FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

I kind of enjoy the press that the left's two greatest climate experts are getting these days. It helps define the problem that the hoaxers are having with skeptics who don't believe that science involves consensus and made up numbers and secret algorithms that nobody is allowed to see and validate and let's be honest, if real scientists can't repeat the experiment and achieve the same result, what you have is a failed hypothesis and not some new extension of 'science'. Forthwith, I give you the two greatest anthropogenic heating the world unto catastrophe experts on earth.

Plenty more like this where I took these from at Powerline blog week in pictures.

I remember the cornfield episode from long long ago. It was pretty terrifying. It's nothing less than what the democrats and climate scammers mean to do with the rest of us the next time they take power.

BOOKWORM

If you don't read Bookworm, you should. She delivers a good fisking to the New York Times.

The New York Times published an article by one of its opinion columnists, David Leonhardt, that purports to indict Trump in a mere 40 sentences, each asserting a supposedly devastating “fact” showing Trump to be a criminal, a fascist, or a fool. Reviewing these 40 sentences, I found that most are premised on erroneous facts, with the remainder relying on underlying assumptions that deserve to be challenged. A fisking is in order

THE NEW BLOOD SPORT

President Trump is once again under an all out attack from the House. He is badly outnumbered there. I suspect it is going to turn out badly for them.



What the stupid ones in the House will never understand or accept is that Trump is about 20 x smarter than they are and he can play them over and over again. He can make them hysterical with a single tweet. The more cunning democrats think they're just as smart as Trump and don't realize that he glides through politics like a great white shark, about 90% submerged. They don't understand what he's doing until the jaws snap shut on them.  I particularly like what his EPA is doing to the state of California.

The letter informs California that if it fails to submit new plans to increase air quality, the state would be ineligible to receive billions of dollars it is otherwise projected to get from the Federal Highway Administration. 

"We certainly want to avoid these statutory triggers, but our foremost concern must be ensuring clean air for all Americans," Wheeler says in the letter. "That is our goal."

 "California has failed to carry out its most basic responsibilities under the Clean Air Act, and as a result, millions of Californians live in areas that do not meet our nation's air quality standards," he said in a statement on the letter. "EPA stands ready to work with California to meet the Trump administration's goal of clean, healthy air for all Americans, and we hope the state will work with us in good faith."

When President Trump acts they don't even hear the salvo warning alarm. He warned them (California)  last week that he was going after them for their multitudinous failures to preserve the living environment for people but they probably thought he was just jacking them up and wouldn't actually follow thru.

I feel no pity for the House democrats who are now going to be faced with the option of thoroughly pissing off their constituents or pissing off Nancy Pelosi. However they vote, a number of them just got jammed into a giant cleft stick entirely of their own making.

U.S. AIRFORCE SNAPSHOT

Taken from Defense News.  I found it of interest if for nothing else, that it shows the numbers and types of aircraft the USAF flies today. It's a thing I never bothered to go out of my way to learn even when I was part of the USAF.

FASCINATING

This is the full tenured professor formerly of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington talking about where intersectionality is inevitably taking us as a nation. It bears thinking about.



He is basically saying that forcing a given group of people back up against the wall will inevitably result in them pulling together, unifying and acting together in their own common interest and the enemy has made themselves apparent by being the ones that forced them up against the wall. Given the group in question, I wouldn't want to be the ones they perceive to be the enemy when that group decides it is time to act in their own interest.

Most of the people doing the pushing don't know that. To hear the antifa rioters bleat, they kind of suspect what is going to happen as they continue to push but then look at the imagery of your actual antifa rioter wearing all the old symbols of communist parties everywhere and recall the 1920s and 30s in Germany as the socialists fought the communists in the streets for ultimate power. We know who won. Tell you who didn't win, the communists and yet here they are eager to make war and make the peaceful men and women of America suffer from their inability to keep from yielding to the mad impulse to riot, attack police cars, harmless journalists and innocent store fronts.

There is an old expression, "Oft evil will shall evil mar." Today, the antifa and intersectionalists are the orcs but they don't know it. They are industriously creating the conditions to bring about exactly what they are supposedly fighting so hard to prevent.

