Weekend Data Dump

Because they really look forward to the delicious omelet?

Yeah, I have no interest in having a debate on "cultural appropriation." It is an intensely stupid concept and I reject it. That's really the limit of my interest in debate. I reject the notion that because someone else is intensely interested in the concept that I have to care even one tiny bit.

An interesting article on the Higgins landing craft.

Faculty communists like to think that they'd be much better at getting "true" communism, but I have no doubt given their campus antics to suppress dissent that if given that power they'd be eager and prolific killers just like Stalin was.

Is productivity better than we think it is based on what is happening with energy production? Tip to Instapundit.

Why I am immune to accusations that I lack compassion when I want our spending to be cut back. Tip to Instapundit.

Democrats are trying to reverse a lawful election result. Are they sure they want to set this precedent?

Doesn't Moscow's decision slashing Russian exports through Latvian ports harm Russia, too?

American special forces struck al Qaeda in Yemen. No senior jihadi leaders were killed or captured. I assume that computers and documents were the target because killing 7 jihadis is hardly worth the effort to risk going in on the ground when air strikes would work just as well.

Iran's Rouhani is no reformer. As I've said many times, a "moderate" in Iran's ruling class is just a nutball who can restrain himself from screaming "Death to America!" in English while a camera from a Western television station is pointed at him.

Some on the Left don't think President Trump calling jihadis "evil losers" is dignified?  Yeah, I'm not taking advice from Democrats on this matter.

I still want to know why American combat forces in Europe didn't at least start to move toward Benghazi on September 11, 2012. If you've read this blog you know that was my primary concern. None of the Hillary-related Benghazi stuff was criminal in my mind. Blaming the attack on a video was ridiculous and shameful, but the response to that lie was in the political realm and American voters did not punish Democrats for that. But why didn't American forces move? We didn't know how long the crisis would last, so saying we couldn't have saved the "consulate" relies on knowing what happened. Indeed, as I've noted, Hillary's State Department security reacted well--marching to the sound of the guns--to at least reach the CIA annex in time to prevent a slaughter or hostage situation. If those guys could do it, why couldn't our actual military just north of Libya in Europe at least try?

You'd think liberals and especially atheists would be in the front ranks of the fight against hard core Islamist interpretation of Islam when you consider that the Islamists give everyone the choice of being with them or being against them--simply not believing in God is not acceptable. I've long felt that about women feminists, too. Why aren't they the most hard-core of anti-jihadis? But no, they are just the women's auxiliary of liberalism that won't say anything about those jihadi actual misogynist thugs. No, better to claim that a decrease in the rate of increase of some federal line item will literally kill thousands of people.

Katy Perry is a pretty young woman with a lovely voice, but her solution of "coexistence" to the problem of Islamist terrorism would be more compelling if there were more COEXIST bumper stickers on cars in Riyadh and Islamabad. We need to be angry and not weepy. We need to stand together to defend the West from these barbarians. We need more dead jihadis and fewer dead girls. Go ahead, make your effing hand heart symbol. I dare you to start a #BringBackOurGirls worthless hashtag campaign like it would do any good other than to make you feel special. These jihadis hate us. But what do you expect from such losers? Of course they hate the West. But I will ask again, why do we hate us?

This bombing of civilians in Somalia generated no sad-faced hashtag campaigns on Twitter. If jihadis only killed other Moslems at home like this, we wouldn't be at war trying to kill the jihadis. But the jihadis kill us. And they try to kill Moslems in Moslem-majority countries in order to build sanctuaries to attack us more effectively. And the technology of killing on a mass scale is getting easier to acquire. That is why we have to care about them. And kill them, of course.

"Thrill going up my leg" Chris Matthews has the nerve to say this about Trump? Ah, professional journalism in action. Tip to Instapundit.

Democrats are too stupid to govern America. Republicans are apparently too stupid to win.

When you start to take Vienna, take Vienna. Will Republicans go wobbly and get the worse of both worlds by promising to repeal Obamacare, starting to repeal Obamacare, but ultimately failing to repeal Obamacare? Democrats claim every minor cut (or reduction in the rate of growth) in spending will lead to a wave of deaths. So don't try to satisfy them. But are Republicans really eager to alienate the voters that have trusted them to finally carry out their promises?  Why anybody wants the federal government--whether Republican or Democratic--to have a large role in our lives is beyond me. Tip to Instapundit.

I think California should go ahead with their single-payer health plan. Truly, they deserve to get it--good and hard. Come on California, other failures were because they didn't have the brain power and heart to make it work! Go for it!

