onde tudo pode acontecer, incluindo televisões a passarem ininterruptamente a propagada de grupos jihadistas, e onde multidões ululam pelas ruas, sem sombra de vergonha, a glorificar terroristas e antissemitas, e a berrar slogans que fariam corar Goebbels.

Sim, agora que a velha doença europeia voltou a ter febres altas, tudo é possível. É fácil imaginar que, numa qualquer bela  manhã de Verão, um subúrbio de Bruxelas, um bairro londrino ou até a Rua de Benformoso, acordem com o anúncio inflamado de um barbudo enfarpelado num shalwar kameez: “Este território pertence ao Dar-al-Islam, Allahu Akbar, e essas coisas.”

O que fariam as “elites” culturais e intelectuais, como o Dr. Rui Tavares, a Dra. Alexandra Leitão, o Professor Marcelo e os juízes que debitam platitudes a partir do Palácio Ratton?

Fugiriam?

Não, mais provavelmente organizariam uma mesa-redonda na SIC Notícias ou na Aula Magna, enfeitadas com bandeiras palestinianas. Entre um latte de aveia orgânico sem glúten, e um cachecol palestiniano, um fulgurante professor de estudos interseccionais do ISCTE perguntaria se não deveríamos celebrar esta enriquecedora expressão de identidade cultural. Os outros acenariam, compenetrados e risonhos. Os alertas sobre o perigo das reações fascistas e islamofóbicas surgiriam antes do intervalo e o Professor Marcelo iria depois ao Benformoso, para uma selfie sorridente com o novo califa português e as suas 4 mulheres.

Infelizmente, por detrás da ironia está a repetição da História, como tragicomédia. Para já, os judeus voltaram ao tradicional papel de bode expiatório de todos os males do mundo.

Uma minoria irrelevante em número e poder, mas tratada como ameaça omnipotente, que tudo controla e manipula, menos a turba, instruída pelo Tik-Tok, que saltita nas ruas espargindo ódio e ignorância.

“Não é contra os judeus, é contra os sionistas”, dirão, como quem recita um catecismo. Como se a distinção fosse mais útil do que um paraquedas sem pano.

Mas quando no Ocidente, crianças têm de esconder quem são e universidades tratam estudantes judeus como lixo tóxico, percebe-se que a diferença é apenas retórica. E velhaca!

Israel é já hoje o judeu do sistema internacional. Uma democracia liberal cercada por jihadistas, com reféns nos túneis do Hamas, mas condenada com mais fervor do que o Dr. Ventura na SIC N. Os líderes europeus, desde Macron a Starmer, passando por Merz e até Montenegro, juntaram-se de repente aos expoentes do antissemitismo ocidental, o Sr Sanchez e o Sr Higgins da Irlanda num afinadíssimo coro de condenações, exigências e ameaças. De resto, muito aplaudidas pelo Hamas, em sintonia com as respetivas opiniões “públicas”, extremamente bem nutridas de barulhentos palestinianistas de keffieh ao pescoço e companheiros de estrada da “religião da paz”, prontíssimos para o tal califado.

“Exigimos a libertação dos reféns, exigimos o desarmamento do Hamas, exigimos o cessar-fogo”. E pronto!

Mas quem vai libertar os reféns? Quem vai desarmar o Hamas? Como se passa de declarações virtuosas para a efetivação no terreno.

Critica-se Israel, acusa-se de coisas tremendas e já está resolvido o problema, no mundo paralelo da magia. A Alemanha, na sua devoção pelo “nunca mais”, já viu em Berlim manifestações com “Judeus para a câmara de gás”, organizadas por associações subsidiadas pelo próprio Estado. E quando se trata de deportar pregadores radicais, os juízes invocam o direito à vida privada, como se estivessem a decidir sobre um vizinho que estaciona mal.

A Europa, outrora orgulhosa da razão e da liberdade, fala agora o dialeto dos seus inimigos: “resistência”, “colonialismo”, “libertação”. O terrorismo é militância, o sequestro é luta armada, a violação é resistência. As instituições europeias financiam alegremente ONG’s obscuras cujo dinheiro acaba nas mãos dos jihadistas. E redigem resoluções floribélicas como quem escreve cartões de aniversário. Voltaire, se ressuscitasse, choraria e riria ao mesmo tempo. Depois voltaria para a tumba o mais depressa que pudesse, para não ficar preso na estupidez.