I THOUGHT THIS WAS VERY FUNNY

Taken from https://pjmedia.com/trending/, it's obviously about Chick-Fil-A. Someday the whole world is going to tell all of the haters to shove it up their *******.

MY BRIG

When I reported aboard my first ship in 1984 in the Persian Gulf I was appointed Auxiliaries Officer. Among the 72 compartments on that ship that were now, in essence, mine, I found a unique couple just above Emergency Diesel Generator #1 and just below E and A Division berthing. It wasn't like the run of the mill machine shop, boat shop, my office in the former Senior Troop Commander's office or anything like the ballast pump rooms, JP 5 pump room or even After Steering. It was, as you guessed it, the Brig. 2 cells as I recall plus the compartment holding the Petty Officer of legal assigned to torture prisoners in the cells on a warship then at sea in a combat zone. Srsly. One had to pass this palace to get down to EDG#1 with it's utterly useless Woodward governor where the equally useless generator would instantly flail to life when the automatic bus transfer switch told it the load was lost and compel it start and come on line. It would start just fine. Nothing wrong there. The governor would let it over speed trip at about 8000 rpm and there was nothing we could do to fix it even after calling in a very expensive tech rep from Woodward.

Most people picked up on the power failure when the main switchboards and steam turbines went offline. Every other soul on that ship could hear EDG#1 start and howl its way to the point where the over speed trip caused it to trip offline and shutdown. Me and the rest of A gang used to head all the way aft to the port wing wall basement where EDG#2 was and make sure it was going to survive.

We had problems with that once in the Red Sea where some obnoxious supply petty officer from HM-14 had closed all the cooling supply valves to the generator because he was getting 'condensation' off the pipes on his precious HM-14 RH-53 worthless helicopter supplies. Yeah, I did the JAGMAN on that one when we lost 2 cylinders on that Fairbanks Morse diesel forever because he'd completely chopped off all cooling to the thing.

We went out today to pick apples with a gang that's been doing it for the last 10 years and then we went to lunch for Indian cuisine. It was all good. I think a great time was had by all. It was fun to see the head of the Department know what he was doing and take leave of us and his wife and assistant and family from the one table in order to go over and spread the love, respect and affection he had for the grad students he had taught over the years that came out today at the table they were sitting at.

He came back when his only adorable grand daughter and her parents joined our table, to spend some quality baby holding time before heading back.

I'm not an academic nor academic trained. The leadership on display today was just exactly like what I was trained for and was flawlessly executed. It was a study in how to build teams to make things you want to, happen.

It was a good day. Wish you could have been here.

The post script. As I recall, 100% of ship's brigs were derated and declared null and void in 1983. What I essentially owned and never actually went into were 3 or 4 sizeable compartments on a warship that used the shaft alleys and stray voids as storage for essential supply part storage. The Supply Department had extensive spaces for that kind of thing but they never stored what you absolutely had to have right now and so engineers over the millennia have taken to finding places to store the stuff they really really really need while Supply works on sending in a request to an indifferent system that may, or may not, send them. Plus, all they really have is the enginerooms and need to find places to store the stuff they need and it's always, 'off the books'.

Supply really really hates us since we keep foiling their ineffable system.

MY MEMORABLE NAVY LEADERSHIP CLASS

I've posted it before but it came up tonight again so, I'll do it again but different.

The Navy has wickets one has to pass through successfully or so long contestant. In surface warfare the first major wicket was Department Head School. It was formerly known as Destroyer School. If a surface warfare officer fails to select for that School, his position has been established and it won't be with the Navy. I jest, we used to laugh ourselves as our worst nightmares of officers came back as meteorologists but at least they were no longer in the line of command.

One of the classes at the school was on Leadership. Just the one, about midway thru the school and as we gathered in the designated classroom the evil bastard in front of us told us that the class would not begin until we all were sitting there with the class materials that had been issued 3 months earlier. People literally got in their cars and drove to their homes all through Newport, Middletown and other horrible places in order to return and commence the instruction that was in it.

