Weekend Data Dump

The Army continues to bolster its capabilities in eastern NATO.

The national debt continues to rise as the deficit surges despite increases in government revenue. Why? Spending greatly outpaces revenue. Don't blame tax cuts for our deficit and debt. Recovering from this debt if we let it reach crisis proportions will crush the middle class as the government promotes inflation to get rid of the debt that way. The poor have nothing to lose and the rich have ways to avoid the impact of inflation.

What is wrong with these people?

If elections don't matter because rule of law is considered inconvenient to the rulers, dissatisfied people will resort to other methods to register their displeasure with the rulers. Don't think rule of law can't fail here. And there must be punishment for those who tried to subvert it. Tip to Instapundit.

A "Google Earth on steroids" would be outstanding for not only general training but for mission rehearsal given the speed of adding new material possible. I can't even count the number of times that I've consulted satellite maps on Google to familiarize myself with a new route or destination. And nobody was trying to kill me.

Even if they have no effect on global warming and even if global warming really isn't a planet-threatening problem at all given our ingenuity, at least they'll be in unquestioned charge of everything and everybody. Which is nice from their point of view. Why the rest of us should go along is another issue altogether. Tip to Instapundit.

I didn't pay much attention to the Maria Butina case, but after reading this it is hard not to accept that she is a political prisoner convicted on trumped up charges. This was the result of hysteria rather than government orders, but will Russia see it that way? I have a bad feeling that Americans who make the error of going to Russia will be put at risk because of this case.

I have no idea if Trump is right that we should rip out the EMALS catapults that aren't working and go back to steam catapults on the new Ford-class carriers. But I do know that the Navy has screwed the pooch on the design of the EMALS which still doesn't work. Although if it worked, it would be much better than steam. Maybe Trump is going to order that reversion. Or maybe he's trying to catapult a sense of urgency into the Navy to get the stupid EMALS working better than the older steam system. But the issue deserves better treatment than to be treated as a petty "obsession" by the president. If the catapults don't work, we have very expensive helicopter carriers.

I don't care how much I'm supposed to panic. I'm just not going to panic.

And without the need to drop it from a plane, the same concept could be used for an autonomous ambulance to get troops from the front back to skilled medical attention. Tip to Instapundit.

Europeans didn't face the information war effort they feared from Russia to influence European elections. But now political Europe (the EU) worries that actual voters will have enough power in the European parliament to block EU policies to "ever closer union." No worries, every other time the EU faced problems with democracy they simply eliminated the chance that mere voters could harm their proto-imperial project. Tying those voters to Russia--or America!--will do the trick, no doubt.

This isn't new, but while I have little use for Wolf I will say that her book research experience is something that any honest writer lives in fear of happening to them. So a heart-felt "ouch."

How is it progressive to claim minorities are less capable than whites of perfectionism, a sense of urgency, "worship" of the written word, individualism, and objectivity? Isn't this a racist checklist for racial inferiority? But supposedly pro-minority people make the claim. Amazing. The individualism condemnation is most amazing in one way. So much for judging by the content of a person's character rather than by the color of their skin. How does a dream of equality described as "When we allow freedom to ring--when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, 'Free at last, Free at last, Great God almighty, we are free at last.'" fit with the progressive group identity project that denies we should even be in the same room with different people and so capable of joining hands? Why don't we shun people who make some horrible "progressive" claims that could have come from the mouths of slave owners justifying holding humans in bondage?

College students are checking out far fewer physical books. Knowledge is crippled when students only use what is online--and they are using ebooks, as the article states--in order to learn. Because that is necessarily weighted toward modern sources despite the effort to digitize older works. The notion that those who came before us have nothing to offer us in wisdom is harmful. The idea that we can't learn from those who came before us to provide opportunities for success or to avoid failure is harmful. I guess you don't need to burn the books to keep people from seeing ideas you don't want them to see--just make what you want people to see easier to see and they won't bother with anything else. And if a book becomes "problematic" you can simply erase it or make it unreadable to the book readers. That is not a problem with physical books and the Mark I eyeballs. In a nation of people gaining weight we bizarrely give credibility to "food deserts." Shouldn't we worry about "knowledge deserts" where actual books are not consumed and digested?

This is an interesting article on the fate of Diego Garcia that is really tarnished by the bizarre need of so many writers to add in a slam against Trump despite Trump having nothing to do with the topic. What is freaking wrong with you people? Back to the subject, I assume that a lot of money rather than actual territory will ultimately change hands to resolve the dispute.

NATO is cooperating pretty closely with non-NATO Sweden. Sweden is rebuilding its defenses that virtually disappeared after the Cold War. Their renewed focus on Russia is good because NATO membership for Sweden should be based on what Sweden can add to NATO rather than solely on what NATO can do to defend Sweden.

I am always amused when people say that South Vietnam was not a "domino" that we had to hold to prevent other countries from falling because the first one fell. Conceptually, the domino theory is nothing more than the idea that success (by the enemy) encourages more success. And the defeat of South Vietnam carried Laos and Cambodia along with it. Nor does the objection consider the difference in reaction in the rest of South and Southeast Asia between the fall of South Vietnam in 1965 if we hadn't intervened and its fall in 1975 after we left.  The quibble is especially funny when you consider the results of Warsaw Pact Hungary opening its border in the summer of 1989, leading to the collapse of the Soviet empire in eastern Europe that year and which reached into the USSR itself two years later. That sequence should be in the encyclopedia for "Domino Theory" for the rest of time.

The headline that says protesters--who weren't even protesting America--set fire to our embassy in Honduras is fake news. in fact, protesters set fire to tires piled up against our embassy access gate--which was quickly extinguished. I assume "access gate" means at the perimeter fence and not even the embassy main door. Why make the incident seem like far greater rage and action than it was?

