Weekend Data Dump

A Pakistani author worries about India and China getting closer rather than intensifying friction. Pakistan would be isolated if America makes good on threats to punish Pakistan for supporting Islamist terrorists. Given border disputes between India and China I don't know how they get "close" notwithstanding any movement right now to be closer.

For whatever reason, my summary of the Iran-Iraq War is getting steady hits these days. I mean, other than the obvious reason that it is rather good, of course.

Naturally, the Chinese are attempting to infiltrate institutions that are already close to being Maoist indoctrination centers. Tip to Instapundit. I've mentioned the Chinese Confuse Us Institutes before. Yet still our institutions welcome them and their money.

It is absolutely wrong and counter-productive to punish the instinct of those who protect us to "head to the sound of the guns" as their first reaction to a crisis. Effing idiots, those "superiors" are. I fully understand that too many responders can clog the scene and diminish capacity to action. But in the initial stage before there is effective command and control to deploy assets and issue orders, the first unorganized responders could be key. Punish that instinct enough and we won't have it when we need it. Tip to Instapundit.

Countries spanning the Pacific agreed to a trade pact (ratification must follow) that reduces tariffs without America. The implication is that America is hosed for not participating. As a rule I prefer free trade. And I think it is good for America to participate in free trade agreements. But the terms of a deal are important. And all those countries want to trade with America which means there is no reason we can't have bilateral pacts with members of the agreement. Also note that China is not part of the pact. I admit things could turn out badly. But it might be fine, too. I'll not predict so soon.

It isn't too shocking that the broad failure of the Arab Spring has led to an increase in jihadi terrorism in Africa. The Arab Spring offered democracy as an alternative to the traditional autocracy or mullah-run government as means to run Arab Moslem states. This does not mean that the Arab Spring was a long-term failure. In the long run the choice of democracy (and rule of law) has to be a real option of governance. But in the short run the autocracies were weakened even though they turned back the reach for democracy; and with a weakened government security forces, the jihadis who kill naturally benefit. Perhaps this shores up the appeal of the traditional forms of government to control the violence. Ideally those autocracies add rule of law to their tool kit that eventually leads to more opportunities for democracy.

If a future heavily armored battleship was equipped with active missile defenses and long-range missiles and drones, it could have a place in the fleet again. Remember, aircraft gave the carrier the edge over battleships in the ship-killing (with strike plane range) and fleet defense (with fighter aircraft) contests. If missiles can provide the range without the risk to planes going up against enemy air defenses and an edge in defense with a combination of active defenses and passive armor, battleships could re-enter the contest. Although I wonder if modern weapons would overwhelm battleships as they were overwhelmed in World War II by simpler "dumb" weapons. And I wonder if we could even make the thick steel armor needed. Or would new materials and electric armor be able to replace steel?

The language of presidential hate: "All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That's why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it." Dog whistle phrases for hate, for sure.

Cultural appropriation defended.

Big boom. Don't forget the far more numerous little booms.

For a while I've said that America should look for alternatives to Incirlik air base in Turkey and quietly remove our nukes from the base, given problems with Erdogan pushing Turkey to Islamist politics. We are scaling back use of Incrirlik and apparently did the latter a couple years ago. I don't remember hearing about that, but I did say do it "quietly." Kudos to the Obama administration on the latter, which was done notwithstanding their encouragement of Erdogan as a "tame" Islamist we could work with. Now make some progress on making sure Turkey doesn't get our advanced F-35 (sell them a simpler "monkey version" as the Soviets called their export weapons), as I also advised. Perhaps in 5 years I'll read we did that, too.

To protect and serve their multi-cultural PC credentials. Shameful.

Let's hope the repulsive alt-Right is waning. It was never influential in America despite "resistance" panic attacks, never large--or even a sizable fraction--of course. Sadly, the hard Left will not wane as long as professors and administrators sympathetic to the hard Left control the institutions (and our media, of course). Tip to Instapundit.

If this allegation of false conviction rates is true, it's really bad. It would be even worse if you consider that prosecutors only bring charges on cases they think they can win (it is bad politics to have low conviction rates), explaining the amazingly high conviction rate. But is it true? I have no background to judge, honestly. But rule of law, which I drone on about, requires a low false conviction rate. And I do think juries are prone to believe forensic evidence is Golden because of television cop shows, despite its deep flaws. If "expert" witnesses could be sued in civil court by defendants, that might help reduce overly broad or definitive conclusions and provide a means for the wrongly convicted to recover damages.

Good charts on NATO states reaching (or mostly not reaching) 2% of GDP defense spending. It's a blunt measurement but it is the foundation of real defense capabilities.

The headline makes it sound like Russia pledged to fight America if America strikes Assad: "Russia says U.S. plans to strike Damascus, pledges military response". Which made me wonder if the Russians are dangerously reckless. But the Russians didn't quite say that. There was a condition. They said America plans to strike Assad's facilities in Damascus and that Russia would respond militarily "if it felt Russian lives were threatened" by the attack. So Russia drew a very closely drawn red line that leaves a lot of Syria exposed to American attack (over possible chemical weapons use or the death toll in the Ghouta pocket) that doesn't expose Russian troops to risk. I wonder if this is brushing Russia back from the plate for an Israeli operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon that also allows Russia to save face doing nothing about that by posing as the protector of Assad despite no threat to Assad?