I had to walk across the parking lot to get the course material because I was an idiot and living in the BOQ. No good place, no per diem. I was an idiot.

Class reconvened at around 5 or 6 that evening and the evil bastard came back in and asked if we had the required documents. When he was assured that we all did he headed back out of the classroom and tossed over his shoulder, "that was stress, don't do it."

I was a CHENG on 2 ships and I worked my people far too hard. Had to. We had a mission and engineering is not one of those forgiving departments where, for instance, nobody notices if your SPG-60 antenna fell off the mast, landed immediately in front of Mount 51 and you currently cannot put warheads on foreheads. The ship either goes or it doesn't. Not getting underway on time and schedule used to be a career killer but I think not so much anymore. I don't think the Navy is better for losing sight of the objective which is referenced just above. They do stress creation just fine.

We weren't painting the engine rooms, lining them with fur or converting those awful aluminum engines to vibranium. We were just working to make them work when called on which, in our case, was just about everyday. We were a CNO test ship and we got underway and returned to port about 4 days per week, every week, for years. A schedule like that, even before the mine battle force rotations to the Middle East takes a toll on men and material. I'm happy to say that I never had a man that missed a single day unless he was on leave. I don't know or care what they thought of me but I thought the world of all of them.

Until I lost Iverson and Anderson.

AS I GAZE UPON THAT

The little moon rover in my last post had an antenna. We recognize the concept today because there are about 88 billion Dish antennas (yes, yes, I know) scattered across the earth. We have the deep space network to get the least little thing out of our starships and other Voyagers. My question is, just WTF was that stupid antenna for? It's clearly not stabilized. UHF or VHF could be heard any place on earth with a radio and I'm pretty sure the Apollo didn't need a special antenna to hear the two guys on the moon.

Clearly, it's aliens.

THE NEW ANCIENT TWIST

Looking at the state of what is laughably known as both the German and our state of war prep, it is easy to buy the liberal thought that, there is no more war. Liberals are idiots. The only way to keep out of war is to be prepared for war. They never understand that and instantly assume the readiness for war is a prelude to aggression. They work very hard to make it so. In the crucible, the Jews finally figured it out and now stand ready and all their enemies know it.

I would cut France and Germany a little slack because at the end of my service, threat in western Europe is un..............finished.

Oops, lost my train of thought. They and the rest of Europe are failing to gear up for the biggest war since the Siege of Vienna and refuse to accept it. OTGH, they have already lost and why buy weapons and invest in technology for their new masters?

I will be sad to see England vanish. Any student of history knows where the impetus came that made this age different from  those of Rome and Athens and Egypt. It was in most part due to the Royal Society.

It all used to stand for something......but you won't hear it out of those people.

HOW I GOT TO MEMPHIS

Pretty much like this. Never planned to go there, never plan to go back. I do like the song very much and this iteration in particular. We went and saw Jeff Daniels in concert but he didn't play it because he had so much other good stuff.

TO BATTLE!

I am old and gray and a little bit wounded. The friends and allies I am seeking still have all their strength and agility and yet one must go. It has been written! The one who is going definitely won't like it but will be ever so much happier, in time. Ordinarily I move through the house closing off doors and rooms and limiting the getaway space. Can't do it today. Both of my friends and allies need clear access to the basement for now and they both really begin to suspect something is in the offing if I close the doors to the second floor bedrooms. The hours between now and 1130 will be frought and I'll never get either one if he goes into the basement.

The one I need is the mighty hunter of late and last night paraded around with a mouse in his mouth.  No no, we keep a good house but it's almost four million years old and there are cracks and crevices although I have made an extra special effort to make sure no more damned bats fly in and land on me.

UPDATE:

I snared Hobbes with zero trouble this morning and threw him in the bag. He didn't like the snaring and throwing part but once in the bag became his normal self and settled in for a nap while I drove him to Lakewood where a very nice lady and her mother worked for 2 solid hours to shave the mats off him. He is once again half the cat he used to be but way happier since he can lie down without pain or soreness. He's off to the vets next but he doesn't know it. I hid the usual catnapping gear when I got home where he can't see it and every time it reappears both of them are eager to explore it, sleep in it and claim it as their own. They are really easy to snare. I offered Anne Bonney that maybe what we should do is just rub him down with Nair every week. She was not amused. Neither was Hobbes.

