IN DIRE STRAITS

 For decades the ruling belief among some observers was that the Iranians could close up the Strait of Hormuz fairly easily any time they wanted to and it would take concerted military action to reopen the waterway. Oddly enough that hasn't happened this time as it looks like the whole world and heaven too is raining fire on Iran. It makes me wonder what happened so early in the conflict that ruled out this simple and obvious strategic weapon and left it to mere insurance companies to shut down the flow of oil and natural gas to Europe and China.

We used to joke that any ship could be a minesweeper, once. The corollary was that just about any ship could be a mine layer and it doesn't really take all that much in terms of modifications to roll them right off the stern or even pitch them over the side. As a semi-pro mine layer myself I recall that when we were putting out the mine shape we used every day for sonar conditions checks before proceeding into the Mine Danger Area, we made two passes. The first pass was to accurately assess the depth of water and adjust the mine tether so that our shape would float nicely about 20 feet below the surface and the second pass was to drop that whole shebang over the side and then come back around and have a look at it with sonar. On a bad day the great mine shape would be right there floating on the surface floating next to the bright red cherry float that was to mark the spot because somebody screwed something up.

On the other hand the hydro graphic data on the Strait of Hormuz is pretty much nailed down at this point. If the surveys of HMS Beagle in 1789 have not been updated by anyone else I'm pretty sure the Iranians had their own surveyors out getting really accurate charts of the area made for their own purposes. It really isn't all that difficult to to do a bottom survey and gather the data needed to accurately fix the locations for one or two thousand anchored sea mines and it is dead easy to just toss over the mines that lay on the bottom and wait for the right 'influence' to detonate under passing ships. Rocket Rising Mines sounded really delightful when I used to read about their more salient properties.

The best part of mining a Strait that you squat on the rim of, is that you can cover the entire mine field with artillery and use it to take pot shots at any mine clearing activity that doesn't meet with your full approval. It's a sort of Wonsan, Korea on steroids. Dealing with mines, anti-MCM mines and artillery and the usual hazards of navigation (would you believe ignorant merchant ships had to be dodged even while conducting MCM in an active mine field) is straight forward but time consuming.

So what happened to the mines? What happened to the coastal artillery batteries? What happened to the swarms of missile armed speed boats? I mean none of these and not all of these together even slowed down tanker traffic in the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq Tanker War and during Praying Mantis it continued on, undaunted so what happened to make the pussies in Lloyd's scrap the insurance scam this time?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the Saudis know how to read the future pretty well and saw this coming over 40 years ago and decided to not only build a brand new oil port in Yanbu on the Red Sea, they built pipelines to carry their oil there whenever needed. I don't know if they told the Kuwaitis to pound sand and refused their oil transit across Saudi Arabia or not but it doesn't look like Kuwait can do anything now but shut down. The Qataris managed to piss off just about all the Gulf arab rulers so nobody even thought about letting them build a pipeline out to the Red Sea.

On the gripping hand, nothing easier to blow a hole in then 150 miles of oil pipeline running on the desert's surface smack dab in the middle of a remarkable war zone. 

First USN led tanker convoy and M/V Bridgeton hit a mine and carried on

 

SOMETHING IN THE AIR

 Do the people notice at all anymore that the IAF now routinely flies through the sovereign skies of the Islamic holy land on its way to and from targets in Iraq? They are doing every Gulf Arab’s business and hasten unmolested on their appointed way. Never saw that coming, did you?

THERE IS A TIDE

 It turns out that there is only really one way to deal with pirates and other ferals. Whenever you find yourself questioning how or why the Navy or the Army failed somehow in its duty to destroy the enemy, you need to refresh your understanding of what such destruction entails and how it is gained. It is not for the cowardly or faint of heart because it is ruthless beyond anything we have seen outside the vicious meaningless COVID restrictions. This is the ONLY way. It is not the best way, it is the only way. 

George Washington to Major General John Sullivan, 31 May 1779 [Middlebrook, 31 May 1779] 

Sir, 

The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the six nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents.1 The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more. 

A post at Tioga will be particularly necessary—either a stockade Fort or an intrenched camp—if the latter a blockhouse should be erected in the interior. I would recommend that some post in the center of the Indian Country should be occupied with all expedition, with a sufficient quantity of provision, whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun but destroyed. 

I beg leave to suggest as general rules that ought to govern your operations—to make rather than receive attacks, attended with as much impetuosity, shouting and noise as possible, and to make the troops act in as loose and dispersed a way as is consistent with a proper degree of government concert and mutual support—It should be previously impressed upon the minds of the men wherever they have an opportunity, to rush on with the war hoop and fixed bayonet—Nothing will disconcert and terrify the Indians more than this. 

I need not urge the necessity of using every method in your power, to gain intelligence of the enemy’s strength motions and designs; nor need I suggest the extraordinary degree of vigilance and caution which will be necessary to guard against surprises from an adversary so secret desultory & rapid as the Indians. 

If a detachment operates on the Mohawk River the commanding Officer should be instructed to be very watchfull that no troops come from Oswegatchie and Niagara to Oswego without his knowledge; and for this purpose he should keep trusty spies at those three places to advertise him instantly of the movement of any party and its force. This detachment should also endeavour to keep up a constant intercourse with the main body. 