The ISIL adherents who killed 258 and wounded over 500 in Sri Lanka with multiple suicide bombings against churches and Christian targets were locals from well off families, and the attack was financed by a wealthy local. This is typical for murderous revolutionaries.

Socialism isn't an economic system designed to produce wealth, it is a political system designed to redistribute wealth. As such, wealth creation under socialism stagnates and then contracts. Which means that the politics of socialism becomes harsher as the group in charge must "distribute" more and more from the many--who will begin to resist, either actively or passively--to the minority in charge. Mass death is not far beyond that. Why socialism isn't universally reviled is beyond me.

Fighting Ebola seems like one of those things that the UN should do and can do if supported by the great powers.

The United States is punishing Cuba for backing Maduro. Even if we lose, we should make our foes pay for their victory rather than subsidize it.

May he rot in Hell. The bright spot is that the communist-loving SOB made it to Congress just as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Um, because we're the greatest country on Earth?

The affluent get more time to take the SAT because of "learning disabilities" than the poor. Tell me that the new adversity score won't get twisted to help the affluent, too. Tell me that the adversity score won't include coming from a school with high levels of SAT learning disability exemptions. Explain to me again why you are shocked that people voted for Trump.

Facepalm.

On the bright side, it has cost us nearly $600 billion so far. Can you really put a price tag on showing how much you truly care? Tip to Instapundit.

Disney threatens to boycott Georgia over their new abortion law. This isn't a fight I care to engage in on TDR. But isn't it kind of self-defeating for a company whose brand is still children's programming to be against more children--and against the people who have more children? I just don't get it.

United States Second Fleet is again online, and thickening. In case we need to fight for the North Atlantic so troops and supplies can flow freely from North America to Europe. We won't face a huge Russian naval threat, but 2nd Fleet won't be like its Cold War version, either.

The temperature data is being adjusted--to show global warming. Consistently. I have no doubt that in theory that data can be wrong and needs correcting. But I don't understand why the corrections only bolster the global warming crisis story. And I don't trust the activists who say all is normal, don't worry about it.

Iraq: doing the job that the French won't do? Iraq should make an industry out this.

Until there are just as many "Liberty Institutes" in China, we should do what we need to do to shut down China's Confuse Us Institutes located at our schools.

This facility in Texas (tip to Instapundit) will help undermine China's threats to withhold rare earths vital to our economy and defense. I've mentioned this issue for some time. Hopefully the search for alternative sources, stockpiling, and now this will soon make China's threat empty. And as it turns out, as I read later, the rare earth threat is collapsing.

Let's see, if the logic the American left has established works here, because Iranian Shia jihadi fanatics hate Trump and Americans on the left (and a small fraction of the right) hate Trump, Americans who hate Trump must support every horrible thing that Iranian Shia jihadi fanatics have ever done or want to do. I mean, I've been hearing that for a few years now. Oh, and the hatred of Jews, too. That seems to be the next big thing on the left here. Tip to Instapundit.

To say there is mutual mistrust between America and China is to ignore the several decades that America supported China's economic rise in the belief that economic progress would reduce China's aggressiveness. Yeah, that didn't work. So now the mistrust and hostility is belatedly "mutual."

I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: Russia is using their combat in Ukraine and Syria to test out and improve their electronic warfare capabilities.

I mentioned in the last data dump that I could hardly blame Trump staffers if they wanted USS McCain out of sight during his visit to Japan. Given the eagerness of the press to make a saint of Senator McCain (in contrast to their demonization of him in 2008) for his feud with Trump. It should have been obvious though I didn't mention it that the military shouldn't be politicized in that way. So the military was right to point that out to whoever asked that.

Sudan is not looking very Arab Springy, what with all the shootings.

I am open to the notion that D-Day might have been possible in 1943. Germany surely was better prepared in 1944 than in 1943. Just as the Allies were better prepared in 1944. But would the Germans have sent an army to Tunisia to die if we had invaded France in 1943? Would Italy have remained in the war and not tied down German troops in Italy to hold that territory? Or would the lack of Allied divisions fighting in Italy made up for that? Would Germany have called off their Kursk offensive and moved their armor west to hit the May or June invasion force? How much longer would the Pacific War have lasted without early Army reinforcements? My experience with commercial board games says 1943 would not have worked. But that is not final evidence in my mind.

In related news, I can't believe that five years after Russia invaded Ukraine that Ukraine still has statues of Russian generals to pull down.

And when gun buyers have to use cash to purchase firearms, they will be charged with trying to evade scrutiny.

The burning sensation means it's working! Taiwan needs those tanks and missiles.

Social media should have warning labels on it. I'm content to have sat out the social media revolution. I remained a happy person during the Obama administration and continue my sanity and contentedness streak--unlike so many rabid opponents of Trump--in the current administration. As for the dumbing down part? Well, I believe I noted that I noticed that with so much to read online that I had lost the patience to really sit and read books, and had to retrain myself to do that. That was rather scary.

Bi-partisan gullibility to do Iran's work by trying to block arms sales to Saudi Arabia in Congress. Why does Congress prove so vulnerable to Iranian propaganda?

What is Russia's major malfunction, anyway?

We have to feed the guns.

The revolution in Venezuela is failing. Don't give up, however. But understand what the Venezuelan officer corps wants and fears. I wonder if we could offer sanctuary to the Venezuelan officer corps until a new government can decide which ones to keep in their military? The rest could be offered the chance to seek sanctuary in other countries if Venezuela considers them too tainted to trust.

Hey, these leftist rules are fun now that everybody plays by them, right? Tip to Instapundit. What I'm really looking forward to are occupational licensing sanctuary cities, which only seem to protect those already in the guilds from outsiders coming in to compete.