Mas ao atacar Israel, a Europa não está a defender causas nobres, está a hipotecar o próprio futuro. Em vez de se colocar ao lado de uma sociedade livre ameaçada por terroristas, prefere recitar os slogans dos mesmos radicais cuja governação faria Orwell parecer um optimista.

A França já tem bairros inteiros onde polícia e bombeiros só entram com escolta blindada, mas os pregadores salafistas têm passe livre. Nas escolas os professores mudam de nome, para evitar retaliações, como Samuel Paty, decapitado em 2020, e de quem ninguém se lembra, porque foi apenas nota de rodapé nas notícias a que temos direito.

No Reino Unido, os veteranos de guerra são aconselhados a esconder a bandeira nacional para não criar “tensões”, enquanto marchas do Hamas desfilam com proteção policial.

Em Lisboa, proíbe-se a exibição de símbolos cristãos e até um tradicional porco no espeto, para não ofender “sensibilidades”. O Porto acende as cores da Palestina no topo da Avenida dos Aliados, com o Dr. Rui Moreira a encenar a preocupação global e a prometer apoteóticas mesquitas, agora que não pode ser reeleito.

Mas não há que temer, o califado não virá a cavalo, com alfanges nas mãos. Virá numa acta de câmara municipal, sob a forma de representação comunitária, apresentado como multiculturalismo virtuoso. Até ao dia em que os direitos das mulheres forem dissolvidos num véu imposto à paulada, a biologia seja substituída por teologia e a sátira transformada em crime. Não pela espada, mas pela ignorância e cobardia moral.

Os judeus, nessa altura já terão partido. Talvez para Israel, o país que a Europa se afoba em demonizar e boicotar. E levarão com eles o último vestígio da espinha dorsal moral do continente, deixando-o tão mole como uma banana esquecida na fruteira. Os sinais sempre estiveram à vista: Rushdie, Hirsii Ali,Charlie Hebdo, Kurt Westergard, listas intermináveis de ataques e ameaças; clérigos barbudos a pregar sermões que fariam corar Torquemada; políticos a bajular líderes comunitários que se recusam a condenar sequestros, violações e homicídios. Marchas, hashtags, je suis qualquercoisa e, no dia seguinte, o regresso ao apaziguamento e à abdicação.

Já Israel é arrastado todos os dias para o tribunal da opinião pública por ousar defender-se.

A mensagem é clara: atacar judeus em nome do islamismo radical é aceitável desde que se diga que “não surge do vazio”, como ensinou Guterres e mostram Universidades e políticos que convidam jihadistas para conferências sobre direitos humanos e epistemologias do sul.

Eis a suprema ironia: a Europa, na sua sanha contra os judeus, convence-se de que está a praticar elevadas virtudes morais. Na verdade, está a serrar a trave onde se senta. Ao hostilizar Israel, fica mais fraca; ao ignorar o islamismo, fica menos livre; ao afastar os judeus não fica mais inclusiva, fica mais ignorante. E intolerante. Baruch Espinoza era de origem portuguesa. O seu talento foi parar à Holanda, porque os seus pais foram expulsos de Portugal.

Talvez ainda não seja tarde, mas já é tarde para ilusões.

O Ocidente precisa de se recordar de onde veio. Defender os judeus não é canonizá-los, é recusar que sejam novamente o alvo preferido. Nomear o islamismo e o “antissionismo” como ameaças não é intolerância, é lucidez.

Caso contrário, um dia acordaremos sob leis que nunca votámos, governados por quem nunca elegemos, e a suspirar por liberdades que dávamos por eternas, no tempo em que achávamos que tudo isto era só uma piada.

Não confundir Islamismo com Islão. Este é a religião em si, a  fé religiosa dos muçulmanos, com base no Alcorão, e outros textos. Já o Islamismo é uma ideologia político-religiosa, que procura impor a religião islâmica à vida pública e ao Estado. Tem a sharia como base legal, rejeitando, muitas vezes, a separação entre religião e política.O islamismo existe num leque de variabilidade que vai do “moderado”, implantado, por exemplo, pelo actual poder na Turquia, até ao mais radical, o jihadista. Por vezes a diferença é apenas táctica. A Turquia é um dos grandes apoios do Hamas, partilham a grande pertença da Irmandade Muçulmana.