More than common care will be necessary of your arms and ammunition from the nature of the service—They should be particularly inspected after a rain or the passage of any deep water. 

After you have very thoroughly completed the destruction of their settlements; if the Indians should show a disposition for peace, I would have you to encourage it, on condition that they will give some decisive evidence of their sincerity by delivering up some of the principal instigators of their past hostility into our hands—Butler, Brandt, the most mischievous of the tories that have joined them or any other they may have in their power that we are interested to get into ours—They may possibly be engaged, by address, secrecy and stratagem, to surprise the Garrison of Niagara and the shipping on the lakes and put them into our possession. This may be demanded as a condition of our friendship and would be a most important point gained—If they can render a service of this kind you may stipulate to assist them in their distress with supplies of provisions and other articles of which they will stand in need, having regard in the expectations you give them to our real abilities to perform. I have no power at present to authorise you to conclude a treaty of peace with them but you may agree upon the terms of one, letting them know that it must be finally ratified by Congress and giving them every proper assurance that it will. I shall write to Congress on the subject and endeavour to obtain more ample and definitive authority. 

But you will not by any means listen to ⟨any⟩ overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected—It is likely enough their fears if they are unable to oppose us, will compel them to offers of peace, or policy may lead them, to endeavour to amuse us in this way to gain time and succour for more effectual opposition. Our future security will be in their inability to injure us the distance to which they are driven and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire ⟨them.⟩ Peace without this would be fallacious and temporary—New presents and an addition of force from the enemy would engage them to break it the first fair opportunity and all the expence of our extensive preparations would be lost. When we have effectually chastised them we may then listen to peace and endeavour to draw further advantages from their fears. But even in this case great caution will be necessary to guard against the snares which their treachery may hold out—They must be explicit in their promises give substantial pledges for their performance and execute their engagements with decision and dispatch. Hostages are the only kind of security to be depended on. 

Should Niagara fall into your hands in the manner I have mentioned—you will do every thing in your power for preserving & maintaining it, by establishing a chain of posts, in such manner as shall appear to you most safe and effectual and tending as little to reduce our general force as possible—Th⟨is⟩ however we shall be better able to decide as the future events of the campaign unfold themselves—I shall be more explicit on the subject hereafter. 

When you have completed the objects of your expedition, unless otherwise directed in the mean time, you will return to form a junction with the main army by the most convenient expeditious and secure route according to circumstances—The Mohawk river, if it can be done without too great risk, will perhaps be most elegible on several accounts. Much should depend on the relative position of the main army at the time. 

As it is impossible to foresee what may be the exigences of the service in this quarter, this united with other important reasons make⟨s⟩ it essential that your operations should be as rapid and that the expedition should be perform⟨ed in as little t⟩ime as will be consistent with ⟨its success and efficacy. 

And here I cannot forbear repeating my former caution, that your troops may move as light and as little encumbered as possible even from their first outset—The state of our Magazines demands it as well as other considerations—if much time should be lost in transporting the troops and stores up the river—the provisions for the expedition will be consumed and the general scantiness of our supplies will not permit their being replaced—conse⟨quently⟩ the whole enterprise may be defeated—I would recommend it to you for this purpose that the General Officers should make an actual inspection of the baggage of their several Brigades and absolutely reject to be left behind, at proper places every articles that can be dispensed with on the expedition—This is an extraordinary case and requires extraordinary attention. 

Relying perfectly upon your judgment prudence and activity—I have the highest expectation of success equal to our wishes; and I beg leave to assure you, that I anticipate with great pleasure, the honor which will redound to yourself and the advantage to the common cause, from a happy termination of this important enterprise.3 Given at Head Quarters Middle Brook 31st May 1779. ⟨Go: Washington⟩4

 Various members of the nomenklatura believe that we can win hearts and minds with civilized restraint and moral behavior. They are wrong, they are always wrong and yet they are always the ones pushing restraints on executing the people's will. As long as the Armed Forces answer to them there can be no victory over savages.  We merely splash around in the shallows and wait for the tide to return and wipe away all our foolish little patty cakes and watch as victory once again recedes from our grasp. 

Keep in mind those that carp and complain, these were very similar to the orders that Sheridan gave to his army as it devastated the entire Shenandoah Valley. What they practiced in the Shenandoah the Army perfected under Sherman as it marched through Georgia to the sea. The only path to winning the war lay in the utter devastation and ruin of the land and everything on it. 

We haven't forgotten how to make war, we just don't do it anymore.  Nobody does.....that you know.

 

WARTIME STEAMING

 It is nothing new and it is what warships were designed for but it doesn't really take into account the burn factor on men. I spent years at wartime steaming in the Persian Gulf and it was easy enough because it basically required us to keep 50% of our weapons manned and ready at all times. This was something the ship's manning document accounted for and the second and third times I did it the ship was actually overmanned per the original manning documents. The first ship, though, was a one year unaccompanied tour and the old man let every single man go on his 365th day +- a day or two based on our location and the expected channel flights out of Bahrain. 

The people at the Bureau of Personnel thought he was unreasonable in this regard and for about 4 months we were steaming along, wartime steaming along with about 50% of the required crew because they refused to detail in replacements. We were in Port and Starboard watch sections the whole time but spent a good deal of that time steaming towards Africa and the Indian Ocean not up in the war zone.

