ANY DAY NOW....

 Anybody else expecting Carney to request UN Peacekeepers to keep Canada safe from US? It feels like it is only a matter of time now before he decides to request assistance to guard his border against US incursions and while he is now really good pals with the Axis Powers in Europe it has become clear that the whole of the EU has about as much actual combat power remaining to it as ECOMOG.

Do the UN actually send peacekeepers anywhere these days? When is the last time you heard of real peacekeepers keeping the peace in boundary or threshold states? I mean other than things like 8th US Army in Korea?

WHO KNEW?

 NPR today, Dr. Rae Wynn Grant, "I have the extreme privilege of being a scientist. I am a scientist, by training. I am surrounded by scientists most of the time. The great news is that scientists have most of the answers.

We know exactly what to do to solve the climate crisis. The biggest issue seems to be whether society can implement these solutions which require a lot of leadership. It requires societal changes, lifestyle changes but I can't wait for young people to take over."

She claims to be a late millenial and of course, to be a scientist. It's a funny thing but I know an awful lot of people who work in laboratories and push the edge of knowledge and understanding every day in a lab or in their own heads and not one of them has ever said, 'you know, Curtis, I'm a scientist.' Not one.

There's an entity on X that is reviewing and posting extracts from what it alleges are the Most Secret document files that the British government squirreled away for the last 80 years for reason never explained but he declares that they all indicate that the morons who delivered Europe into war and terror actually knew what they were doing because, 'look, old records of meetings they had.'

I read Churchill's Gathering Storm and all the rest of his books long ago and I laugh at the idea that the British Government acted during the War and in its immediate aftermath to shield its actions from public scrutiny because they, 'didn't want it to be known that some of the King's Minister and his Prime Minister all saw the War coming and had decided to increase the Forces available to defeat Germany because, some stupid ludicrous reason on par with supposedly waging a war and launching a counter-offensive without bringing it to the attention of one's enemies.' I'm not buying it.

I suppose I'm now going to have to read the Mitrokhin Archive. I've had it for ages but haven't really delved into it at all. I can see why the Party and the State kept their actions leading up to the War and beyond classified but I'm damned if I can see why they declassified their archives decades ago and for some reason the British are only now getting around to letting the world know that they weren't all pig-ignorant, blind, stupid irrational nitwits and actually did exercise some foresight and judgement when it came to the coming War.

All things considered, these damned scientists on NPR and all governments bear considerable watching. 

RETURN OF THE DEMAGOGUE

 There is no doubt that Europe is doing everything it can think of to prevent the return of the demagogue and they think they have a very good reason. They don't but they think they do and that is enough for them to use any tools at their disposal to crush any real appeal to populism and nationalism. It is interesting how two very different standard dictionaries define the word.* 

In Merriam-Webster, a demagogue is “a political leader who tries to get support by making false claims and promises and using arguments based on emotion rather than reason.” 

In the Oxford Dictionary, he’s “a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument.”

The original definition did not survive contact with the State. It became what you see above. You know what the original definition of the word demagogue is? Merriam Webster pays it homage in the extended definition: 

history : a leader in ancient times who championed the cause of the common people The ruin of civil liberty had silenced the demagogues of Athens, and the tribunes of Rome …

—Edward Gibbon

The rulers of the 4th Reich are Hell-bent on making sure that no demagogue or champion of the people ever get to lead a member country's government. They will literally destroy and and all civil liberties once enjoyed by the original (ish) inhabitants of Europe to make sure that nobody every rises to lead his country against the endless tides of migration that are destroying a way of life unique to one part of the world. Those who try to point this out are jailed and ruined.

The problem that the leaders of the EU have is that literally every single EU policy is designed and executed to destroy old Europe. Immigration, Energy, Education, Economic, and Foreign policies are all clearly designed to destroy the social fabric that brought forth the EC, the ECM, and the EU. Any and every leader who points this out and gains any type of following is promptly declared a Hitler and muzzled, jailed and discredited just like they wish they had done to Hitler himself.

You see what the obvious problem there was don't you? By German lights in 1930, it is very hard to say that Hitler was not a 'champion' of the people of Germany. The expression used at the time came from: “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, über alles in der Welt,” which was, of course, the national anthem. It was policy. I think reasonable people could also say that when it comes to the facts, his version of the facts was pretty close to objective reality. The Allies screwed Germany after the Armistice and were more ruthless and cold blooded about it then people today can imagine.

The amusing part is how the intelligentsia interpret everything by their own lights and define everything else as evil or evil natured. This sterling piece came from The New Yorker in 2017:  

In recent weeks, many Germans have drawn parallels between their national anthem and the motto of President Trump. “From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first,” Trump said during his Inauguration, invoking a phrase that has troubling roots in nineteen-forties nativism and anti-Semitism. About a week later, Konstantin von Notz, a Green Party parliamentarian in the German Bundestag, tweeted, “America First is an update of _Deutschland, Deutschland über alles _. . .’ ” He knew the statement was provocative. “There is one rule in German politics: no comparisons with the Third Reich,” von Notz told me. But he considered his tweet less a comparison than a warning. “Patriotic feelings can lead to putting other people, other nations, down.”

Watching the blind women of Europe clump around desperate to ignore what the people are upset about it actually kind of amusing. It's like watching from just across the lake as Canada destroys its economy in what must be the stupidest response to a tariff in all of recorded history.

There are probably not more than 50,000 people in the United States who know what the Weimar Republic was or how Hitler was quite legally appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic. Everything was done in a perfectly European legal fashion. The differences between how the EU Commission operates today and the way that the German government overthrew the Weimar Republic are remarkably similar. 

No demagogues. None anywhere. Only increasingly oily and slimy bureaucrats.

Limit the legal parties to the ones approved by the government and exclude all others.

Kill the Jew. 

What they're not seeing is that this means that the demagogues must return. The people will have a champion. America showed the way, again and in the same remarkable fashion, what we have here is a country that still tries to adhere to the goals of the Founders while, as usual,  "The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe.”

—Tom Wolf

What the intelligentsia always seem to miss is that Nationalism can actually work very peacefully toward common ends with many other nations but that no tyranny ever plays well with other nations or countries. Germany was uber alles and that is not the same as saying that we will put America First. We mean that we will no longer sacrifice our peace and security or trade away our jobs and industries in favor of others. We come first in our minds and in our policies and the entire rest of the world can come in where they like. It is entirely up to them. We're just observing that from right here in metroparkcentralis they all look and behave like China or the Congo. They are not us. 

If you want a real laugh get some sociology major to explain just exactly how nationalism works in America and contrast with Dutch, German, Chinese or Russian nationalism. In the meantime it's hard to not notice that the intelligentsia keep saying that the people voted for Carney and his government and the British voted for Burnham as Prime Minister and the continued banning of political parties is perfectly justified. History shows that this does not work out very well. Gaming government in a democracy never works out well in the long run.

Still, if we want an upside, when the demagogues do get in power there is usually a huge boost to employment numbers and the economy as the new government begins to rearm. Something to look forward to! Eh? 

HOT NEEDLE OF INQUIRY

 One of the things we can all look forward to soon is the inevitable wails and moans from people who are going to slowly figure out that enhanced drone defenses mandate increased drone detection and the 20th century way to do that involves putting an enormous amount of electromagnetic energy into the air. Those people that flipped out about cellphone radiation, high tension transmission wires and garage door openers are going to freak out when they see that no place is safe without bathing the air above it with enough electromagnetic energy to boil a spaceship. Yep, they'll be so angry about that they're entirely likely to fail to notice frangible drone killing ammo and laser beams sweeping around them like they were on the world of the future in the movie Terminator.

This of course happens just as Amazon has finished refining its drone delivery service and even gotten permission to operate all over the place. Now their poor drones are going to be like the point men in those movies about dealing with troublesome predator aliens where the humans formed hunting parties.

Oh well, at least this will knock dead the whole ludicrous idea about flying cars. 

THE LOCAL

 One of the many things I find amazing is how some authors and their books hang on forever with almost no effort at all. Nobody at any school in any state in the USA or at any school anywhere else in the world ever put even one of his books on the reading list for the kids and yet, a hundred years later they are still to be found in every quality used book store in America. I read all of his books by the time I was 12. They were in the back hall at my grandparent's house and many were in our house because we liked Barsoom and Carson of Venus and every other book he wrote.