Livro - A Mecânica de Deus

Já há algum tempo que não lia uma perspectiva de um "techie", ao mesmo tempo "homem da fé", tão bem sustentada. Gostei!

The Spectator - Germany’s Bundeswehr bears no resemblance to an actual army

 (personal underlines)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/germanys-bundeswehr-bears-no-resemblance-to-an-actual-army/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020250530%20%20ADVERTISER%20%20LEB+CID_2ee0e07e6eaeeffa7a3f4269acfd0ec2

Germany’s Bundeswehr bears no resemblance to an actual army

Katja Hoyer

Confusion abounded this week when the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Ukraine could use western missiles to hit targets deep within Russia. ‘There are no more range limitations for weapons delivered to Ukraine. Neither from the Brits, nor the French, nor from us. Not from the Americans either,’ he said. The problem was twofold. Firstly, that is not the official policy of western allies. Secondly, Germany has not provided Ukraine with any long-range missiles.

Partly that is a political choice by Germany, but there is also the fact of the inherent weakness of the Bundeswehr itself. Merz’s new government has recognised the limited nature of his military, vowing to build ‘the strongest conventional army in Europe’. For that to happen, the Bundeswehr will need more than money. It needs to know what it is and what it’s fighting for. Is Germany – still deeply scarred by its Nazi past – ready to build a military ethos fit for the 21st century?

Independent thinking has never been a priority for the Bundeswehr general staff. Rock-solid trust in US leadership was part of its very foundations. With those foundations eroding, Merz is trying to build his own as quickly as possible. He has promised to spend 5 per cent of GDP on the military and related infrastructure; this amounts to some €200 billion, four times what Britain spends on defence in any given year.

There is an irony in this promised military expansion: it’s the result of Donald Trump’s demands that Nato allies meet their obligations under the treaty. Even when it comes to greater German self-reliance, it seems that Washington is still calling the shots.

This historic reliance on American strategic direction is combined with a relaxed approach to the chain of command. The Bundeswehr is wary of discipline and blind obedience, which are seen as characteristics of previous German militaries, especially the Nazi Wehrmacht. So its self-declared ‘company ethos’ is that of a ‘citizen in uniform’ acting on his or her own ‘inner guidance’. In other words, soldiers are explicitly encouraged to question every order. ‘The Bundeswehr knows no absolute obedience,’ recruits are told. ‘The ultimate decision-making body is the conscience of the individual.’

This was a conscious break with the Prussian military tradition. Members of the Prussian aristocracy, or Junkers, had previously made up a sizeable proportion of the officer class. Their obedience to the monarchy came with a long-established ethos of strict military discipline. This allowed for the development of a more flexible command structure compared with European neighbours. Called Auftragstaktik or mission command, it involved the commander issuing an objective rather than a direct order on how to achieve it. His subordinates would then have a large degree of freedom as to how to achieve the objective. The Prussian military was highly trained and ideologically consistent, meaning that commanders could trust their underlings to follow military doctrine.  

The Bundeswehr still largely relies on the Auftragstaktik model, but now minus the element of absolute structural obedience. It’s easy to see why. Wehrmacht soldiers committed terrible crimes on behalf of Hitler in a war that was explicitly genocidal. Commanders later claimed they were only following orders. The idea of an army of ‘citizens in uniform’ was that every soldier should have the capacity to stop such atrocities. Individual morality must exist, even within military command structures.

Perhaps that independence of mind is what led to a series of scandals within Germany’s elite Kommando Spezialkräfte. In 2020, the KSK was partially disbanded when members of the unit were found with Nazi memorabilia and evidence emerged of soldiers singing fascist songs. The then-defence minister said the unit had ‘become partially independent’ of the chain of command.

KSK members were found to have discussed the potential of a migration-induced civil war, while another was implicated in a 2022 attempted monarchist coup. Investigators found that some NCOs had compared the unit to a modern-day Waffen SS.