It's a little different conducting wartime steaming in a hot war zone under continuous air attack for days on end. If, at Condition III Wartime Steaming, we were attacked, we would go to General Quarters and all hands would man their battle stations which mainly consisted at that point of manning the other weapons and manning the Repair Lockers. The difference is that at General Quarters the ship is closed up and is supposed to stay that way to limit any damage from explosions and there is no sleep, no hot food, and it gets real old very quickly. In other words, you cannot do it forever. You can only do it for a few hours at a stretch and if every break of 10 minutes is followed by another attack, well, you can see the problem. The last time we really did anything like this was OIF.

I read that the USS George Washington has withdrawn from the Persian Gulf after almost a week of nonstop combat operations. I'm kind of surprised she stayed as long as she did. Back in the day it would not have been necessary since 100% of Iran could be struck by carrier aircraft operating in the North Arabian Sea. The days of long range carrier aviation and fighter bombers with legs is long gone but their loss imposes some real hardships on those waging war in close to hostile shores. Of course, we've known that since we started the carrier aviation business.

I'd be interested in seeing a film of the work of the DDGs in continuous action for weeks. A documentary of the crew doing its thing for a week in the Persian Gulf under continuous air attack. I don't think we will since accommodation and time is at a real premium in situations like that but I expect to see something about life on a carrier during long duration in-close combat operations.

I see that one of our submarines sank one of Iran's last remaining warships somewhere off the coast of Ceylon. It struck me as somewhat amusing because I was thinking back to my days on ships and how we dealt with trash and garbage is very different from how our Fleets do it today. Back then we bagged it and threw it off the fantail. No weights, no provisions for it to sink, we just left a trail of floating trashbags behind as we proceeded. No, we didn't dump it continuously, just every time we held sweepers or the mess decks master at arms got tired of loafers and ordered the garbage dumped. We left a trail of bread crumbs.

Imagine you're on a submarine and you have oodles of ways to positively identify your target using acoustic, electronic and visual means but just to be sure, you pull up to one of those bags of trash and read the mail there and find out that your target is indeed the enemy ship you were looking for. Target ID is a foregone conclusion at that point and its weapons free!

UPDATE:

Speaking of huge navies, now is a chance for them all to shine. It appears some countries need that Gulf oil pretty badly. I guess it’s time to pony up the missile ships and send them along to Ras Tanura and start escorting their tankers in and out of the Gulf. Some countries are about to learn that there is no substitute for a full blown destroyer escort and poky little patrol boats are not even in the same league as ships that can defend not only themselves but also those convoying with them. Yeah OTAN we’re looking at you and you too Japan, China and Korea. We’d do it but we really don’t need the oil and we’re beyond caring about parasites. 

TOTAL QUALITY

 I no longer play the game but I am curious to know if the players out there are still ramping up their own games to play the way the cool kids play today. Back when I did play the buzzwords were Total Quality Management, Total Quality Leadership, Lean 6 Sigma, Black Belt and anything by Deming was regarded as writ from God. Prior to that we played by a system I understood pretty well which was simply called incremental progress. We'd get better every day simply by doing better every day. In every approach though there was always one point that seemed to be missed by the inspectors, what if there is no more room for improvement? Is that when you argue about what color it should be?

There are now a couple of very successful innovators out there who are making massively good products and I'm curious how they tool up, train, and operate their production lines because an organization that can build the most popular selling car, the best reusable rocket ships, the very best satellite internet systems and transceivers almost certainly knows how to get the most out of effort and capital. Are there books written by the people who actually built that stuff? Are people using it to build chip factories in America? Has someone applied it to how to streamline the law and compliance with building for industry?

If it is a teachable skill, is anyone teaching it? Are their college courses that cover it on both an approach and practical means of engineering and business? I suppose it might be time to read Eric Berger's books on Liftoff and Reentry.  I don't see how if one is involved in building production facilities and capabilities, it could be possible to skip over Musk's accomplishments in this field.

IT WAS A TIME FOR ALLIES

 Oddly enough, it was a time for allies and when we looked around we found ourselves standing alone, again. We are not going to forget that this is all that we can get from the standard bearers of the West. I know that anyone can turn around and say of US that when it came to war in Ukraine we were not there and you are unlikely ever to find US there but that is something different. We are not allies of Ukraine and we never were. We are not interested in calling the most heavily armed nuclear power on the planet to account for dealing with troublesome neighbors who have been waging genocide on their kinsmen. WE have better things to do. One of those is to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of fanatics and when we engage on that front we find, as I said at the beginning, ourselves standing alone.

OTAN delenda est. Let the French and the Germans have it. They deserve it. 

THE DIFFERENCE

 The USA is now embarked on a course of removing its enemies and it is interestingly roughly the same path now being trodden by Russia but there is one major difference which is surprising to me. When we decide to go to war, the first thing that we do is to remove the enemy leadership and then we do. Russia had a lash at that with the Special Military Operation but they probably would have been better served by sending a couple of dozen missiles and fighter bombers downtown instead of a couple of airborne and tank divisions. Maybe they'll learn from us and invest in something like our Delta Force. They could call it spetznatz or something like that.... Oh, and they'll need a killer Air Force.