So you'll find Burroughs where you'll never find Kipling. Which is too bad because Kipling wrote many fine books but most are very hard to find. On the other hand, I've stayed in two different B&Bs in different states which had all of his books lined up on the fire place mantle in the room. I really do, one day, intend to read, The Light that Failed.

At the nearby used book store in metroparkcentralis

 

BARKING MAD CRAZY RETURNS

 I see a lot of people rejoicing because our Secretary of Defense has decided to implement another new core promotion strategy that will take on all the advantages of Up or Out and combine it with stroking out on any and all virtues for military competence and professionalism. In short, we are going to extend the battle space for just plain stupid, again.

Here is what they claim is the goal and intent of the new promotion regime coming at us at warp speed. To paraphrase, after coddling these pathetic drones for 20-22 years in some sort of pampered military service bearing a striking resemblance to living in an eastern European or Asian palace*, we are going to take 06's who have never done a single military thing in their whole lives and we are going to give them a one-size-fits-all test on how well they'd do at playing a war game we just invented.

This ranks right up there with declaring that overweight air conditioning and refrigeration technicians on a 173 foot long warship abroad in the Persian Gulf during a naval war with Iran must be sent home and discharged from the Navy pronto because they're not as fit as most tank crewmen or infantry privates. Never mind that the two have nothing at all in common. The physical standards demanded of the one outweigh the technical skills and work environment of the other.

On a good day about 15% of the military is in combat or in a place where imminent danger pay gets paid. Why would you hold the Disbursing Officer back in CONUS to the same mythical war fighting standards as Master Chief or George Patton? Why would you waste oceans of man hours trying to create a scheme for weighing and balancing every feather on the planet instead of just picking the ones you want/need?

The promotion boards these officers go before are/should be rigorous but I'll let you in on a secret, they've been fucking off for the last 30 or 40 years. I mean they literally shove concrete up their noses and take power naps while sitting on promotion boards. I know this even though I've never been within a thousand miles of such a board. I'll tell you how I know this:

The military has two kinds of officer boards that matter to us. One is the Promotion Board and the other is the Screening Boards. In the Navy, your career as a surface line officer is over if you failed to select for Department Head School. That winnowed a lot of officers right there at the 4 or 6 year point. You had to be selected by the screening board. 

The next screening board winnowed out the vast number of officers by screening all officers for Command. If you failed to select for command, your career was essentially over. You might make it to 20 years but you would not serve in command. 

Did any of you notice that the thing that killed a navy officer's career was right there where he/she failed to select for command as a Commander? You know what that means? It doesn't mean as much as you think it does because the Navy still needs an enormous number of officers to manage and do other things that officers with time in grade and experience do. Oddly enough, those jobs are important enough that officers can be promoted to Captain and stay in the Navy for 30 years.

Well, they could up until Congress got involved and declared a set of wickets of little meaning and no significant advantage. Congress declared that all senior officers must have Joint Experience! They must also have completed some form of Joint Professional Military Education! They must weigh no more than X, a constantly shifting variable that really has zero meaning or value in war fighting! They must also be really really nice and never fault or upbraid a junior who will then report them to the IG for some alleged misconduct or fraud.

I mentioned the Promotion Board and said they snorted birds and ate worms instead of actually doing anything related to reviewing promotion eligibility because over time the evidence was pretty clear that they didn't actually open up service records, look at fitness reports and weigh all the evidence of an officer's career up to that point in order to determine whether or not he was a good fit for promotion. Nope. All they did was rubber stamp the same exact names as promulgated by the Screening Board for Department Head and for Command.

An officer could have been a hopeless failure as a Commanding Officer and STILL get promoted because a Command Screening Board put him or her at the head of the list of all officers of his/her rank and so, no matter how dismally they performed in their 05 Command Tour, they had one and no peer that did not get command could measure up. This is a really stupid way to select senior midgrade officers.

If you think that is stupid, you should see how the Flag and General Officer Promotion Boards work for 07 and then consider the whole new game they invented for promoting 08, 09 and 10s. The 07 boards relied on merit but included a smell test and an aura check. Two stars still had a tiny veneer of competence and merit but it was mostly smell and aura and you see that just in the DIE promotions over the last 30 years. The 09 and 10 selections are pure smell and aura and a little bit of politics thrown in.

The time to measure officers for higher rank starts on day 1 and includes a buffer zone large enough to allow for them to learn and grow. The final measure of an officer's competence is not some idiotic game that panderers and sociologists dreamed up based on some big lie about a war game over 80 years ago. 

Marshall didn't fire officers based on their performance in some stupid war game. The Army back then was small enough that every senior officer knew every other senior officer and every single one of them had a well formed opinion on everyone else's professional reputation. That was the Army of the 1930s.

You start the winnowing process early, not at the end. Doing it with a single pass/fail test at the end of the day simply makes it clear that you have been fucking up by the numbers in every way possible for the last 30 years. Take a look at the link in the paragraph above. It goes to the heart and soul of what I'm driving at. The tactical proficiency you ever expected out of an officer was what you got out of him when he was an 02, 03 and 04. After that the system demands professional expertise, solid communications skills, program management proficiency and the ability to work with others to accomplish the goals all share and agree on.

Every CNO for the last 30 years has been a complete failure. The Army is so inept at selecting senior general officers that it has now been forced to go outside the existing structure to bring in someone talented enough to actually try to get the Army to work. In this, it has largely failed over the last 30 years. For the naysayers who say Desert Storm I would like to point out that that was over 30 years ago and that those 3 and 4 star officers who made that work so well were the direct products of Vietnam and the wildly accurate systems all the services put into place to make sure that no more Vietnams happen.  

In this regard we may have exceeded expectations. We literally cannot conduct a Return of Forces To Germany. A, the force is greatly diminished, B, the strategic lift is gone, C, the officers who knew how to do it are long gone and finally the will to do it, is gone.

If you were to ask me what I think I would say we are in the process now of recreating the force that General Smedley Butler wrote about in, War is a Racket. 

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909–1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

Why are so many people, many of them professional military types, so insistent that we gear up our industries, our shipyards and our war machines and our weapons and ammo stocks to fight China? Admittedly, if we thought we could fight China and somehow win, that would perfectly set us up to continue to keep fighting everyone else as we have been doing for the last 80 years. Naturally, as with the Soviet Union, we wouldn't actually have to fight China, just pay exorbitantly for the potential to fight a devastating war that both sides could only lose. 

Some people are surprised that China, after maintaining a tiny retaliatory nuclear missile capability has decided to dramatically expand the numbers and types of strategic nuclear deterrents to start bringing their actual numbers on hand to something more on par with the US and Russia. Actions and bluster have consequences that anyone can see coming a mile off.

LOOK! A MOUNTAIN

 Along the way we stopped at a lonely mountain to pay our respects. It was a very nice day for lone mountain viewing so that worked out well enough. If you ever visit this one you will see a tiny sign beside the road, about 3/4s of the way up to the parking lot, announcing "Mountain View" where you can haul off to port and "better view the mountain." Do it. Otherwise you won't see this.

 

 

AMUSING BY FAR

 I see that the three weirdest players of the Great Game are now involving themselves in the defense of Mecca and by extension the extermination of the houthi. I can relate. There are any number of factions and people that the rest of the world could well do without. I know, it's supposed to be mean or obvious about pointing out that some people really are not worth the powder and shot involved in blowing them up but then, that is history.

What is amusing is that what the Arabians appear to want is for it's two most populous and venomous religious extremist loving countries to come send their troops, armies and forces to the Arabian Peninsula to squash some troublesome pests that live there. I know something that most people don't about the people that live on the Arabian Peninsula and it flies in the face of what people think they know about history. Here it is:

The people who live on the Arabian Peninsula are literally the worst soldiers or military forces in the world. I mean they are worse than everybody else in the world. The vast majority of them are quite literally the 'have nots' and they see no reason to fight for their king or kingdom. The ones that do join the military are not just desperately and miserably bad at it, they know it without being able to say it.

