Every time a candidate, no matter how good, looses because he took our votes for granted, that is great news.

I am not an American, and I lack sufficient knowledge of the candidates in order to opine on whether I would prefer Eric Cantor or the other one… of whom I do not even know his name.

But, as a citizen, any time a candidate, no matter how good, loses anywhere, because he seemingly has taken the votes of us citizens for granted… that is great news.

What has become of you Europe [and of you the whole Western world]? Don't be such a defeatist!

I just saw a photo of your Britain’s David Cameron, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Holland’s Mark Rutte and Sweden’s Fredrik Reinfeldt, in a row boat, in a little lake, probably surrounded by thousands of life guards… wearing life vests.

The same boat used years ago by Tage Erlander (Sweden) and Nikita Khrushchev… without life vests.

And all I could think of was “Would Winston Churchill (or Putin) ever want to be photographed in a little row boat, on a small lake, wearing a life vest?

What has become of you Europe? In Swedish churches we used to sing psalms praying “God make us daring!”

PS. A “decline in courage, at times attaining what could be termed a lack of manhood…Must one point out that from ancient times a decline in courage has been considered the first symptom of the end?" Alexander Solzhenitsyn at Harvard University 1978

PS. I went to bed in a world that knew risk taking was the oxygen of development… and I woke up to one where regulators, for bank capital (equity) requirements, had decreed much higher risk weights for loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs than for loans managed by bureaucrats... and its Academia says nothing.

PS. Born 1950, during my first 30 years, we were mostly instructed to look out for risks… caveat emptor. Thereafter we were told: 

“Don’t worry, we, your government (and assorted unelected nannies), we will do that for you.”

PS. As an ordinary world citizen, to the Sveriges Riksbank, for the Nobel Prize in Economics 2026, I have recently nominated ChatGPT and Grok.

The reason I gave was all my dialogues with them, especially:

https://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/2025/12/ai-chatgpt-grok-does-basel-committees.html

Should not Google and other public private eyes search our permission before searching us for other to us unknown parties?

I have been giving lots of thought on the whole Google-search-engine issue for quite some years and below you will find some links to that:

But now the following has hit me.

Way back, when about 16 years of age, clearly before I knew what was good for me, (as I might still not know) when in a Swedish high school, a very good one I must say, (SHL Hum SSHL) I got some really lousy grades in German (from Sven Lindestad a.k.a. "Bull")

And now, looking at how good Germany seems to be doing, at least in Europe, I suddenly realized that it might not be in my best interest to have anyone look into my proficiency in German grades.

I know I am talking about events around 47 years ago, so the chances of someone finding those records are very slim indeed… but as some can say "traditions!" other can say "precautions!"

Since Google has now been told by the European Commission to eliminate some embarrassing registers… and it could be somewhat embarrassing for me to ask them to eliminate my high-school grade records… sort of to play it safe, should I not request the European Commission to impose on those public eyes that Google and other search engines have become, the obligation of asking all us individuals for our approval of being searched, before searching us to satisfy the curiosity needs of some usually unidentified third party who is searching us for reasons unknown to us?

I do not think so... but the question should be asked... I think :-) And the European Commission should dare to respond! :-(

http://teawithft.blogspot.com/2007/06/in-search-of-answers-on-search-engines.html

http://teawithft.blogspot.com/2014/05/if-erasing-google-must-be-sure-it-is.html

http://teawithft.blogspot.com/2013/12/we-need-personal-drones-more-than.html

http://teawithft.blogspot.com/2007/09/some-of-gods-greatest-gifts-are.html

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2012/06/we-might-need-global-web-constitution.html

PS. By the way at what point could Facebook be labeled a stalker?

PS. When is any social media going to share advertising revenues with those being searched or receiving the ads?