The mats on Hobbes spring into existance when we leave town for travel and leave the care of the two to either my relatives or friends, all of whom are most excellent cat people. When we come back we find a cat we left in perfect health matted to a fare-thee-well.

One of us will undoubtedly post pictures of the two of them, in the fullnes of time, or after breakfast.

I AGREE

I'm a little bit like those old guys who I suspect hang out somewhere or other. It isn't the VFW or American Legion because I've been there and the bartenders, cannons and M60 tanks tended to outnumber the vets. OTOH, I'm now an older vet so maybe I should have another look. I would like to thank the guys that fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and the hidden wars and let them buy me some beers while I regale them with stories about the 'old days.' :)

I did like this and needed to catch it before it flew over my head. I don't think it's real but I'd love it if it is.

Portions of the Apollo 11 mission are dramatized in the HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon episode entitled "Mare Tranquilitatis". In that episode, Michael Collins made the following suggestion as to what Armstrong should say upon stepping onto the lunar surface: "If you had any balls, you'd say 'Oh, my God, what is that thing?' then scream and cut your mic."

Now that would have been epic :)

You'd think at almost my age I'd be a little bit more grown up about this sort of thing. OTGH, I would have done it but then I was only 9 when they did it.

THEY WERE REAL ONCE

They were once every bit as real as the Taliban still is today.

SIGN OF THE TIMES

You don't have to be ignorant of history, you just have to care about politics more. There are, literally, people in the current White House that think they can ink a peace deal with the people that brought us 9/11 and blew up two of our embassies in Africa and they think of themselves as cognitive statespeople.

OTGH,

I don't live in New York City or Washington DC and neither does anybody I care about. I'd be a little more concerned about radioactive attacks if my daughter lived there but I live to the west and the prevailing wind is usually, from the west.

Were I to still live in the corridor of fire, I'd be outraged at this but it is every bit of what they voted for again and again.

srsly, a peace treaty with what calls itself the taliban? It is as if nobody involved read history.

WE WERE THERE FOR THE KURDS FOR A LITTLE BIT

Those poor bastards never get a break from the great powers who use them and drop them like a hot skillet when our will has triumphed. We used to joke about them at NAVCENT because they only reach a common interest when they agree to kill other Kurds. It really doesn't make for a rational system of government. You might as well have ladies handing swords out of ponds.

I write that as someone who greatly prefers Kurds to arabs. I hate to say it but someday, they will have their Ataturk. I don't think it is likely. I remember the stuff I read about shah massoud two decades ago who was murdered by al queda  operatives pretending to be a French TV news crew there to interview him two days before 9/11 when they revealed themselves to those ignorant  in the West. He was the Lion of the North and al queda still managed to kill him in his kingdom.

The Turks or Syrians or Iraqis will always be there to kill the Washington of the Kurds.

I know, we seldom think about him, but consider and read about him. He was like Franklin and Jefferson, a man out of time. The first President might have pulled off the dissolution of the British Empire but nobody knows his name. Jefferson or Franklin could not although they tugged quite thoroughly on superman's cape. Somehow, they knew his name. It's when you read history you recognize what shallow creatures our politicians are today.

REVERY

I wandered a little ways in tonight over some forgotten terms I am reading in Aeronauts Windlass and came out of the experience with a desire to read again about the Captal de Buch. He was a boon companion of the Black Prince and with diversity assured I plunged once again into history. If one enjoys it, it can eat hours with nothing but a nibble. They were both characters I enjoyed as I grew up.

There were far far fewer humans back then and only a handful had a written language to immortalize things, but those guys and Roland and Mad Anthony inspired me to read more back when I was young.

Oh, and stay away from wikipedia. It grabs you by the eyeball and never lets go.