What is to stop the armed forces of either the Ottoman Empire's dismal remains or the rabid forces of religious anarchy from simply overrunning the rest of the Peninsula? Once you invite the Dane, it proved almost impossible to get rid of him and if you think the Danes/Vikings had anything over the Pakistanis or Turks when it comes to expressing the most vicious inhumanity to man, you are mistaken. They have no limits that I know of.

Okay, that may seem a bit excessive if one is talking about a couple of battalions of real force and let's be honest, supporting armies in the desert is not not a thing just anybody can do, it takes real planning and logistics and the need to expel the words, inshallah from one's vocabulary. Still, it might be exciting to see the armed forces of secular islamic powers loose in the world of the mystical islamic power.

Of course, we'd need some intrepid young reporters on the ground to report the real story and a media inclined to let them. I don't think that will ever happen again. 

THE TEACHER'S CURSE

 There was really no way to dodge it, the teachers were told to educate the young and when they found that was too difficult and not to their liking they decided to indoctrinate them instead and of course they imparted the ways of indoctrination to their erstwhile students and those who paid attention learned that the best way to make things happen as they wanted them to happen was to force other people to do things their way, just like the teachers were doing and so we have, once again, come to the point where civilization lies in the hands of desperately stupid and ignorant dweebs who are going to insist that the entire point of government is to FORCE YOU TO DO WHAT THEY WANT.*

It didn't have to be that way. We could have paid attention when the alarmists pointed out that we had installed the very worst kind of people in our Schools of Education and then compounded that hideous error by permitting our schools to hire the kind of marxist morons that came out of those educational institutions armed to the teeth with ways to make sure that the students remained stupid, docile and obedient to the dictates of the sullen proletariat led by the teachers, of course. We didn't do that. I just want to say, it's not my fault! I was busy!

The schools haven't changed a bit and it is unlikely that they will. The only sure way to end this catastrophe is to home school and unfortunately, the proletariat is going to end that safety valve and demand that all your children be put in formally approved and sanctified schools.

One of the nicest things about putting your life on the line and in the hands of others is that you really do learn a few of the rules and high on the list as you plot revolution and rebellion is to trust no one so as you plot it is very important to make sure that 

THIS WAS INTERRUPTED BY THE STATE. PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE, WE WILL COME AND GET YOU. 

 

 

 

*I'm pretty sure that the Exile in Portales would have really liked that ridiculous sentence! I write them long for him.  

ON THAT NOTE

 I am happy to report that I have found the West in good condition after all. Yep, all things considered the West is doing pretty darned well, at least from Mount Vernon, Washington all the way to MetroparkCentralis. We attended a seminar inside the capture basin of the Skaggit Valley Food Coop and if you know, you know. It is a really awesome little place in a very nice little town that seems to come right out of the American dream. Once I figure out how to load some pictures again I will give you a sample or two.

From there we drove to Fairchild AFB and it was a lot like my first introduction to Huntsville, Alabama after leaving beautiful Newport, Rhode Island in the summer of 75. I found myself going from a truly wonderful environment to a place where the Blue Laws were still being religiously and civilly enforced and where everything was closed up as tight as a drum on Sunday. Fairchild is like that but it looks like everything is always sealed up tight and everything is closed. It is a very non-interesting place. 

We had dinner at the Indian Casino down the street because at 1600 everything on Fairchild was closed. We had breakfast at the other end of the valley because it had some really excellent recommendations and it met every expectation based on those. If you're in the vicinity, the Cottage Cafe is a really nice place.

From there we wended our way home in a Chrysler Pacifica through St. Regis (huckleberry shakes), Butte, Sheridan, The Devil's Tower, The Blue Earth and finally South Bend. 

I mentioned the car for a reason because I got a big one this time. I thought we'd probably find some way to fill it with loot we accumulated along the way but our efforts in that regard kind of petered out at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station where we spent our first night on the west coast. We accidentally found ourselves at their thrift store after checking out of the Lodge and bought a couple of chicken pillows and a cooler at the Exchange and other than art supplies and a blanket that was the sum total of our loot this time. We're obviously going to have to do better next time.

It was a rare delight to find myself on the backside of the moon when it comes to keeping up with what was going on out there in the larger world. I didn't care and I didn't look. We didn't look at a television or listen to the radio for over a week and of course there are no newspapers. (Have you noticed that they no longer put a rolled up newspaper by the door at your hotel room anymore?) I hadn't noticed but then there really is no national paper anymore now that the execrable USA Today has gone insane and been tossed out of reputable establishments.

It will be interesting to find out what has been happening in the world but the only thing I've seen so far is the explosion in the number of stories about female family annihilators and I just don't want to go there. One of the saddest things is that there really does not appear to be any way of fixing broken people and the systems we have in place do not permit any intervention until after the damage has been done at which point punishment is the only option and yet if the perpetrator knew what they had done that alone would be enough to punish them forever. 

A GOOD DAY

 We continued our trek home and made some detours along the way. The blog won’t allow photographs for some reason it knows but I don’t. We’ll be home Thursday and may remedy the situation  I will say that we arrived at The Devil’s Tower at the perfect moment.  

REPOSITIONING

 Our stay in Mount Vernon ends and in the morning we reposition for Fairchild. Washington is always nice to visit this time of year.

It will be amusing if the first fight the German Army engages in since its total collapse on all fronts in 1945 is one to wrest the heart of the Reich out of the hands of its Islamic occupiers. I don’t see it happening since the will to fight in Germans appears to have been extinguished for all time. I’m trying to think of encouraging words about resilience and such and they just aren’t flowing. I don’t believe they have any left.

I mean, if they did Merz and the entire ruling class would be decorating lamp poles all over Berlin.

DID YOU EVER WONDER

 How many brilliant ideas have been stolen when creators shared them with those super honest and ethical AI companies while trying to improve them, polish them and make them ready for a perfect sales pitch while using the Company’s AI? I suppose it would be fascinating to find out how many IP lawyers those companies have and how many patent claims have been filed. 

I’m pretty sure they’re going to be really sneaky about it but I think some data republican could probably find out in short order. 

A BITTER BITTER LAUGH

 I see that Ukraine has been in a very secret Fall Counter-offensive and now it can be revealed to the Western media that this highly classified assault has swept dozens of Russians from as much as 120 square kilometers!  Who do you suppose they kept from knowing anything about this counteroffensive?

It’s a lot like a disease deadly beyond belief that you have to be most carefully tested for in order to learn if you caught it.

Secret counteroffensives?

ON THE BOTTOM

 I see that Iran has sunk another merchant ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz. I think if I was the Master of a sinking ship attacked by Iran, I’d do my very best to sink that ship directly in the center of the outbound shipping channel so they could remember it for all time.

YA GOTTA

 Dance with the one who brought you. It’s the unspoken rule. Now that Europe’s ditzy, shallow, stupid and malformed  malinformed leaders have thrust themselves into a war they were never a part of they have noticed the performance gap between the way the soldiers in this war fight compared to every other armed person on the planet and they finally noticed the composition of Russia’s army. They don’t look anything alike. The one is nothing like the other.

It’s not pretty.

The girls and aliens cannot do what they are being paid to do and now they want real soldiers but of course all the women and aliens have the seniority. 

I wouldn’t dream of signing up in that army for any reason. Now the Euros have to fight with the army they have. Good luck ladies, you’re going to need it.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE VOTE?

 No, not that vote, I'm wondering about the votes that the people had to cast in order to have their country enter the European Union and which the EU and their satrap governors would hold over and over until the people understood that they must vote to join the EU. You could vote against entering the EU but it did not matter because in the end, you voted wrong and it had to be corrected. They do this now all the time just like the Democratic Party has accustomed themselves to holding meaningless votes for things like President and just bows and accepts whoever the PARTY appoints.

So, do the actual Canadians get a chance to vote to enter the 4th Reich or is that reserved for Europeans only? What would happen to their membership in the EU if the majority vote NO? 

Are there people in Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon wondering about how we would go about arming Canadians to fight and restore a legitimate government north of the 49th? We shouldn't have to invade, eh? 