Those accused of these right-wing plots came from historically conservative parts of the country like Saxony and Thuringia. The KSK’s base is in a remote part of the Black Forest, which investigators said contributed to their insular mindset. As of 2021, no woman had passed the KSK commando soldiers’ entrance tests.

Fear of such scandals is what fuels the Bundeswehr’s many diversity initiatives. Women only gained access to all military roles in 2001, yet are now seen as ‘naturally equal’ and their presence as ‘a normality’. Accordingly, there has been a massive drive to push the proportion of female personnel from 13 per cent to above 20 per cent. The Bundeswehr holds annual ‘Girls’ Days’ in an attempt to recruit women into the military.

There has been a similar focus on changing the demographics of recruits. In a recent study entitled ‘Colourful in the Bundeswehr?’, the Ministry of Defence declared that ‘as a matter of principle, the way towards conditions of equal opportunities in any organisation goes through the furthering of a diverse and “colourful” body of staff’. The ministry is at pains to point out that it understands ‘diversity’ as a ‘holistic’ concept involving not just ethnicity but also other characteristics such as gender, age, disability, religion and sexual identity. Notably, for a country that reunified only 30 years ago, there’s no mention of regional or class diversity. Germans from poorer eastern states are excluded from such diversity drives.

The Bundeswehr honours outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, 5 May 2025 Getty Images

The Bundeswehr presents itself as a regular civilian employer whose main concern isn’t operational effectiveness but the recruitment and retention of a civilian-like workforce. The ideal is an army that reflects society, but the downside is that it makes institutional loyalty an afterthought. If the Bundeswehr presents itself as a regular employer, recruits will treat it accordingly. They will come and go as they please and show reluctance to do jobs that are difficult, dangerous or less well-paid.

The recent report of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces of Germany revealed serious problems. It points out that since 2019, the average age of Bundeswehr members has risen from 32.4 years to 34 years. Efforts to increase the size of the military from 180,000 active soldiers to the target of 203,000 by 2031 have so far been unsuccessful. There has been an increase in the number of recruits but more than a quarter of them leave the Bundeswehr within six months. A survey of those who left concluded that most had done so because they found ‘a different alternative’; others said the job was ‘too far from home’.

The focus on personal work conditions has also led to a rather ‘top-heavy’ structure. A recent study of Bundeswehr applicants showed that despite the increase in absolute numbers, there is an acute shortage of those who want to join the rank and file rather than via the officer routes. The chief of the German army, Lieutenant General Alfons Mais, has complained that of the 180,000 members of the Bundeswehr, around 100,000 occupy officer staff or leadership roles. ‘They are watching from the stands while 80,000 are trying to win the war,’ Mais said.

These are long-standing structural problems of the Bundeswehr, issues that for decades no one thought needed fixing. If anything, politicians were happy for Germany’s military to be a publicly funded employer whose focus was subsidised educational and employment opportunities. One of my (female) German school friends signed up as an officer recruit because she wanted her university degree funded. She is no longer in the Bundeswehr.

It was deemed a success that the postwar officer class was no longer dominated by heel-clicking Prussian Protestants all recruited from the same aristocratic families. Today’s Bundeswehr leadership is instead distinctively middle-class. According to the recruitment study, applicants who considered themselves ‘middle-class’ or ‘upper-middle-class’ were vastly overrepresented.

It’s a demographic particularly interested in employment opportunities: the Bundeswehr runs two universities, in Hamburg and Munich, offering courses that have little to do with military tasks, including psychology and sports science. My former officer friend graduated with a degree in education after a few years in the Bundeswehr.

The somewhat transactional nature of recruitment never seemed a problem; the Bundeswehr was mostly a tolerated but unloved part of Germany’s restructured postwar order. There was enough funding to keep its uniformed citizens occupied and a firm conviction that they would never have to fight in costly, large-scale campaigns. This led to a neglect of the actual machinery of war: depleted ammunition, infrastructure, equipment and supplies. Under Angela Merkel, defence expenditure dropped to barely above 1 per cent of GDP.

Since the second world war, the German armed forces have rarely been deployed and when they were, it was always amid acrimonious public debate. In total, the Bundeswehr has lost 119 people on foreign missions since 1955 – which, while tragic, is extremely low compared with the losses of many of Germany’s partners. The UK has lost 7,193 since the end of the second world war.