Lack of transparency and accountability is a feature of the European Union and not a bug. The Brussels elites can knight anybody into their new pan-European royalty. So the peasantry can get back to tending the fields and just shut up while the proto-imperial state in Brussels erases the "proto-" part.

Tillerson was fired as secretary of state. I wasn't a big fan but other than his fondness for the Iran nuclear deal, didn't offend me. So firing him isn't a bad thing. And if Tillerson was promoting a European foreign policy in regard to Iran, that was a problem. Tip to Instapundit.

Saddam Hussein reached out to useful idiots and allies within the West to shield Iraq from Western military action and sanctions.

An overview of the Baltic region. I'm trying to get an article on my views on defending the forward Baltic NATO states published.

Hillary Clinton's claim while in India that she lost because married white women succumbed to pressure from their husbands leads me to ask just where do you meet these subservient women? I kid. I kid! But seriously, I haven't met any of these mythical women. I think they fall in the category of "moderate Democrats" and Big Foot.

It should be obvious that thugs like these deserve prison time.

On the bright side, America suddenly had half a million fewer fugitive criminals!

I hate to even glance at Yahoo! News comments these days. Long stupid, these days they often seem so over-the-top stupid that I can't see them without assuming they are Russian trolls.

See something, say something, do something--get rebuked. Volkswagen should re-hire the man as a crash test dummy.

I remain deeply disappointed in Russia. The Russians could have joined the West after the Cold War on the basis of the notion that they too were victims of communism. I wanted them to become friends. Germany, Japan, and Italy didn't do too bad as former enemies, now did they? But instead the Russians have turned the West into an enemy while ignoring China's rise to their resource-rich rear where only Russian nukes could stop China from grabbing land ceded by them to Russia in the 19th century. The Russians aren't foreign policy geniuses. They're morons. With nukes and poison gas. Is it impossible for sanity to break out there?

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Just in case you doubt my full right wing credentials, for whatever reason. It blows my mind that this isn't universally supported in America.

Good grief, people, the White House has air defense missiles!

While I'm not happy that Trump wrongly told Trudeau Canada did not have a trade deficit with America, this Canadian author erases my sympathy by loudly arguing Trump "lies" to America's closest allies. But the quote clearly indicates that Trump simply didn't know the facts and asserted his own convenient fact. Which isn't quite a lie, is it? Again, Trump shouldn't have done that. But it wasn't a lie. It was incorrect. And another thing, Canadians who elected a one-man boy band to be their prime minister have little credibility in belittling Americans who voted for Trump. And as for all those quotes about how we are mis-treated in trade? That's called negotiating. International trade will be just fine.

I have a great deal of respect for H.R. McMaster. Losing his advice would be bad if he truly is to be fired as national security advisor.

Huh.

Karma: Hillary slips twice on stairs and fractures wrist while in India in separate incidents after going off on "shithole" red states and the "deplorable" people--including the Stepford wives who voted for Trump--who live in them. Funny all this happened in India.

To be fair accurate perceptions of liberal bias in colleges are still perceptions. Tip to Instapundit.

Ah Hell, we lost all 7 crew and passengers on a helicopter that went down in western Iraq.

The gender fluidity nonsense is all fun and games until consequences rear their ugly head. So, is "she" to be believed?

I never much liked Stephen Hawking notwithstanding admiration for his coping with his condition and respect for his scientific skills.

Coping with this vulnerability would be nice. I don't like the Internet of things one bit.And I'll ask again, given the damage that a cyber attack could inflict on us, why isn't a kinetic response justified by such an act of war?

The Left mocked new economic advisor's statement that things would go well, God willing. MSNBC expressed that mockery on the air. I eagerly await the nonstop MSNBC mocking of Moslems who commonly say "Inshallah." Any minute now.

I admit I am open to persuasion about whether conservative things are happening because of Trump or despite him; as well as the related question of whether there is chaos in the White House or just media amplification of what is going on and perhaps an over valuing of dullness. At the very least perhaps we'll gain some perspective about the role of the imperial president we invest so much attention on in a vast governmental structure with lots of parts that continue to work along. I've never panicked over the election of Trump despite worries about his liberal heritage and I'm not a particular fan of his style or character and make no excuses for that. You will never find panty-throwing fanboy literature here any more than you found it during the Bush 43 administration or demonization during the Obama years. But I remain deeply grateful he defeated the deeply corrupt and perhaps more divisive Clinton (and by "he" I suppose I mean Trump and Obama).

Add livestock in the passenger compartment to the indignity of modern air travel and our airlines have basically re-invented Soviet-era Aeroflot without the accident rate. I'm starting to think that success against terrorist take-overs of airline flights since 9/11 has less to do with improved security and more the result of the sheer unpleasantness of a flight that might be the terrorists' last moments on Earth. How many virgin vouchers for Paradise are needed to overcome that?