I see reports that up to 3 of our fighters have been shot down over Kuwait 'by accident' by 'Kuwaiti fire control' and I suspect we all know what that is. OTGH, we have grown to expect that sort of thing from our allies over there. If it's not one of them, it's all the rest of them.

And now we know what was in all those strategic lift aircraft missions that headed over to the middle east over the last week or two. Who knew? Meet LUCAS. 

 

THAT BUZZKILL THING

 There has been another sea change in the way that international confrontations begin and end these days and one almost hopes the bozos are too stupid to realize it. On the gripping hand, some people can learn and so for what it's worth it might be time to point out once again that there is a player that believes that the only path to victory in conflict is to root out and kill the leadership of the enemy and they do that pretty ruthlessly.

Let's just note that the Losing Side has been trying really hard to kill President Trump because they understand the simple and obvious fact that escapes 90% of the people; President Trump is the leader of this country and if anything happened to him it would quickly devolve into a rabid flock of Karens trying to kill each other with celery and nothing would ever get done again on the world stage. Almost everyone knows this.

The President Trump view of the world now pretty much confines itself to eliminating problems and as we can see with the late ruler of Iran, these things can be done in an instant.

If I was John Roberts, Zelensky, anybody in China and anybody in South or Central America I would make note of this Presidential failing. I would probably amend my behavior so I did not come to President Trump's negative attention. Maduro was showing off that 'we' could come for you and take you away, nobody the wiser and your guards lying dead behind you or we could do it the Ayatollah way. Either one works and both ways get the same effect.

What I wonder though is how many of those twits in Europe think that they have immunity? Their level of self-destruction in Europe is now reaching the levels once only achieved when they began turning on each other and clawing each other to death in Flanders. Srsly, blowing up your own energy pipelines, destroying your own nuclear power stations, loaning trillions to Zelensky and the Ukrainian mob that everybody knows will never be repaid, sending all your few remaining working weapons to Ukraine to fight Russians only to have the Ukrainians snootily return some of them telling you they are junk and don't work.....

I don't know. Sometimes when an enemy is killing his own stupid self the best thing to do is to stand aside. It's not terribly Christian but then neither is Europe and they are, after all, doing it to themselves.

It is time to sever ourselves from NATO. 

DON'T BE EVIL

 Once upon a time there was a little company with a big idea and big ideals that put itself out there for everyone to get to know and become familiar with and a lot of people liked it. Their unofficial motto at the time was, "don't be evil." They hired new management, adopted a new philosophy became unable to tell the difference between good and evil, found out they kind of liked evil and while people still use them they have about as much respect for their truth, integrity and honesty as CNN or the DNC. Nobody trusts them.

The War Department has been negotiating something foundational with Anthropic and it looked like one side was smugly wrapped in the arms of its own "don't be evil" code but the thing about appearances and reality is that reality cannot tolerate the appearance of 'suddenly defined unacceptable parameters.' If the War Department buys a product and it isn't lethal or designed to counter lethal effects or attacks or to repair awful damage than it really isn't spending the money the way the Public intended. Nobody want's a fuzzy tank or a warm wraparound friendly bomb.

It looks like Anthropic decided to go to the wall on its case against allowing some dickhead in a military uniform or any miscellaneous orange myrmidon to misuse its technology. That shows principles and integrity and so on and so forth. Good for Anthropic.

The Secretary of War has no choice now but to not only ban them from any and all Pentagon procurements,  but it also must kill every single intrusion of it into the upstream supply chain where the principles so dear to the founders and owners of Anthropic are allowed to trump the needs of the military and Defense Department. That ugly baby seal needs to be clubbed into nonexistence everywhere it tries to intrude its inflexible principles because Anthropic does not understand.

I'm sure I'm wrong it in this but I'm happy to stake the ground out. It could well be that the leaders of Anthropic are men of conviction and are unwilling to be the genesis of a new weapon or system that will get out of control. They don't want to be whoever it was that made Skybolt. Good for them. On the other hand what they refuse to accept is, 'that war makes monsters of us all.' A country cannot afford to farm out its conscience and its war-fighting to corporations.  

People and corporations and twits fail to understand that there are no rules in war. There are guidelines but they are not rules. Nobody can afford rules in war. 

This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.

Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted…

— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) February 27, 2026

 No country at war can tolerate idiots jumping in to share their attitudes on 'recklessness, hastiness, ferocity or any other imbecility that they can conceive of to shape and limit the amount of force and fire power brought to bear against the enemy and so limit the war to what they and they alone think is proper.' Oh they can yell about it and demonstrate all they like but they don't get to make the decisions. We did that when we elected the Commander-in-Chief.

This is how War is done. There is no other way. What Anthropic was demanding was a say in this. They are idiots. General Washington was absolutely right. 

BIDEN'S PROXY ARMY FIGHTS PAKISTAN

 The most heavily armed and lavishly equipped military force in South West Asia is engaged in another one of those wars we all dearly wish both sides could lose. After years of taunting and tormenting each other's goats both the Taliban (ISI wing) in Pakistan and the Real Taliban in Afghanistan have gone to war with each other. I can only hope that it is as long and devastating as the war in Ukraine. It will be interesting to see fanatics waging war today with yesterday's wars weapons. 