In 2022, the then-foreign minister Annalena Baerbock argued that Germany was more reluctant to get involved in Nato campaigns ‘because we are not all the same – even though we are standing side by side, we have different roles and we have different history’. On the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine she still insisted: ‘This is not the moment to change our course by 180 degrees.’

Merz says that moment has now come. But with the weight of German history on his shoulders, he too will find it difficult to reform the Bundeswehr. No educational offer or recruitment campaign is a replacement for the ethos and traditions that bind soldiers to one another. Money alone will not make it a force for which the country’s young are willing to fight and potentially die. Only a sense of purpose, identity and comradeship can do that – the kind of military culture Germany’s postwar elite has always quietly feared.

The Spectator - Men, baldness is nothing to fear

 

(personal underlines)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/men-baldness-is-nothing-to-fear/?status=Active&utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020250415%20%20House%20Ads%20%20BL+CID_2c335855ce3f09db1b4b89825f9b865f

Men, baldness is nothing to fear

But it would be nice if we could have equal representation

Daniel Sokol15 April 2025, 5:00am

(iStock)

I am bald. Over the past few months, three events have reminded me of this fact. The first was on X (formerly Twitter). I was defending an article I had published in the British Medical Journal, in which I argued that doctors should behave professionally on social media. In response to my post, an irate doctor called me an ‘egghead’. The second was the revelation that my close friend Calvin, 46, had flown to Turkey for a hair transplant. He was not even bald, just thinning. Et tu, Calvin? The third took place only moments ago, and prompted me to write this piece. 

I was trying to spice up a WhatsApp message with an emoji. As I wanted to thank someone, I tapped into my Japanese heritage and chose the ‘bowing’ figure. I could change the skin and hair colour, but I could not make him bald. None of these emojis look remotely like me. When I raised this shocking discovery in the family chat, my brother – also bald – answered with faux solemnity: ‘hair loss is an illness. One must not joke about such matters.’

Well, I did joke about it on my last holiday, when I asked a group of teenagers to take a photo of me. They obliged and, when they returned my phone, I looked at the photo and exclaimed, ‘but wait, where’s all my hair gone?’ The teenagers looked uncomfortable, unsure if I was joking or delusional, until an old man standing nearby quipped ‘it’s at the back!’. And there’s also the old chestnut, attributed to Ronnie Barker, ‘I knew I was going bald when it was taking longer and longer to wash my face.’

After my brother’s comment, I asked ChatGPT if baldness was an illness. It replied:

Baldness (especially male or female pattern baldness) is not considered an illness – it’s a common condition often linked to genetics and hormones. The medical term is androgenetic alopecia. It’s very normal and affects millions of people.

The Cleveland Clinic is less sure. Its webpage on the condition mentions diagnosis, symptoms, management, and treatment. It even asks, ‘Is male pattern baldness contagious?’ (it isn’t). For some men, baldness may feel like an illness – an undesirable condition affecting the body that can cause distress. In July 2019, Mr Finn, an electrician, got into an altercation at work. His co-worker called him a ‘bald cunt’. Mr Finn sued the employer and a tribunal found that he had been subjected to sex-based harassment (i.e. unwanted conduct related to a person’s sex) because of the reference to his baldness. The tribunal held:

In our judgment, there is a connection between the word ‘bald’ on the one hand and the protected characteristic of sex on the other. Miss Churchhouse [the employer’s barrister] was right to submit that women as well as men may be bald. However, as all three members of the Tribunal will vouchsafe, baldness is much more prevalent in men than women. We find it to be inherently related to sex. (In contrast, we accept that baldness affects [predominantly] adult males of all ages so is inherently not a characteristic of age.)

The employer appealed, without success. Baldness certainly has its drawbacks. Some may find it unattractive, and it is true that there are few bald Hollywood heartthrobs. Vin Diesel. The Rock. Patrick Stewart. Without hair on my head, I am prone to sunburn when it is sunny and to the cold when the temperature drops. At the gym, I sweat a lot and need frequent towelling.

Aside from the ‘egghead’ insult on X, someone once called me Kojak. Kojak, for those too young to remember, was a fictional detective on TV in the 1970s and 1980s, who was famously bald. Looking back, maybe the person was praising my deductive powers.