MULTIPLYING BY CATASTROPHE

 It sort of looks like awareness is slowly spreading about old world deindustrialization and its consequences. International violence is going to be a local sport in the future, at least among those still willing to put up a fight. I’m not sure Europe realizes even now that pure numbers mean that we will not come to their immediate military assistance for any reason because like them, we cannot. We let too much slip away and none of it is recoverable in any time frame that matters. 

Besides, who is going to actually go to the bother of building war machines when deadly organisms can be assembled and turned loose on your non-friends and every single government in the world will rush to assure each other and you that it is not enemy action and certainly not the hand of God, it must be global warming!

So there are not enough warships for all corners of the earth and nowhere near enough capacity to build more in less than 5-10 years. That is actually building a physical ship that takes 5-10 years to build after it is designed. That is not the time required to reclaim the lost shipyards and building ways that have vanished.

Actual naval war is off the table. We have pretty much lined out the Expeditionary warfare capability that we alone possessed and that leaves air war. How many bombers do we have and how strong are the air defenses around their bases? Do we have to park them all at Diego Garcia for their own safety?

There is literally no excuse at all for undergoing another Pearl Harbor type sneak attack and yet that is all that is but ignored by military and POL/MIL thinkers. I mean sure, after the sad and predictable disaster incident to making a Brief Stop for Fuel in a wildly anti-American muslim stronghold some people gradually came to accept that our warships are under threat everywhere and anywhere in the world. This level of thinking has not even begun to penetrate the heads of the USAF, USMC, US Army or the various Combatant and Regional and sub-Regional commands.

They have stuck to their guns with regards to making sure that only tame and controlled cars and trucks get onto military installations but remain positively stupid about controlling access by unfriendly forces or by people who can step or fly over the perimeter fence. They know what the problem is and they know what the threat is and yet they cannot begin to accept the inevitable and accept that actual security is very manpower intensive and not just manpower but trained manpower intensive.

Our military posts and bases have always been on friendly ground. Unfortunately, we have let in so many invading military age men from 3rd world and muslim countries that they are all now situated quite perilously in enemy ground and just like the poor Air Force at Khobar, the armed forces are going to take absolutely no notice of any situations or security threats on the other side of the fence. In Saudi Arabia that meant the bad guys could blow the guts out of our barracks by simply parking a truck next to them but safely on the other side of the fence.

If you ever want to see misery on a scale that would make you laugh out loud in pure despair, sit down at a Force Protection Meeting with the real security guys, every single one of whom knows that the only real security for any installation is what is covered by guns and listen to every measure go down to sure and certain defeat because security interferes with shopping or some other important thing vital to the nation.

I know we can keep our ships safe, even from internal threats. The Boxer was so damaged and destroyed because it was put into the uncaring, unthinking, and indifferent hands of the people who tear apart warships and gut their internal defenses. Ship's company have always regarded the Yards as an existential threat to the ship. When the Navy turned them over to the MBAs and accountants we lost any chance of maintaining a national industrial base for building and maintaining warships. Which is a pity because we need them.

Yes, I can envision the day when our merchants once again hire protective escorts or tow along an LCS or two for defense from pirates and other dangerous things. Masters and crews would probably have to work out when to shorten the tow in order to bring the LCS in close enough to provide in close defensive fires but I'm sure they'd get the hang of it soon enough. That does leave the bow vulnerable though....

Kind of sounds like problems with the original B-17 bombers....

GOOD AND PROPER

 I see from afar that it is still possible to enjoy a night out at the Tonga Room and finish at the Top of the Mark. If you have the chance and the inclination, go. They are both fond memories of a ludicrous place and still alive and breathing in Baghdad by the Bay.

I am not a city guy by upbringing. The Army, oddly enough, did not set up their camps and posts by the major cities and certainly not while I was around. Oh sure, the Presidio was once home to Sixth Army and has the fine buildings and houses to show for it but we were never stationed in California when I was growing up, were I? No, I was not. Kansas and again Kansas and Oklahoma and Alabama and OK, maybe New Jersey just a long throw from New York City but it was a dump back then.

I arrived long long after the heyday in America's leading cities of the 20th century. Detroit was just about dead and buried when we pulled into the drive at Selfridge Air Force Base and Cleveland was well beyond its prime when I got to metroparkcentralis but it still has some really nice features in very small places.

I see that Huntsville is now the largest city in Alabama. When I lived there that honor belonged to Birmingham and the less said about that place, the better. Good Lord, the opening sentence at google calls it a "vibrant hub" so you know it's unspeakably dismal.

I don't complain. I spent 30 years living on the west coast and while most of that was in San Diego in places ranging from right downtown and up to Mission Hills and then up to Del Mar, Solana Beach and Encinitas, I had a grand time there. I lived in itty bitty Seattle when it still had not more than 7 tallish buildings and Emeryville on the other side of the Bay from Baghdad.  I liked Berkeley, Emeryville, TI and even Oakland had its moments but this was all at the height of the TechRush and computer age.

I have to say that I find the major cities today to be kind of soulless. I know, that's a common complaint but here it comes from knowing a lot of cities and remembering them as stuffed to the gills way into the wee hours of the morning with young partying revelers who were going out and staying out and mingling and having a good time. I don't see any of that in the cities above.

On the other hand, I remember staying at the Marine Memorial Hotel in San Francisco where the windows in the rooms open wide and you can step into oblivion if you're not careful and noticing that at around 0200 downtown San Francisco in 1999 was as dead as a doornail and twice as quiet. There was nothing moving. There was a different feel to the place that was all urban and did not alarm with feeling dangerous all the time after dark.

Well, it was long ago and by the sea so perhaps that explains it. 

 

 

 

THE SECOND COLLAPSE

 I see that the Houthis are going after the Saudis and inflicting some severe economic damage on the kingdom. This is going to pose a problem for both the kingdom and Europe because the one is too weak to fight back and the other is too stupid to arm itself. The Saudis are finally coming up against the central reality of any State, will the people fight for it? I think the answer at this point is, no. They never have and they never will.

President Trump has denied the request of the Saud's to fight for them in lieu of them and there will be no repeat of ODS. One, it is not in our interests to fight their war. Two it is most definitely not in our interest to highlight the fact that it is now impossible to wage war the American way. There is, simply put, nothing more defenseless than a logistic supply dump or an expeditionary air field. We're not keen to show that to the entire world.

I am starting to wonder what the breaking point is for Europe. I think they went beyond it about 5 years ago but with the incredible level of repression and media control nobody was supposed to notice that the people are fed up. I guess it's a good thing the regimes disarmed all of their subjects and hustle them off to jail instantly if they start to notice and organize any resistance.

I would hate to see that happen here. There is no place to go when America is taken over by the slavers who insist that you work for them. 

WHAT'S YOUR TRIBE

 Anyone else notice that just about all the wars and battles raging on the planet today are tribal? There aren't any wars over Nationalism or Religion or even Ideology raging away in the darker corners of the world, what we have is purely ethnic tribalism where people not quite like the other people are trying to exterminate them for being just that little bit different. 

No more communists, nationalists, christians etc seeking domination, nope, it's all just ethnic studies. Oh wait, I can be everything I own that modern ethnic studies courses never covered a single case of tribal warfare and probably still teach that all properly colored people get along just fine with each other and it's just those other colored people that are bad, or they don't have any vowels in their names, or they put BBQ sauce on meatloaf. Real threats to humanity.

Oh yes, I know, some will now say, what about islam and the simple answer is, look more closely. islam is a tool that any fool can use and not some unifying force that makes a united front against a common enemy. The tribes who submitted to islam don't have common enemies, they are their own worst enemies. 

MAROONED IN REAL TIME

 Have you noticed how things have slowed down tremendously over the last few years? The Special Military Operation in Ukraine kicked off in February 2022 and the war in Ukraine is moving at pace that is easily slower than the movement of glaciers. We have been in some sort of shooting war with Iran since February 2026 and the war goes on. Open and shut cases that would be resolved overnight by simply posting every single document on line remain in permanent limbo because for some reason nobody wants to simply dump every single file Epstein had on his island or in his houses (all raided by the FBI who carried away every single thing in July and August 2019) and nothing has been released.......? Really?