You just know that liberals and progressives are going to bombard the House and Senate with demands that we do something....  I figure at least now we'll see how 3rd world savages actually do waging war with modern weapons lavishly provided by Joe Biden, General Milley and countless generals that led our forces to humiliating defeat in Afghanistan. Let's see what tribesmen do with real weapons. Bring popcorn.

BRING OUT YOUR CROMWELLS

 As one burrows deeper into the mechanics of the crimes of the Deep State Operatives at every level in every branch of government over the last 20 years it is becoming increasingly clear that they have to be exposed and jailed or killed as rapidly as possible. They have perverted every organ and office of the State and politicized a bureaucracy that was never supposed to come into existence and never should have been allowed to remain in existence after we won World War II. Unfortunately, the only way that this can happen in any shape at all is if there is another Revolution like the one that killed a king and led to the annihilation of a century of misrule. It suffered some rather awful side effects but that's the nature of Revolution and why societies used to work so hard to avoid them. Nobody is trying to avoid them now. Things are taking on the shape an increasingly menacing overthrow of the foundations of the State.

The Left wants/needs to maintain what they insist is the unpoliticized and perfectly acceptable Ownership of the People by the FBI/CIA/NSA/DNC and the Right who are concerned that every single action taken to reduce or narrow the free rein enjoyed by the totalitarian left is promptly stymied by a judicial class of idiot that really does believe it has the power and the sole power at that, to rule by decree.

If you think it's bad here you should look at how badly things are going in England and in Europe. They are lining themselves up for yet another massive blood-letting and it will, once again, come as a massive surprise and shock to the system. It's like they won't even see it coming. 

Yes, this was set off once again by reading the news and seeing the worker bees at Homeland Security thought nothing of violating the rights of everyone and then hiding it and kept it up even after regime change and house cleaning. This has to be stopped. 

🚨 HOLY CRAP! Secretary Noem just revealed @ElonMusk helped find that a few DHS staffers installed SPYWARE on her phone and computer, as well as on the devices of of other political hires

These people need to be JAILED! There HAVE to be consequences, or they’ll keep doing it!… pic.twitter.com/tjhnZyPnEP

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 26, 2026

TRUE HATE

True hate has to be shown. Some people show it by spitting into a bucket every time they hear that monster's name. True hate must also be demonstrated so every time that guy they hate gets up to speak in public they dump that bucket over their heads.

There is a lot more to true hate than I am willing to indulge in. That said, the optics last might were remarkable.

 

and yes, I meant might.

 

On that note, I am waiting for the plumbers to come deal with a pinhole leak in a downcomer from one of my 3rd floor radiators and in the meantime the bucket on the second floor landing is very slowly filling..... 

WHAT WE HEAR

 For me it is what I don't hear that intrigues because the level of insane hatred with this administration literally knows no bounds and the haters are always keen to manifest their contempt and hatred. The odd thing to me though is that I don't hear them anymore. The slime like the Vindmans, Snowden and Manning all appear to have been choked to death either on their own bile or the gallons of venom they produce at the simple mention of the name, Trump. I wonder what the PTB are doing to make sure that the traitors and haters no longer spill every bit of information they come across if it will damage President Trump, the military, the United States or the general welfare. It's a real conundrum. 

On the glorious hand it may be that the people that used to publish all this damaging stuff have all destroyed themselves with their incompetence in gathering, writing and publishing the news.  I used to wonder how the society would deal with a press that knows no limits and it seems they did the sane thing and just stopped subscribing or reading it and the TV and cable news numbers are unbelievable. Nobody at all watches except really really old people. 

Yeah, I'm probably one of the last who would take a few minutes while hanging out in the lobby of the old Gulf Hotel in Manama, Bahrain and read the AP, UPI and Reuters news wires as they came off the telex in the lobby. That was 42 years ago. 

Iconic photo though. That would have made the wires.

THE REALITY UNDERLYING MEXICO

 I worked right on the border with Mexico for 8 years and while Tijuana was quiet I knew that underneath was an entirely unknown country that nobody ever talked about. When the headless bodies hanging from bridges became too intrusive in our news, the news always ignored the following bodies ruthlessly and when thousands of women and children vanished on just the TJ border every year nobody ever paid any attention. 

Tourists flock to Mexico for some reason and never realize that there is a hidden government and hidden hands that permit them to live and enjoy life and that they can and will take it all away in an instant. That said, this is Mexico's fight and not ours because we dodged a bullet by electing President Trump who put an end to the outright invasion of this country by the Cartels that own and operate everything you see and know in Mexico including the Government, the Police, the Army the Federales, literally everyone is Cartel. 

You thought we had ridiculous numbers of asylum seekers before and this is just one of a dozen cartels expressing its unhappiness. Everyone now knows that the cartels and gangs can be beaten but almost no country has the will to undertake the fight. Just one so far. It will cost them as much as our own Civil War cost us and I doubt that they will be interested in paying.

 Welcome to Mexico, Host country for FIFA World Cup 2026:

Host country for FIFA World Cup 2026:

pic.twitter.com/0KvHAiqwzC

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 22, 2026

A STEP BACK

 

Ivan Ajvazovskij, "Il Golfo di Napoli".