Overall, however, the pros outweigh the cons. I spend no time drying or styling my hair. I need no gel. I use very little shampoo. My hairdresser charges me only £10 to tidy the sides. When outside, I know when it is raining well before my hair-covered friends. As a barrister, unless forced to wear my wig, I look older, wiser and more authoritative. And if I ever require brain surgery, the surgeons have quicker access as there is no need to shave my head.

So if tomorrow I was offered a miracle pill to regrow my hair, I would decline without hesitation. While I appreciate that baldness can be deeply upsetting for some, for me it is no affliction. And if any emoji designers are reading this, please create a bald ‘bowing’ figure. Of all the body positions, it is the one most in need of follicular accuracy.

Serie - Follow

 

Léna, 28 years old, community manager, has just joined the communications department of the Paris Police Prefecture, which is seeking to modernize its image. At the same time, a serial killer is rampant in the capital. Commissioner Agathe Ruffin is in charge of the investigation. The killer uses social networks to destabilize the police, thus attracting Léna's attention. Intoxicated by adrenaline, she then embarks on a dangerous game by agreeing to communicate with him. Will Léna be able to free herself from the grip of this enigmatic killer before the web he weaves closes around her?

The Spectator - How to handle the Wagner problem

 (personal underlines)

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-to-handle-the-wagner-problem/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020250731%20%20AL+CID_d13526574dc32c902f739b0ee666a7cc

How to handle the Wagner problem

Douglas Murray

There are deep ructions across Europe, as in Britain. All come down to the same thing. The societies in question have decided to take in more people than they could ever absorb or integrate, and have done so at a rate that will ruin these societies financially as well as socially. It’s a little late for the occasional minister to talk about the fabric of the country being under ‘strain’, or the need for greater ‘social cohesion’. These things have been shot for years.

The problem is that every counter to this problem has the same Charybdis. Oppose the migration extremism and even now you will be accused of Hitlerian tendencies. Before us stands the great disaster of the 21st century, but to oppose it is to be accused of repeating the great disaster of the 20th century.

So intent are some people on showing that they are not Hitler-ites that they have decided to push the current era’s problems even further. A decade ago, the Labour MP Rachael Maskell made a startling claim at a ‘refugees welcome’ rally. To an applauding crowd she said that we weren’t taking in enough refugees. ‘Twenty thousand is not enough, 30,000 is not enough,’ she said. ‘We must keep going until we really are at saturation point, because what does it matter if we have to wait another week for a hospital visit, or if our class sizes are slightly bigger, or if our city is slightly fuller? What does it matter if things are slightly more challenging? If we have to pay a little bit more into the system? Surely it is worth it.’

This point of view has been echoed in the sentiments of other MPs from our governing party. The Labour MP Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) recently branded some of her constituents racist for being opposed to the building of a multi-million-pound mosque in the Lake District. Scrogham seems to work under the delusion that a core British value is building mosques in the Lake District. I don’t remember that one myself.

Other pro-mosque demonstrators included one who said: ‘There are five British values, which include tolerance of other people’s faiths and beliefs. We’re standing up for proper British values.’ Like me, you might have missed the handout which informed us of the five values that we have in Britain. Perhaps the postal service was unusually overwhelmed that day. But this is the order of the moment. Build a mosque in Beatrix Potter country or you’re not British. Overwhelm the country to the point of saturation (and who will identify that point, I wonder?) and just accept ever worsening public services or you are a bigot.

Exactly why this country, which fought and helped defeat Hitlerian fascism, should now be lumped in as a co-conspirator in his crimes is a matter for another day. But certainly all this is leftover business from the 20th century. It deserves to be removed with a scalpel, yet everyone in control seems intent on trying to perform this surgery with boxing gloves.

As it happened, I was in Bayreuth last week for the opening night of this year’s festival. The opening opera was a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. Aside from the spectacular singing and playing, it was fascinating to watch German society – including present and past chancellors Friedrich Merz and Angela Merkel – turning up. Nowadays the festival is subsidised by the government, though still controlled by the Wagner family. And what is interesting is not just what a mountain Wagner still is for modern Germany, but how they try to deal with it.