I can understand both of those cases intellectually. There is no hurry to resolve a war that cannot be resolved by force and there is no need to flail away at anybody for failing to release files that were purged long ago because the documents and information was so incriminating that whole swaths of what calls itself polite society would be tarred by stupid and pathetic brush.

A rethuglican majority in both the House and Senate was pissed away, again and they accomplished absolutely nothing in 2 years.  DEI was struck down and vanquished and the hereditary discrimination against white men was declared illegal and yet nothing has changed in the bastions of the Left. I did not expect them to change. The institutions have been destroyed. I don't think there there is any way to recover them and put them back to their intended purpose. 

Attempts to recreate them elsewhere will fail because they will inevitably turn to the very people that destroyed the old colleges and universities to staff and pontificate at any new institutions. Self Licking Ice Cream Cone discovers sherbet. The result is utterly predictable. The question that begs to be asked then is, what purpose do they serve if find that we can do without?

I do wonder how the space program became the barren wasteland it so obviously is. Was it all just DEI and hiring incompetent buffoons that gutted the Agency that brought us Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo? How is it that nobody in the old rocket and space industry has been able to even begin to replicate what engineers with slide rules did 60 years ago? Is this the expert engineering instruction and management training shat all over our engineers and management trainees at our universities? It isn't a good look.

In my alt pages I talk about the danger of the indispensable man. He's a good man to have but it is a deadly trap to be forced to turn to the same guy over and over to solve your problems. Is the one guy we have enough? I see that his talent is spinning off a number of new and talented companies to solve other problems but I was more comfortable with the car analogy from the beginning of internal combustion era when a thousand different men formed a thousand different car companies to try and build the very best car they could and sell it in significant numbers to people tired of horseshit and grooms.

What happened to all of those guys? Where are they? 

THE BANALITY OF EVIL SITS DOWN

 Together forever as truly evil people who changed the world for the worse. But there are plenty of others just like these two.

 

Everything these two did alone and together made the world and their countries much worse than if they had never lived. It's not so funny in hindsight that the Germans elected another socialist as bad as the first one but that Americans elected a black man twice and every democrat in the country and outside it thinks that America is a deeply racist country.

Everything they did was a mere continuation of the deception and dismemberment operations launched and nourished by the Soviet Union and the KGB. The Green Party, the no-nukes nutjobs, the global warming scam, all of it.

In other words, they were part of the machine that the KGB put together to ruin the West. 

ZEITGEIST

 Did Beth Dutton capture the zeitgeist of modern American women?

Was the holdout juror in the Clancy child murder spree a father?  Were the other two juror men that think it’s OK to kill a father’s little children after luring him away from them, fathers?

Do you think there are comprehensive designs and blue prints now for 250,000 ton submarine tankers and container ships that only surface to enter ports?

If the sea lanes revert to piracy as the standard and there are no maritime countries interested in suppressing them, will the US suffer or only the Europeans and Asian countries? It’s looking like a defining moment for freedom of navigation (which was never free) and the end of innocence.

Is there anything at all that will get people to actually start thinking and thinking for themselves without putting a rifle in their hands and sending them off to fight and die in another people’s war?

Is it time to return to the actual founding principles of this country? Thats going to leave a mark.

There are still fools who think there are smoking guns left in something they call the Epstein files. 

THEIR SIOP

 The Single Integrated Operational Plan was called the SIOP and it was really nothing more than our plan to put warheads on foreheads in a highly formalized atomic fashion. It was the final pulling together of the Joint Forces to wage thermonuclear war against the USSR and China and maybe one or two other places. Ours has not gone away, it has been updated and renamed but it is still very much the planning document to ensure that our warheads find their ways to the proper targets in the event of a war.

I see that some people who ought to know better are still nattering about the state of our munitions and our general unreadiness to wage war against China. Yes, yes, I know, dead horse, thoroughly beaten already but I did want to point out that the country that can turn out 80,000,000 iphones in a couple of months probably has no trouble turning out 40,000,000 high end killer drones with 300 mile ranges and 250 pound warheads.

The goal of the SIOP was to bathe in fire targets that needed to be destroyed affirmatively. If one could achieve the same effect by applying precise 250 pound bombs directly to the actual target and not just the neighborhood or city, then the same effect is achieved without all the excess radiation.

This poses a logical mans thinking problem for the evening. Every single HQ and logistics warehouse and fuel dump in Asia and the Western Pacific is in a precise, down to the inch known location on a target map. The putative bad guys have 40,000,000 drones. The other bad apples north of the 38th are known to be making lots of drones of their own and furnishing to their very good friends in Moscow.

So, if you're the US Forces Korea Commander, the 8th Army Commander, the 2nd Infantry Division Commander and their staffs, where do you sleep at night? Kind of makes me wonder if anybody at all actually stays in the Blue House or any buildings at Osan, Pyeongtaek or Taegu.

I have developed a whole new appreciation for the CINCROKFLT Bunker. It is built into a mountain.

You know another place where the heads lie uneasy at night? Yeah, Taiwan is in easy flight range of 40,000,000 expendable killer drones.

It does make me wonder though. Just what the hell is our answer to those 40,000,000 drones? It is way passed time for our government to have passed this engineering problem to Elon Musk and his teams for resolution. All of the old pieties are in flux right now but the brutal truth always remains that nothing at all has ever come out of a government research lab without 40 years there of "development." 

It makes you wonder though, our rules are plain. We treat all weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, etc) as nuclear weapons and will retaliate if they are used against us. What possible form will retaliation take if drones alone are enough to execute a complete decapitation strike at just about every level of government overnight? 

Interesting times. 

BRING THE NAPALM

 In one tiny state in Germany the party of the people finally got on the ballot and were promptly the overwhelming winners of the election that somehow, the EU did not forbid, wipe away or ignore. Yet. The AfD has a State of its own inside the darkest reaches of the last Reich. As usual there was a flood tide of mail in decrees that robbed the winner of outright majority but that is the very nature now of absentee, remote and electronic voting schemes. Any and all are legit just as long as they crush populism.

In another story yesterday our tame morons at NPR were discussing the happiness that some remote citizens of Israel will experience by paying big bucks to fly back to Israel to vote against Netanyahu. They are the epitome of liberal awful democrats and they mean to make sure that one of their own is elected to run things properly in their absence.

I was initially struck by how this is the flip side of the epitome because absentee voters who vote into power fools and weaklings to run a state locked into an endless existential war and then return home to the United States are not doing anyone in Israel any favors and simply voting against a man because you hate him with such passion you will fly 5000 miles to vote him out is not a good sign of sanity. Then it occurs to me that perhaps the State could do better. 

I'm not really a believer in conspiracy theories but I don't really believe the story about how Mossad and everyone else with an active interest in not being killed by Hamas failed to notice the Hamas airborne commando practicing or the enormous activity involved in putting over a thousand armed terrorists into place against the completely absent defenses of the Wall that was built to keep terrorists out primarily by exerting unrelenting 24 hours/day surveillance  backed up by firepower that could take down any assault. There is, in fact, no part of the story about how the IDF and security was caught napping that makes any sense about that horrible day.

That means, somebody on the 'civilized' side of the wall let it happen deliberately. It usually takes a change of government to investigate and expose a crime that monstrous and oddly enough, the Beast and his allies in this country have actually made the country pretty safe, at least long enough for investigators to get to the bottom of the real background to the events of 7 October. 

On the gripping hand, those idiots have been investigating Netanyahu for 10 years now and any investigation that takes more than 90 days is suspect and unbelievable. There is either a crime right there or people are busy making one.

I'm kind of looking forward to the French elections and then the twisting in the wind as the race begins for Dexit or Frexit. Will Deutschland  or France be next out the door leaving the husk of the 4th Reich to fall across the land in a towering heap of debt and criminal investigations? Will America be forced to offer asylum to the aristocracy that did their very best to bring back the Reich? 

I'm looking forward to the confusion as all those peers of the Reich get off their refugee flights in St Helena and declare, "this doesn't look anything like Napa!"