Oh great: "Iran has built a third underground ballistic missile production factory and will keep developing its missile program[.]"

Richard Collins III, newly commissioned as an Army officer, was murdered by some Nazi scum because Collins was African American. I'd sleep easily if I had the job of pulling the trigger or flipping the switch to kill that piece of garbage killer. I assume Maryland has no death penalty. For justice, I'd like to see if this can be charged as a federal death-penalty crime. Why put the racist killer in jail where he could, at public expense, convert other prisoners over a lifetime to his views? And insert "alleged" and "allegedly" in appropriate places, of course.

The Manchester bomber's sister says that the terrorist wanted revenge for America bombing Syria. Ponder that. He was mad at America which is very careful in bombing. Not mad at Assad whose body count is astronomical. Not mad at Russia who wouldn't waste precision weapons to avoid civilian casualties. And not at ISIL itself that bombs civilians eagerly from the ground. And after determining that he is mad at America, he slaughtered British little girls. Why do they hate us, indeed.

So, I'm supposed to be appalled that the CBO says that after eliminating the requirement to buy health insurance that is so unpopular it requires an IRS punishment to compel its purchase, a lot of people will no longer have health insurance because they will choose not to buy it. What a shock.

Men can't criticize safe spaces, and mocking safe spaces makes fun of rape victims? Jerk. Safe spaces are stupid and contrary to free speech; and I'd rather put rapists in small (prison) rooms to protect the rest of us than put rape victims in small (safe) rooms to protect victims. And I'm the one with the awful views? Tip to the Instapundit Borg.

We are losing Thailand as the autocrats plot to put off elections forever and turn to China for advice on how to defend an autocracy. That does not bode well for friendship with America.

Roughing up a rude journalist (he is from The Guardian, so I'm assuming) did not dissuade Montana voters from sending the Republican candidate to Congress. I am of course against physically attacking journalists. But should the people of Montana suffer for two years with a Bernie Sanders wannabe alternative because of a moment's lapse of judgment by the winner? And of course the Left turned it to 11 by blaming this attack on a "climate" created by Trump. The violence climate seems to be doing just fine with encouragement by the anarchist and communist shock troops of the Left, it seems to me. And who was president of the climate when this happened? Settle down. Let the criminal justice process take its course.

From the Department of Bad Timing. May 23rd: Minneapolis mayor speaks from mosque saying Trump unfairly targets Moslem community in her city for "attack," claiming unity in the city. May 24th: Minneapolis brothers with an unfortunately inconvenient religion are arrested with arsenal of weapons and bomb-making material in their car. Perhaps they were unable to get tickets to the mayor's uplifting speech. Or maybe they were just busy. Heck, maybe they were just making a logical response to their mayor's claim that they are under attack.

An Air Force Academy cadet teamed up with a professor to make liquid body armor that works.  This was a reality in a science fiction story about future combat that I submitted to the Army's Mad Scientist contest. I wrote about future conventional war in Europe focusing on an Army scout moving forward with his digital assistant (and for fun, I included the vehicle I described in this article (link fixed, I think--or go here to entire issue and find my name) which was unpublished at the time). I did not make it into the round of 25, but my story should be published in some form eventually. I enjoyed working on it.

Leaking is being done to harm Trump, and collateral damage to our allies and foreign policy be damned.

I'm sure that these Egyptian Christians were slaughtered because Egypt fights in Iraq, or bombs Syria, or blocks Moslem refugees, or allows women to dress like sluts (and let their skin feel sunshine). Come on leftist jihadi apologists! You can come up with something to blame that doesn't rhyme with "Fizzlom." Once again (because if I fail to mention it once I'm assumed to be a bigot), the vast majority of Moslems are fine people. But the jihadis are trying to impose through terror their sick version of Islam that draws from their holy texts on all Moslems whether they like it or not. So their religion is not irrelevant. And their madness is not our fault.

I'm fully against selling portions of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  We can't imagine anything bad happening given new energy trends, apparently. Perhaps I just have a better imagination.

It is complete and absolute BS that President Trump handed Putin a victory by not explicitly repeating America's commitment under the NATO treaty for collective defense in case Russia attacks during his speech to NATO in Brussels. We are a part of NATO with all the obligations under the treaty. And we are moving troops east to help defend the eastern border of NATO against Russian threats. Was Trump supposed to recite the entire treaty language to endorse every single part of it? Is this some obscure form of repeal that we could use on the atrocious Iran nuclear deal? Get a freaking grip, people.