The exhibitions and displays at Wagner’s home, Wahnfried, all pay loving homage to the master. But they do not shy away from his gross anti-Semitism, which was obscene even for his day. They know that the master has to be approached in full, and that there is no point covering anything over.

The operas are a more complicated matter. You can no more ‘cancel’ Wagner from the repertoire of music than you can remove knowledge of how to split the atom from physics, or extract the theory of natural selection from biology. Like a mountain, Wagner just is. And as I have noted here before, the only dangerous moment in the work of a genius is where the person’s personal flaws seep into the work.

Meistersinger includes the one unarguable moment in Wagner’s work when his politics intrudes. It comes at the end of the last act, when at the conclusion of the singing competition Hans Sachs warns of the danger of German art being infected by foreign elements. All Wagnerians are aware of this moment, and most of us dread it. At Bayreuth last week the director and designers got over this mound by having a vast, upside-down inflatable cow (I will explain another day) start to deflate on stage. This made the audience chuckle and I suppose distracted some of them from the otherwise considerable problem Wagner has left us all with.

The sight brought back a memory of another performance – Welsh National Opera’s production that came to London ten years ago. This not only got around the problem, but confronted it head-on. The production had been in traditional dress, but when Sachs began his warning, members of the chorus slowly stood up and each turned around a photograph of a German artistic hero. Yes, there was Bach, Beethoven, Goethe and so on. But also Zweig and Weill and Lenya and others. In other words, they transformed what could be seen as a speech that limits German culture into one which post-facto embraced the richness of it. It was one of the most moving experiences I have had at a theatre and I can’t say my eyes were dry.

The point is that almost everyone agrees on where Wagner, the Nazis and others went wrong. The answer is not to distort our own history. And nor is it to commit suicide a century later in order to show that we are not them. Or at least that’s my view. Some Labour MPs will disagree.

Reflexão (LBC)

(sublinhados meus)

(colocado no Observador)

Mais um artigo interessante do Dr. Gabriel Mithá Ribeiro. Bem escrito, bem pensado, e por quem ocupa um lugar de destaque na nossa AR. Continuo, no entanto, a constatar (...), o lugar francamente secundário onde colocam as suas reflexões. Como costumo dizer: "estranho, muito estranho"...

(do Dr. Gabriel Mithá Ribeiro)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/atingimos-o-paraiso-selvagem-de-socialistas-comunistas-e-demais-esquerdistas/

Atingimos o paraíso selvagem de socialistas, comunistas e demais esquerdistas

Nenhuma sociedade livre e civilizada funciona com equilíbrio sem a democratização e valorização cultural e cívica da autoridade institucional da mãe, pai, professor, polícia, enfermeiro, médico...

Gabriel Mithá Ribeiro 

27 jul. 2025, 00:04

«Agrediu professoras após ser apanhado a copiar na Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa: Aluno teve a prova suspensa. Saiu da sala de aula, mas voltou e “agrediu” as professoras que vigiavam o exame escrito. Docentes ficaram “feridas e em estado de choque”. Estudante foi suspenso.»

Notícia do Observador [23-07-2025]. Absolutamente lamentável.

Todavia, há décadas e décadas que este tipo de violência atinge todos os dias professores do ensino básico e secundário. Silenciado pelos donos do regime, qual mancha de óleo o mal foi alastrando a polícias, enfermeiros, médicos, bombeiros, incluindo às famílias, e está hoje por todo o lado. O episódio de violência ocorrido na Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa é, por isso, um mero detalhe de um regime que despreza os dores dos pequenos e, ao que parece, nem com a casa em chamas reage. Os donos do regime nunca perceberam o quanto destruíram a sociedade portuguesa, nem querem perceber, académicos incluídos, os grandes doutrinadores das fraudulentas ciências da educação. Junte-se a classe política, jornalistas, ativistas, artistas, intelectuais e o resto.

O PSD é o espelho disso mesmo. Está no governo desde 2024 e o combate à indisciplina no ensino continua silenciado, longe de ser transformado em tema nacional prioritário como tem de ser. Isso obrigaria o PSD a ter de romper com a esquerda, a virar-se para o campo conservador da direita em defesa do regresso da autoridade enquanto valor social, cívico, humano, civilizacional tão importante quanto a liberdade. Em Portugal, o Partido Chega continua isolado no cumprimento desse dever inscrito no seu Programa Político desde 2021.