ON CERTITUDE

 So I see that the Supreme Court has just outlawed President Trump's tariffs. There are couple of ways forward now and the first might be to just have t he drones in Congress start doing their jobs and make all those tariffs retroactive in the name of Congress and the second is to to treat the Supreme Court ruling exactly like all the gun grabbers do and that is to just ignore every single thing about it and carry on under a new name and assumed powers. Easy enough to fix, just say that these are not tariffs, they are road fees for all imports that accrue to the US Government for use of the Defense Highways roads and call it a day.

Yes, we know that Congress will do nothing and the most law abiding President in our history won't game the Court but it's the spirit that counts and it is time to send the courts a message that they will never forget. 

UPDATE

Oh look, Spot! There it is! 

THE AMUSING BUMBLEBEE

 Wouldn't it be amusing if all these signs and portents showing that we are sending waves of invisible and undetectable fighters and bombers to the middle east were all just a facade? I used to have to convince operations specialists and some more senior officers that radar displays showing only IFF returns were not terribly useful since enemy warplanes would not be transmitting IFF and maybe it would be a good idea to hold some training so I did not keep going into the Combat Information Center and finding all the displays showing only IFF sources and then had another boss who firmly believed if we added AIS to our system we could track all surface threats even if the radars did crap out. He seriously thought that we used AIS to track bad guys.....................................

the same way people seem to think they are tracking our military planes simply because they see a transponder making its way across the ocean.

I sure hope out Intel guys do a better job but they haven't impressed me much since December 7, 1941. 

REGARDING THE FALL

 I have been wondering now for some time what the Russian retaliation for all the warmongering is going to be and it suddenly hit me. They already executed the West a long time ago, or at least the Soviet Union and the Communist International did a long time ago. Nobody noticed.

One of the things we now take for granted is that the Soviets had thoroughly penetrated the West at every level and in every country and it took the Long View of History and removing enemies from the list. Once they and their fellow traveling agents reached consensus they acted and they swiftly took over the State Departments/Foreign Ministries of every NATO country. They then invaded the ranks of higher education and took it over lock stock and barrel. You can see their dead hand to this day placing into power and leadership dolts who couldn't argue their way out of a wet paper bag. I mean seriously, look at the last few Presidents at Harvard, any of the Ivies and most of the rest of Academe and you can allow yourself to spit in disgust at how morons and rent seekers got such sinecures. A brief glance at things like NPR, PBS, think tanks and the various foundations such as Tides and all the rest should give you an idea of just how something as evil and stupid as NGOs funded by US were allowed to flourish unmolested for so long.

Once they had the colleges and universities they took over the Colleges of Education and owned them within a couple of months. Those people have a will to believe that makes Nazis look positively wishy-washy. They screwed up education of the young, destroyed the art of teaching, massacred reading skills and began a process of indoctrination that goes on to this day.

Along the way they did other things along these lines such as founding and operating the No Nukes movement and then the Green Peace and Green Party and then tried to get the people to demand worldwide wholesale universal disarmament and outlawing weapons of war and things like power stations. They also funded and created the entire scam now known as Climate Gate.

But they did something even more insidious then that, they took over every Church in the West and turned them into Apostles of Demons and with that they demanded the ordination of women and the gradual removal of every aspect of church doctrine and teaching that had stood the test of time, schism and war and brought about the universal flight from the mainline churches in every NATO country. What a remarkable collapse in such a short time of an Institution that had lasted for thousands of years.

I think they also took over the American Bar Association and initiated no fault divorce. The lawyers loved it because that was easy money and the rest of us simply went along. You know what that led to don't you? Yes, that's right, trust and faith in all the institutions was gone within 3 generations and the worst thing about that was that without the moral imperatives and the Faith to enter vows of marriage more and more young people simply stopped. The number of children born each year slowly declined until most NATO countries have demographics that are beyond dire. This is an extinction of the West by the West. This includes our imperial running dog pack in Asia which is suffering an even larger population collapse.

So you see, I think the Soviets already countered all the passive aggression and outright warmongering undertaken by the Leaders of the Dismal Countries of Europe over the last 4 years and they see no need for further retaliation and yes, I know, the things they did seem to have bitten them and the Warsaw Pact on the ass but you know what happens in wars..... mistakes, accidents, unforced errors, overreactions and death. It comes for all of us.

I guess one could say that their work is done here.

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

 This is as nice as I remembered it from all those years ago.

MUNICH FASCISM IS NOT A GOOD LOOK

 The fascists blathering at the Munich Security Farce Conference are making all the bloody fascists look really bad and yet, just like last time it is obvious that they don’t see it that way. They think they’re gaining credibility and points every day with, for instance, their arguments for GIVING Ukraine weapons of long range destruction in order to “make Russia feel the pain.” They don’t seem even marginally aware that this was the strategy used to flatten German cities and kill millions of innocent women and children in fire raids and other bombing attacks and they don’t ever ask themselves, did it work? We know the answer and it’s simple; thanks to fascism, the rulers felt no pain and used every means at their disposal to eliminate any weaklings who felt the pain and so no, strategic bombing was judged an absolute failure by the strategic Bombing Surveys that the United States Air Force conducted immediately after the war. All that killing and destruction was for nothing. 