AN UNUSUAL ROUND

 It was one of those rare days in southern California that can be described as rainy. I had arranged to meet with an old shipmate at Camp Pendleton that day to play a round of golf. I drove up from San Diego and he drove down from Long Beach and we met somewhere near the middle in Camp Pendleton. It took a little while for me to find the golf course since I hadn't been there before and, now that I think about it, never went again. It was fairly easy to locate despite being mostly hidden in some of the many folds of the earth that make up Pendleton.

When I got to the clubhouse I couldn't help but notice that there were a dozen high end cars and limousines sporting 4 star placards and stickers in their windshilds and a number of young men standing around in the shade. Those were about the only vehicles in the lot. Salty veterans like myself and my friend, another young LT, had no worries about running into Commandants, Assistant Commandants and other 4 star Marines on their golf course. We'd seen worse.

The course was interesting because I think it was laid out in the dry season when the entire length of it resembled one of the most common things you'll ever find in San Diego County, a wadi of infinite length and depth. The wadi ran through a deep cleft in the land such that at the bottom you were standing perhaps 50 or 60 feet below the level of the club and parking lot and you played off tees located at the tops of either side to greens located on the other side or down in the depths.

Did I mention that it had rained and rained periodically on us? Have you ever tried to climb really steep grass covered slopes in the rain in a place like SOCAL where, while the land lies parched and thirsts for the rain, it only reluctantly absorbs it and is better suited to having it run off somewhere, anywhere, else?

Yeah we slipped, slithered, fell and waded for all we were worth and for the first and only time the 6 packs we carried with us for aqua safety were not the cause. As I recall we both got around in something like 120. We were never good golfers but this was ridiculous.

What I remember best though was that we essentially had the course to ourselves. The junior Marines were probably warned off or scared off by the herd of 4 star generals who were having themselves a private conference of some sort at the club house after ODS and so we managed the most undignified scramble of our lives without anybody we could hear or see making rude comments. I'm sure the generals up on the patio of the club found us deeply amusing. 

It was not quite as good as the time we played the Presidio in San Francisco when our ship pulled in for fuel and lube oil and we bounced a drive off the golf cart of the twit arrogantly crossing the fairway in front of us. Turned out that guy was a general. They're everywhere.

SCALES

 With the developments judicial here and abroad I think it is safe to say that the scales are rapidly falling from the eyes of observers. It is becoming brutally apparent that absolutely nothing can be done to overcome the downward spiral of diminishing respect and support for even the idea of our blind lady of justice. The judges have made it just about impossible for any real thinking man to consider the courts anything except an outright enemy.

The Courts used to follow the law. The Courts and judges used to respect the authority of superior courts, the Supreme Court and the actual laws. It really looks like all that has gone by the wayside now. I kind of wonder if President Trump will use the 2 years remaining to him after the midterms to take the nation by the scruff of the neck and force them really look at the mess our Courts are. I think he might.

I think he has enough people now in positions to honor their oaths that he might well decide that the best time for a top-down revolution is upon us. The democrats have been talking about doing it for years and years and never seem to get around to it but it might be time to shake things up and I cannot think of a more amusing way to do that then to leave it to Donald Trump.

He may decide that he will order his subordinates (the entire entity known collectively as the Executive Branch) to simply ignore any and all rulings by any court other than the Supreme Court and only then after the case has been fully heard and even then to only follow the most narrow interpretation of the rulings, you know, much the way the Courts have been acting for the last 70 years. Do to the Court what they have done to us. Nobody need pay any attention whatsoever to a court that the Government is not going to heed anymore because the lower courts have lost all legitimacy. Nobody wants to be like those 3rd world nightmares or Latin American banana republics.

On the other side of the Atlantic I think it might slowly be occurring to the more discerning class of political leader that there is now almost nobody left who is willing to fight and die for their shabby little countries. Like Canada, they cannot find stalwarts willing to fight to continue to give free housing, phones, an allowance, transportation, religious exemptions, etc to muslims and other enemies now running their countries. The men simply are not there and a draft only works when there exists a mechanism to enforce it. In other words, it takes an army to draft an army and none of them have anything like an army anymore.

This might be the other thing that President Trump does in the tail end of his Presidency. He might well pull us out of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The USA did not sign up to be the first resort whenever Europe's idiot politicians declare war or wage undeclared war on Russia. That was never the intent of the NATO. It was also never the intent that NATO would take back eastern Europe and push right up to the Russian border. 

The whole idea of Buffer States and Neutral States to calm things down and keep accidents from happening have all gone to hell in Europe and yet the number of men and war materials standing by to back up the fighting words all come from America. We did not sign up for that. It is time that Europe be made to understand it. 

You just know it's going to occur to all of them that the easiest thing to do now is to conscript the millions of newcomers and tell them they have to do "national service" in the military. And no, not one of them will see what that inevitably leads to.

AND THE FLOWER

 I always enjoy running across the juxtaposition of modern art and nature's own.

Bashfully peeping out from under the "art"

 

NOW

 I listened and took part in a conversation the other day that talked about some of the issues that appear to be grave harbingers for the end of what we grew up with in the West and I was struck by how the three of us put our fingers on the problem and even talked around it some but that the upshot was none of us spoke of any possible solution despite knowing what the problem is. This is the whole, 'now that you know what the problem is you can start to fix it' idea that used to run the deep thought channel of Western Civilization for almost 2000 years.

Is the problem so unspeakable that nobody can talk about it? No. The problem is elegantly simple. The West is running out of its own children and has been busily importing other people for the last 70 years. Germany started the ball rolling by importing Turkish guest workers but the USA played that game for generations and no, not talking about slaves or illegal migrants. I'm talking about an unsettled wilderness and endless opportunities and an endless demand for children. Look at Anne of Green Gables for a hint of what that era was like. I prefer the beautiful and sublime to endless tales of torment and despair. 

So the nature of the problem is that human reproduction of the kind we want and need has broken down across the board everywhere in the West. There are probably ten million different proposals to solve the eventual problem of running out of good people and to my knowledge, Rome was the first to start codifying it and trying to get behavior to change to embrace having children again. Historical update: it didn't work the first, second, third or even the fortieth time they tried to mandate, legislate or compel it.

So there is the death of the old catechism, "now that you know what the problem is you can fix it." If the Romans couldn't get it done then it likely cannot be done by persuasion, compulsion or overwhelming force. What other options are there? Ask ten different people and you'll get 10 different answers.

Me? I'm not all that convinced that there is a problem in there that is worth worrying about. Tennyson nailed it, "The old order changeth, yielding place to new." It is history. It is unfortunate to be in a position to watch the decline rather than to be present at the creation but it is a tide that cannot be reversed except in its own good time. And who is to say that what Elon Musk and his teams are doing is not creating exactly the kind of world that the old West used to look forward to? On the gripping hand, I never saw Mars as potentially the largest gated community in the solar system.

I'm kind of surprised that the Baby Boomers didn't pick up on it but then, they had enough children to look after themselves. It is the ones that come after that are in trouble. If I was interested in curses and would ever dream of using one it might be to invite someone from the now to live to get old and then go to that sheltered space to live out their remaining years in idle peace and comfort. That was the old dream and now it looks like a nightmare because those people find themselves in the uncaring, unfeeling and plain vicious hands of the people that are reproducing and who cannot find jobs in a technocratic society and so work at the bottom and middle ranks of the 'health-industry." I would not wish such a fate on my worst enemy. On rereading that I'm a little concerned that the words 'health industry' has mutated meaning much the way, 'reproductive care' has. In either case I'm delighted to find myself safely away from them.

You know what's even worse perhaps? Science Fiction in all its creepiness did do dystopian futures and how many of them featured euthanasia for the old, elderly, non-working elements of society? You know, for the good of society. I'm pretty sure there will be a kind of traveler's insurance for those visiting Canada to return them back alive over the border if anything at all happens to them north of the 49th parallel that requires medical treatment or hospitalization. Your chances dim significantly up there if you sprain a wrist or need anything beyond aspirin.

I was one of 4. Between us we had 9 children. Those children range in age from 25 - 41. They have zero children which is a great disappointment to their grandmothers and mothers. On the penultimate hand, I did not get married until I was 42 and only then started to have children. I'd argue that it is not too late, merely unlikely. I'm sure if they work hard at it they can find a way to have kids in good time.