Nenhuma sociedade livre e civilizada funciona com equilíbrio sem a democratização e valorização cultural e cívica da autoridade institucional da mãe, pai, professor, polícia, enfermeiro, médico, bombeiro, entre outros. Quem recusa as hierarquias institucionais à custa de se atrelar à loucura do igualitarismo radical e estupidificante de socialistas, comunistas e demais esquerdistas mata a autoridade moral da palavra dessas e de outras figuras sociais de referência no exercício das suas funções institucionais. Daí os donos do regime terem burocratizado e judicializado tudo. Nada se consegue sem se preencher um papel e sem um parasita intermediário, mesmo no mais simples: a relação direta, prática, imediata de sala de aula entre professor e alunos.

Quando uma das instituições nucleares, aquelas por onde todos passamos na preparação para a vida, a escola (a outra é a família), não consegue regular as atitudes e comportamentos dos indivíduos, não consegue travar a indisciplina, depois tudo o resto falha. Essa instituição nuclear entra em falência, pois todas as instituições existem para cumprir uma função social específica (no caso ensinar) e regular as atitudes e comportamentos dos indivíduos (no caso dos alunos). Depois, o falhanço de uma instituição nuclear (a escola) arrasta necessariamente o falhanço da outra instituição nuclear (a família).

Somados e avolumados esses dois falhanços geração após geração, o impacto tem sido pesadíssimo no falhanço da sociedade inteira. Andamos nisto há bem mais de três décadas. É preciso voltar ao uso da razão, regressar à origem do mal para combatê-lo. O que se passou na Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa retrata uma mera consequência de um percurso escolar e social de muitos e muitos anos daquele e dos demais alunos. Os problemas resolvem-se na fonte, na causa, não nas consequências.

Um regime que teima em não travar a pequena indisciplina escolar em fases precoces, na primeira infância, no primeiro ciclo do ensino básico, é o maior responsável pela destruição da instituição e pelo agravamento de todas as demais formas de violência social. Tem de ser julgado por isso.

O modelo de escola imposto pelo regime d’abril aos portugueses é criminoso, pois alimenta de forma direta ou indireta a delinquência juvenil, a violência contra as mulheres (se o menino desde a primeira infância não respeita a professora na sala de aula, será um milagre respeitar a mãe, avó, namorada, esposa, mais ainda no contexto da atual vaga de imigração excessiva), a violência doméstica, a criminalidade simples e qualificada, a corrupção, o parasitismo social, o desrespeito pela lei e tudo o resto. Os donos do regime andam há décadas a forçar os portugueses a mergulharem progressivamente num filme de terror como se fosse a coisa mais normal do mundo.

Além dos custos sociais pesadíssimos, existem custos não menos pesados no interior dos sistemas de ensino. São salas e salas de aula onde todos os dias pouco ou nada se aprende. São planos e mais planos de recuperação das aprendizagens que são necessários e custam caro. É o avolumar do insucesso escolar disfarçado num avassalador facilitismo nas avaliações e transições de ano, todos passam para o regime salvar a face. É o insucesso generalizado a matemática que tem muitíssimo a ver com a indisciplina e desregulação de atitudes e comportamentos. Metade dos professores – o maior segmento socioprofissional com cerca de 150.000 docentes – está em sofrimento físico e psicológico, o que tem custos também severos para os sistemas de saúde. Muitos professores entram em burnout e depressão, precisam de estar de baixa, abandonam a carreira mais cedo, desmotivam, desinvestem na instituição. Há materiais escolares danificados. Os sistemas burocráticos das escolas mobilizam e pagam a professores e funcionários que se desgastam com a indisciplina e violência nas escolas, mas sem resolverem problema algum década após década. Quantos milhões e milhões de euros e de recursos humanos tudo isto custa por ano?

Basta olhar com olhos de ver para a transformação do ambiente das salas de aula nos últimos cinquenta anos para se compreender a dimensão social e económica catastrófica semeada pelo 25 de Abril de 1974. Quando os frutos de qualquer revolução amadurecem, a sua essência sobressai cristalina.