And all the little fascists at Munich think it’s the answer to the Ukrainian War. Oh, that and destroying liberal democracy, silencing all dissent and throwing anyone who disagrees into jail and banning all real opposition parties. One doesn’t have to look in closets or check under the bed for totalitarian fascists anywhere in Europe, they’re all in the government or the secret government run by the EU Commissars. The really amusing thing is how they endlessly label all opposition as fascists. What were they called before Il Duce?

SNAGGING EXTRA VALUE OR NOT?

 I see that The People's Great Space Station has once again exceeded as built capacity by more than 100% so kudos to NASA and the rest for achieving better than full occupancy. I do wonder though if we get any other increased bang for the buck per orbiting astronaut or if it all comes out the same whether its just 3 people in orbit or if it's 7. At this point there are no new discoveries out of it up there and to be honest the only real surprise I expect from Low Earth Orbit is if more astronauts came down then went up.

Has anyone ever run a spread sheet that shows what the # of orbiting astronauts vs orbital productivity rates looks like? 

Speaking of that, have they done any IVF experiments in orbit? Can it be shown known if sexual reproduction happen in the absence of gravity?  Enqueuing minds need to know before we they book passage on the next great space station.

ON THE OVERTHROW

It's interesting to me that humanity has overthrown and tossed off any number of Gods, Demons, Emperors, Kings, Tyrants, Mayors and even a couple of city councilmen but the one Mighty Horror that has never known defeat or been thrown out anywhere except by external force is The Law. It really does not matter what government takes power or the totality of its assumption of power over the Executive and Legislative Branches because the direst and worst enemy the People is now found in Law Courts. Those powerless cretins and tinpot dictators will not just throw a wrench into every effort to implement the Will of the People, they will order the jailing and confiscation of everything owned by any who dare to oppose them and we have lost sight of the fact that they do not rule and they do not make law and they have no real power except what we, the People, give them.

It's time to plan the next revolution. It's time to get down to the business of declaring the Courts the Enemy of the Republic and cutting them out of the Body Politic and then rebuilding them as they were originally envisioned and believe me they were not originally intended to thwart the will of the people at every single turn and dictate that we follow orders or get thrown into their jails.

Besides, those are our jails and they're probably well designed for holding enemies of the people like Eptstein Boasburg. It's not like our damned judges have been sending the murderers and rapists to jail in any great numbers now for almost 25 years. Does anyone else remember that California was the State the initiated the simple and fair policy of 3 strikes and your out? I lived there back then and it was the law and it was actually found entirely Constitutional and Just.

And then, somehow, the California courts decided that they had the power to set aside any and all Referendums they did not like and order the expenditure of as much money as they felt like whenever they felt like it and there was nothing you could say or do to stop it. The courts had spoken.

Let's nail the Judges up there next to the other Demons, Kings and Tyrants and toss them out. 

You cannot vote this mindset out of power.

THE GREAT CIRCLE ROUTE

 Some might say that any fool can see by now that it is impossible to market a print newspaper in today's climate. The wonder is that anybody even tries. Nobody believes a word they write anymore except die-hard partisans and they have been dying off, a lot. They're old.

The major flaw with the newspaper was always there even from the beginning. It had an angle. In the old days that angle included a couple of drivers that are now long gone. The old papers had to care deeply about marketing their paper to the largest audience possible because the lion's share of the income came from advertising and the personals sections of the papers and you could charge more if your reader base was large and deep and broad. The internet poisoned the well.

The newspapers decline was sudden but it took multiple passes to achieve near universal death. Kind of like a strafing run on a column stretched along miles of road out there on the steppe. You can't kill everything on a single pass. The newspapers slowly lost the personal section to the Auto Trader and an infinite number of niche papers that then went online. That was revenue gone forever. They started losing the advertisers to google and they never came back either.

The width, depth and breadth of the reader base then became the sole driver of newspaper success and when that happened everything else was promptly sacrificed on the altars of DEI, race politics, socialist revisionist history, social justice, BLM, the purity of diversity and all the rest of the blather socialist liberals believe with all their rotten little hearts. In other words, the base slowly declined to incorporate the soy commando and the pussyhat wearing brigades who deny reality with all their strength.

A paper that writes for the likes of them does not willingly embrace reality. It goes far out of its way to avoid all contact with reality. I mean seriously, reading that the Washington Post had 14 global warming columnists/reporters....srsly? 

I still play the NYT games every day because I have, through my libraries, a free pass that lets me get my wordle on and crush the spelling bee every day for free. This does mean though that I occasionally see the headlines of the NYT as I wend my way to the Games section online. They are almost never anything about the real world and in fact ignore the real world to the maximum possible extent and that includes them stamping their little feet, fingers in ears and screeching whenever the President fails to do as commanded by the Socialist moralizers. This is coming from a guy who used to spend most Sundays sitting in the dappled shade of a nice little coffee house in Del Mar with the entire NYT in front of him slurping coffee and reading every section except fashion and stocks.

Has changed very little in 30 years

 

In the pre-internet days the only papers worth reading were the NYT because it was the only one that followed world news at all and it did a fairly credible job of it up until about 1999. It's counterpart that I did enjoy was only really available overseas because as I recall the International Herald Tribune was a slacker in the distribution department. As you know that was a paper operated by the WP and NYT in concert and they used to make fairly decent readable music back then but I only ever found it overseas and that's a long way to go for a morning paper.