Perhaps Elon is working on this demographic collapse. I note that one of the architects of the current difficulty in this regard died today at age 92. She was one of the prime movers in starving the value out of having children to the point where nearly everyone has agreed that the best thing to do is to not have them. That's one Hell of a legacy to leave behind. 

FAIR IS FAIR

 To be fair, it is dishonest of Fox News to refer to Hassan Piker as "far left." The simple truth is that he lies pretty much in the accepted middle of the left in America. To be honest though, I'm not even sure if antifa is considered far left anymore. I think for that moniker to stick they probably have to employ high explosives routinely in their reasoned disagreements and debates with people they hate, loath, despise and would like to exterminate. They might view the Red Brigades or the Cultural Revolution's Red Guards as Far Left.

The amusing thing is that we are sliding inevitably to the right in the usual simple reaction of the young to the overbearing idiocy of their parent's generation. Admittedly, the left don't have a lot of kids of their own but the schools created by our generation produced a torrent of blinkered stupid philistines who hate the West. The kids today though can look out of their burkas and basements and see very clearly that they want no part of the rest of the world. They may decide to take a round turn on America and fix it.

I believe I've mentioned elsewhere that the truly dangerous people are the ones who set out to "fix things." 

THEY'RE HERE!

 I captured this screen shot at smoothieX12  youtube. It is the sign I've been waiting for. The pirate submarines of yore will be making their return and won't that be exciting?

Honestly, actions have consequences. 

The best bit is that none of the countries involved in pirating Russian shipping and Russian oil have the technical and military means to secure their own shipping. The idiots that thought they could pirate Russian shipping were acting all along as if they were doing nothing more than they did when we used to seize shipping containing Iraqi oil during the long sanctions enforcement operations after Desert Storm. Iraq had zero capability to retaliate and did not. Who in the Pentagon and State Department thought that Vladimir Putin and Russia would simply ignore these avalanches of contempt?

It also looks like President Putin has decided to take out Ukraine in the only way left. The reduction and destruction of all of Ukraine's industrial, military, transportation and civilian infrastructure has begun. Ukraine looks like a big country but nodes connecting a place that large are critical, indefensible and very limited in number. The world is going to get another look at what Russian implacability looks like.

I wonder, how many of the weapons they are going to use in this destruction are built in the factories that Russians jacked up in Germany and then transported to Russia as partial reparations for World War II in accordance with the Potsdam agreements for the destruction of industrial Germany after the war. 

 

THOUGHT PROVOKING

 I saw this out in the the wild places and it made me wonder:

 One of the things made clear over the last 600 years is that the competence that was once a guiding principle in the Islamic world is gone. It was, up until the Discovery of the New World, a serious and lethal threat to the Western World and if it had rolled over the West after the conquest of Eastern Roman Empire the world would look nothing like it does today. Fortunately for us, they ran hard into the Mongols and the very best and brightest were spitted and gutted by Mongols long before they could conquer Europe.

The world has survived 100 years of imbecilic misbehavior by collapsing Empires that once ruled the planet. Within a single generation, the British, German and Holy Roman Empire were swept away and with them went the Japanese and Russian Empires. Just like that, in the blink of an eye, they were gone.

The USSR is gone and with it the last power on earth that could have done something to check the American Empire and then it because clear all over the world that Americans really and truly do not want an empire and would much prefer for the world to buck up and start looking after themselves like competent adults.

If you think back to the idiocy of the Napoleonic Wars and you ever wonder, what the Hell was that all about or you wonder why Spain ruled so much of Europe for so long or you wonder why nobody in Europe ever tried to exterminate the pirates in North Africa the answers are a long time coming. In fact, the ruling class would probably prefer that you not even think about it. 

What underlies the creation, maintenance and maladministration of so much of the planet's surface? Why isn't it all like Japan or what Scandinavia used to be like? Why is it such a turbulent mass of stupidity, violence and venality? I think, at its heart, the problem is here in America where the desire of almost everyone to be left alone manifests itself in schizoid crazy domestic politics and irrational international diplomacy and the only way to get a handle on the venality and stupidity is by sweeping them all out and establishing some sort of order. You see the problem, we would like the order, we don't want to do it and nobody else sees the problem or wants to do anything about it either. It is intractable.

We all now have a very good idea of what imposed order looks like and we don't ever want to see it again. You know who has no idea what I'm talking about? Democrats, Democratic Socialists, Communists, Socialists. Idiots. They are all convinced that if they take charge they can make the world do exactly what is needed to make this place a paradise. To paraphrase JFK, they are willing to have you bear any burden and pay any price for the reformist visions to make the world nicer.

Islam doesn't think like that. The real believers don't ever work anywhere to improve this world. Their actions and their behavior are rewarded in the next world and only islam matters.  Somebody has to carefully ease them over this awful hump of evil. [You see the problem? The problem is looking back at you. This is once again forcing people to sacrifice and take actions and nobody now is willing. They must be goaded into action!] 

Once upon a time that goading used to be the work and purpose of very clever men that actually ruled and ran the West. Those guys are all long gone. Now we have gadflies and gnats of no account. The West cannot build anything with the weak trash graduating from the Ivy League. It's not their lack of character so much as the fact that they are all dyed in the wool communists and socialists and completely out of touch with the world the rest of us know. They stay within their cocoons and don't know anything else.

You know what they call reformers in islamic countries? 

Dead. 

ON THAT NOTE 47

 Some question the utility of the huge data centers we have yet to build but not me. I think I see a perfectly good and acceptable reason to build them and it is simple. We need them to store all the zillions of files that various bureaucrats and elected officials insist they have the right to hide from us. They do this by ignoring Freedom of Information Act requests, losing such requests, partially filling such requests after up to a decade of going back and forth on the merits and finally by redacting every single damned word in some 'files' they do turn over in response to public demand.

Now I don't see why any information that our bureaucrats have their hands on is somehow restricted. My brief on this is pretty straight forward. Classified materials related to national security are just that, classified. They get downgraded and released on a schedule we can all live with. Proprietary information is just that and nobody has a right to it unless it formed the basis for some expenditure of public funds. If my money was spent on it, I get to see it. All of it.

Other than that, there is no reason on earth for citizens to permit the bureaucratic state to hid the evidence of crimes, malfeasance, incompetence and crony dealing. None at all.

Therefore, the only way to move ahead on this is to simply mandate that every scrap of public records be placed on the servers at the data centers and allow anyone and everyone to call up whatever documents or information he wants. Note: this includes copyright materials. The point of copyright is not to hide things forever, it is to see that they are not exploited for profit by anyone except the legal owner.  And guess what? If people are bent and torqued over it, it is simple enough to have Congress exempt all materials in data centers from copyright and to mandate that all copyright materials covered by the law must still go into the data center.

We're going to need some good quantum decryption because there is no doubt at all that the people ordered to comply simply won't do it without resistance. You know who is going to hold themselves exempt anyway though, don't you? Yes, Congress will exempt itself and such bureaucracies as it likes and the Courts will exempt themselves.

Which is why we'll need offshore/off planet data centers to maintain those files online for retrieval as needed because there will be paid officers of the land who have the sole job of penetrating every electronic and physical storage file and copying and retrieving them for storage in the data centers.

What's going to make this so much more difficult though is that in about 3 months AI is going to be capable of generating infinite numbers of documents on every topic and flood the data centers with garbage.

Take the long view people, get the physical media and hold on to it. Pretty soon all the electronic media will be corrupted, disabled or disappeared. I really liked this schematic of the perfect home at A Large Regular. What this means though is that at some point we will have to alphabetize or file our stuff the way the military does or the libraries do and we used to make jokes about people who alphabetized their book or album collections. 

THE TRIUMPH OF TIME

 I borrowed my sister and her car today to teach my son how to drive a manual transmission car. He's thinking of buying one and had never learned to drive them. My sister insisted on coming along because she had taught her own 3 sons over the years to drive manual transmission and thought it would be fun to watch me enlightened as to how that goes. Her 3 were incredibly resistant to mastering the technique. As she said, if there was a car or a pole in the parking lot, the first one would hit it, the second one always found some way to drive out of the lot and onto the grass and the 3rd was always a surprise.