INTERESTINGER AND INTERESTINGER

I used to laugh when hearing or reading about whatever the witchfindergeneral was up to but that has pretty much stopped although I strongly encourage everyone I know to read "Good Omens" which does field a wichfinder Sargent. CNN though takes the biscuit. Here is their story so far as they investigate why some USAF/USANG crew slept at a place in Scotland with Trump's name on it and they treat it like President Trump is raising scorpions to slip into their pants.

I'm pretty sure President Trump didn't call them and tell them to land in Scotland and stay at a resort there. Mostly because everyone knows that is just what the Air Force does. Srsly, only the Air Force could come up with air conditioned tents in Egypt for Bright Star 95. I'm not mocking or complaining. It's just something that never would have occurred to an Army, Marine or Navy officer. We in Bahrain used to joke that the Air Force had an 'Expeditionary Air Pool' in the Banz warehouse where they stored their Harvest Falcon stuff. I think, as it turns out, the joke was on us because there was a pool in there.

I could wish that the media would find at least some former military members to keep their idiocy down but then they hire the idiots as soon as they retire and pop up their heads thinking someone just asked who wanted a steak.

WEIRDER AND WEIRDER

So I went to the bank today to deposit a check that was not mine but well endorsed and with the recipients name on both the check and the bank PNC CARD. I was getting gas next to the most robbable branch in Shaker Square and thought, why don't I make this easy on myself and walk in to the f************ bank and attempt to deposit it.

The bank teller told me to F*****************off.

On the way out I saw the branch manager in his office and asked him if he had a moment. He allowed as how his time was my time so I asked him about the strange policy of a bank that tells depositers to hit the ATM instead of actually doing banking business in the bank. He said he would be glad to not PNC help me either.

Waited behind an SUV sitting on the cross street polinator waiting for my turn at the ATM.

I am sure that other people that bank with PNC have no problems like this.

Me? I bank with NFCU which is on the 26th floor of the Federal Building and just strip off your clothes to get into the building you terrorist.

In retrospect, some banking is easy. Maybe in 20 years I'll try it again.

ENROUTE

We did a good deal of driving in the last week (she did) but I was struck by the signs people put up alongside the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I-76. One of the hand painted signs in the middle of a field, of which there are many simply said, J33.3. I asked Pam what it was and of course she knew. I tried so many times to read that thing and never could. She held out the bible in the hotel room and showed me, all of this is old testament and this little thing that remains is new testament. All of it a continuing mystery to me.

Still, I expect that many people fail to understand a little thing about America. There are vast distances between huge cities. Enormous distances where people like me live. We don't make much noise most of the time, we rustle like the leaves when we do. I read in the news that President Trump would be easily defeated by twigs, bark and barley in the 2020 election, but I don't think so.

I think there is a reason that politics starts in Iowa. I wouldn't go there except to get through it. OTGH, by the time the election season rolled out to me in California I had just one choice since Iowa et al had eliminated everyone but McCain and I could not vote for that scumbag even if someone held a gun to my head...and Romney? Srsly!!!!

Here is the new Party. Absolutely anybody who never held public office is my candidate.

EXPLANATORY POST FOR LAST 2 + WEEKS

It was aliens!

Alternatively, we went and spent a bit of time in southern California for both business and pleasure and I cannot actually (don't know how) to post blog updates from my ipad and since I left my 42 pound laptop at home I made do with none at all. Then we got home and went to Carlisle for one of my uncles 85th birthdays. They are the closest thing we have today to family reunions of the clan that once existed and I try to go if I can. I made it to the 100th birthday party with just about 98% of the clan a few years ago and much fun and enjoyment was had at the last birthday party of the ancient uncles.

It was kind of a revelation to me that not one single one of those people uses a cane much less a walker of any type. All of them strolled about the estate like ancient 'trolls', yes, that's the word I'd use. We had a lot of fun, the company was great, meeting older relatives who we all remember each other as borderline insufferable teenagers......all good. The oldest were in fine fettle and still willing to take on all younger comers at whiffle ball. Unlike the party 2 years ago, there was no water balloon fight.

Regular ish blogging will resume. Tomorrow.

MD, Worked at St. Judes Children's Hospital for decades

Some really nice flowers

The beer must be here somewhere said the conclave of the wise. There was much debate.