We're in the final days of the print news but it is curious to see that what remains still relies on that fixture that makes them both necessary and attractive, they have to appeal to a wide, deep and broad reader base or they are nothing at all. Most newspapers forgot all about that as the professionals jumped ship during the advertising and personals collapse. What was left was just the ideologues and they are as blind to market forces as a sea slug. They cannot see or accept that they must appeal to the broadest base or they lose their jobs. 

All that said, I do miss The Drudge Report of olde. It was edited by a news man that pointed his readers at expositions that appealed to a broad spectrum of readers unlike the current sea slug who will only curate news from socialist think tanks and people pretty far out on the spectrum. I suspect even sea slugs are better informed from not reading the Drudge in its current form.  

I find the appeal of X increases as I only read the people that I follow. I find that a little worrying. I'm turning into one of those people...... 

You need to read the whole link below to appreciate what it is to fail as a media. 

You’re screaming “zero arrests???” like a toddler who didn’t get the pony he was promised, while completely ignoring that the arrests that actually mattered already happened under the evidence chain Trump himself helped start.

Let’s spell this out in letters big enough for your… https://t.co/LGATCm6UAz

— LHGrey™️ (@grey4626) February 10, 2026

KNOW YOUR PLACE

 It’s probably a good thing that Washington DC is on a stretch of tidal estuary because otherwise they’d probably be drinking Potomac sewage water right now and not know any better until half of them came down with dysentery and died. This is just pathetic.

ALL THE MYRIAD WAYS

 The screw ups that I know about after just a few months on my first ship:

- Hull Technicians left (forgot) an Oxy-Acetylene rig on the pallet conveyor and when the mess decks people energized the conveyor, the rig dropped into the well at the bottom of the very greasy pit and somehow the next pallet in the chain didn't strike off the head of the O2 bottle so there was no huge explosion and fire.

- The Chief Electrician used a metal comb to bypass the interlocks on the 16,000 pound weapons and cargo elevator while it was being used to strike down stores during an underway replenishment in the North Arabian Sea. The Elevator over-traveled the top deck (Damage Control Deck on an LPD) which broke the suspension cables or snapped the 19 inch steel eyebolts holding them to the car and the car dropped about 8 feet before the diamond knurl elevator safeties tripped and locked it in place for the next 8 months I was onboard. Next stop on the way down was the bottom 6 decks below and the stuffed Landing Force Magazine which actually was full of 5 inch ammo for the Middle East Force but not for us. 

- A Gunner's Mate was conducting preventive maintenance on a Super Rabid Blooming Overhead Chaff system inport Dahran, Saudi Arabia. I'm pretty sure the maintenance card dictates the physical unloading of all SRBOC rounds prior to conducting fire circuit testing because weren't we all surprised when a 5" chaff round blew up on top of a warehouse next to the ship.

- A very unusual crew of HM-14 pilots towed their acoustic mine sweeping cable over what was probably the only actual reef in the Red Sea and then had the nerve to complain that the coxswain had "run over it with the propeller" which caused those 30 foot long straight as a ruler gouged tears in the casing.

- A supply clerk from the same squadron decided to end the problem of a sweaty pipe that was getting some of his cardboard boxes wet by closing the pesky valve. I'm not sure if he ever knew that the valve he closed was the one that lined up firemain cooling to the #2 Emergency Diesel Generator which surely burned up the next time it went into auto-start and run during a power outage.

I went to the Guided Missile School at Dam Neck, VA where they really wanted us to know and take to heart that under no circumstances should you or anyone else conduct missile firing checks with the high voltage ignition cables connected between the Harpoon Guided Missile Control panel and the missiles. I mean they told us about a missile that wandered into a Belgian village one day and caused havoc and about another that was last seen heading in the direction of St. Croix. In fact, they told us that only an idiot would leave the key lying around or have those cables anywhere but in the Weapons Department Safe. I was therefore somewhat surprised that the Gulf of Sidra Harpoon employments were actually as successful as they were although I did hear they had to chase down the off-watch Tactical Action Officer and shake the key out of him before they could fire.

- I think we have all seen the pictures of the sad looking torpedo in the dumpster on the pier next to the Frigate that was just "firing air slugs in port" when it turns out there was a torpedo sleeping in the tube that nobody knew about or remembered and those stories were a dime a dozen. I heard one frigate was going to paint both a dumpster and a staff car on their bridge wing to signify their torpedomen's successful engagement of targets of opportunity.  

- There was also a positive slew of accidental discharges of the 76mm guns on our guided missile frigates. It seems that sometimes when the weapons were fired properly and then returned to a proper centerline stow position pointing dead aft, the gun would cause its own self to load and fire just one more round right through the ship's smokestack and unoffending little Phalanx Close in Weapon System which made a hole in the one and blew apart the other. I recall walking down the pier to the Main Brace at 32nd Street one fine evening and an FFG was coming in to moor alongside another of that class that had painted a giant smiley face target on their stack as a sort of doink in the eye for the newly arriving ship that had just blown its stack and CIWS off. Gunner's Mates can be pretty brutal.

As I look back it is a wonder that we did so well and confined most of the real damage to the enemy. I could however tell dozens more tales of patrol boats and night patrols and floodings and accidental didn't really happen because nobody saw it kind of collisions but there really are so many and my fingers are so tired. Maybe another day.