It went the way I thought it would. He's been driving for 7 years. Show the gears, go through them all with the clutch in, "OK, drive." The hill was iffy for a few minutes but I heard words I never expected to hear in this lifetime after a year as auxiliaries officer on the Middle East Force Flagship. "I was worried about over-revving the engine and that's why I kept stalling." Hah!

I remember well the day in Diego Garcia when we all got into the Captain's gig to head back to the ship riding at anchor in the lagoon and listening as the idiot coxswain wound the engine up to 5000 rpm in neutral and then slammed it into reverse gear so we'd have a dramatic moment getting underway from fleet landing. 

It was memorable. The boat slowly drifted over to the beach and grounded and the XO and I exchanged looks with the Chief Engineer and I shrugged my shoulders as the First Lieutenant was explaining it was all my fault and the fault of the engine men who maintained the engines. The V drive coupler had been torn apart and the drive shaft severely damaged. It was a sort of everyday occurrence on that ship back then under that First Lieutenant and Bosun. Nothing would get the bosun's mates to stop destroying any machinery they touched.

The new First Lieutenant joined us in the Seychelles just before we headed up to conduct MCM operations in the Red Sea. All the idiot shenanigans stopped the next day. The destructive mindset was one that was expected out of the old Bosun and the previous First Lieutenant and was gone within 24 hours.

Still, it caused a smile to appear on my face to hear my son express his concern about over-revving the engine before putting it into gear.  Whole worlds can be conquered simply by understanding that not everything has to be wound up to destruction.

OK, admittedly, Cortez took another approach, but still... 

CYBER DOGS OF WAR

 Some people worry at night about the AI getting a hold of those killer robot dogs and then going to town and killing everybody. Not me. I reckon for AI to really take off somebody has to make an actual profit on it and as far as the eye can see there is no sign of any actual programming outfit making a profit on the damned thing anywhere. In fact, it all looks like an enormous scam from here.

On the other hand, if you want a sleepless night, there is also no sign anywhere that any country ever benefited from adopting socialism or communism and yet there are always an infinite number of colossally stupid morons eager to kill people like me in the name of both. 

On the gripping hand, there is just about no sign anywhere that liberal socialists will be able to survive more than 2 weeks without electrical power so there's always a way to get rid of them and AI too.

I'd leave the power off for a couple of months, just to be sure. 

However, back to the cyber dogs, it occurs to me that Amazon didn't have a profitable quarter until almost six and a half years after it started operations. It might be time to invest in a really good fence.

COURTESY RIDERS

I see from the good folks at the New York Post that New York City is having a spot of trouble with maniacs on e-bikes running down pedestrians. It won't surprise you to learn that the government's idea of a solution to this little problem involves taxing the bikers more and forcing them to get a license and also shoving government snouts into retailer's business to force compliance with the laws of some little hamlet on the Eloi bank of the East River. 

I have some different proposals. My first is a real humdinger.

New York City should mandate that every pedestrian in New York City must carry an Iklwa. It is a multi-cultural politeness tool and it works in many situations especially in those up close and personal confrontations that so spice up life in Gotham. This one little bow to the petite gods of multiculturalism will go a long way towards making confrontations between e-bikers and pedestrians a much more two sided free-wheeling bloody brawl that entertains and amuses at gatherings where people discuss the highlights of their day in the big city. It will work way better than taxes and licenses.

I know some guys that can make a couple of thousand per day out of leaf springs and other scrap. I'm a problem solver, so let me know.

An Iklwa. And no, they don't grow on trees.

 It's way easier and more useful than a sword and easier to essay a kill enforce politeness than a battleaxe.

NO TIME FOR THE PAYBACK

 Now that USS Lincoln is heading home it is time to wonder, did all the caterwauling by the media and persons of no knowledge back home poison the reason why young sailors go to sea in the Navy or are they going to get to enjoy the good part? What you may ask, is the good part? I will tell you.

It's all about the getting there the return home again. In wartime you steam hell for leather to get on station. In both peacetime and wartime you would mosey home. The mosey in this case would/could include port calls of some duration in places like Thailand, the Philippines, Australia and who knows, maybe even a stop in Hawaii to pick up some family members for a tiger cruise back to home port. All of that gets left in the wake when the admirals and Congress screw up and leave more commitments on the table than there are ships to meet.

With obligations to get home as soon as possible in order to undertake necessary repairs and maintenance there is often nothing faster for a nuclear ship than to spin on a dime from Gonzo Station and head straight home at 24 knots without stopping. There is no delightful run ashore and liberty in a foreign port where you get to meet and interact with nice people on their own ground. Nope. 

You just go straight home, to the Yards and then to another deployment without any time outbound to hit the nice liberty ports because, there's a ship that's been on station too long and those guys need to go back to the Yards and get repaired quickly so they can turn around and surge out to sea for another 8 month deployment.

This is the killer doom loop of long deployments with ZERO rewards and ZERO consideration for the men and women paying in the only coin that matters for their time in the Navy. Liberty ports softened the blow and made it more endurable. Guess what happens when you take away the one part that makes it all endurable? 

THE TRUTH IS NIGH

We've been reading about how President Trump has done nothing but destroy our alliances with the other countries that once stood against evil but now embrace it and I can honestly say I've gotten really tired of the people that don't understand that America has no real friends at all and the only people who play with us on our team are the ones who are out for something they think they can only get from US. They're right but also very shallow. That's the way it is and the world needs all kinds. But the Truth has just shaken out its colors and declared jihad against the forces of evil and darkness and called upon those who claim to be our allies to actually stand up and be counted. I don't doubt where we will find them come morning.

No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a Deal than me. TRAGICALLY, for them, they have failed to take it. Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale. Their navy is gone, their air force is destroyed, their military factories are now rubble, their currency is worthless, and their country is hanging by a thread. Today, I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences. Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies — It all needs to stop NOW. You know who you are. This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat. These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide. IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER. President DONALD J. TRUMP

 Iran has allies because there are a score of countries that will use any tool and any weapon to leave a mark on America and they really have no compunction about crawling into bed with the mullahs, shariah and the jihadis. They can't abide any of them but they only really care about doing an injury to America and a few about doing a personal injury to Trump. Oh yeah, the media everywhere is all in on Iran's side. Any and all enemies of President Trump are their biggest allies and bosom buddies.

But now is when the rest of the world gets to see what the West is made of. I won't be surprised because I don't actually expect any ruler in Europe to stand with Trump on this and I expect every ruler and figurehead there to denounce him and his sanctions. I am expecting a little better from South and Central America and even from a tiny handful of countries in Asia.

I don't think any of them are taking the Long View and seeing what endless Jihad means to the West in a time when there are literally no warrior kings to stand for the West and only an endless torrent of petty rulers, silly women and oceans of foul jurists who will strangle any and all efforts to enter the lists on America's side. That's Okay. Huntingdon called it when he wrote and published, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order and Mark Steyn nailed it when he wrote and published,  America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It.

Those familiar with history will probably agree that this has happened as recently as 1492. The Black Death just about ended feudalism in the most important ways you can imagine and it was followed by the doubling of the size of the whole world. Some might say that was the Industrial Revolution but I'm willing to talk about it over coffee. Last time it didn't pan out well for the Stone Age. This time around it may not work out for the children of the Industrial Revolution.

 The picture is from the Cabrillo Monument at the very end of Point Loma in San Diego. It captures the essence of a world gone now for just over a century. I'm afraid that God did not survive in Europe after 1919.

It says, "They died in the service of God and his Majesty and to give light to those who sat in darkness and also to acquire the wealth which most men covet." The words are inscribed over a map of the whole new world that Columbus and his men discovered and reported back to Spain.

THE VIGILANCE

I saw one of these for the first time the other day and it struck me as amusing. As I look back now I recall that I saw it just a long block away from a herd of 6 flock cameras that spy on literally everything that passes within their view and keeps a video and sensor record of every move you make.

 The time to be concerned about your rights fading away as government just takes them away for your safety, is long before that actually happens. You have to notice when the government starts treating every single citizen as a criminal and you have to do something about it or you are no longer living in a free and democratic republic.