Weekend Data Dump

Okay, I know this is years past peak humor but I finally did a Downfall parody, "Hitler Learns Impeachment Won't Happen." Thanks to Caption Generator where it is hosted. I guess I can't embed it. And saving it to my computer stripped the captions. Oh well.

American businesses are moving production out of China. Trump didn't cause this. But his pressure campaign is taking advantage of pre-existing trends. Which is good. And a welcome change from past administrations (tip to Instapundit).

Poland has a long history of being unfortunately between Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary which have eliminated Poland in the past. Austria-Hungary is gone and Germany is enmeshed in the West as a weak military power. But Russia is still there. Weakened, it is true. But there and with the potential to go west again. So having our vice president in Poland on the anniversary of the Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland in 1939 is good for their morale. And Poland is the main shield of NATO these days on the frontline.

I have little faith that an early draft of a peace deal with the Taliban will do anything more than promise a decent interval between American withdrawal and a Taliban offensive. Afghan forces need our help to hold their ground.

I'm going to try to restrain myself from noting Peak Stupid moments this week. Right after this one: Um, no there aren't.

I'm not a fan of polls on foreign problems. I don't think they are particularly useful or meaningful. And this series of questions starts with a doozy. As a rule, of the countries highlighted, most people think NATO is less relevant now than 70 years ago. Well, duh. Of course it is less relevant now. The Soviets were strong, sitting on the Elbe River in Germany, and could have invaded. Today Russia is weaker and much farther east than 70 years ago. Russia is a much smaller threat than the USSR. Of course NATO is less relevant. If you are comparing now and 70 years ago, who wouldn't say that? Really, what's up with the Brits? That doesn't mean NATO isn't important now to protect an expanded free Europe from a weaker Russian threat.

Strategypage looks at the divergence of Saudi and UAE interests in the Yemen civil war.

China has introduced its first Stryker-type brigade. I don't know why the article says America was first to develop wheeled armored personnel carrier vehicles like the Stryker. The Russians and I think the French have long had infantry vehicles like that. And Italy too, I think, at least with a wheeled armored car with a large-caliber anti-tank gun. The French had heavy armored cars, too. Now that I think about it the British had a wheeled personnel carrier long ago.

The sounds of freedom. I don't think it will end well-yet who knows?--but I admire the spirit. And this phone-based mesh messaging app that China can't block (tip to Instapundit) is great. But when you Twitter a king, kill him.

That is a really odd explanation.  Although plausible given that Israel spent two hours firing artillery shells at nothing, causing no casualties or damage to anything of value. But then that is also confusing.

Biden wants to ban magazines that can hold multiple bullets. Via Instapundit. How long before Beto demands we outlaw sights on weapons?

Russia has: reinforced its troops in Syria where there is renewed fighting in Idlib and resulting tensions with Turkey's Erdogan; witnessed protests against corruption and rigged elections since June continue despite crackdowns; and discovered that the new Ukrainian president is more of a threat to Russian ambitions. And the Vostochny space launch facility debacle.

From 2003 to 2019 the amount of global wild fires has gone down by 25%. FYI. Tip to Instapundit.

Gillibrand's failure is the result of sexism? What is wrong with Democratic voters who rejected her in the Democratic primary season? I guess we can add sexism to racism as a problem rampant in the Democratic party given that in 2008 Obama said during the primaries that Pennsylvania Democratic voters had problems with him because they cling to God and guns bitterly.

The Japanese have established a police force to help enforce their claims and administration of East China Sea islands that China claims. More generally, this is part of a China-instigated cause and effect. 

Excuse me if I don't think a Trump "peace" deal with the effing Taliban is going to work out any better than Obama's declaration that the war was over ("Bin Laden is dead"). Trump should reject the deal.

This author argues that the NATO battlegroups stationed in the Baltic states provide real deterrence and combat capabilities against a more likely "hybrid" threat from Russia even if they can't hold off a full Russian invasion. That's a point. But we still need a way to deter and defeat an invasion even if it is a low-odds probability right now.

China won't let Hong Kong protesters win.  Will China crush the opposition and end the gradual absorption of Hong Kong into China by taking the force and legal bandaids off fast?

I see it is time to start using the term "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" for France again. Funny enough, American Resistance liberals will now have to reject nuance and put Macron's France on their hate list.

Starting in January, Indonesia will stop exporting nickel ore. China has been a big importer from Indonesia. I wonder if this means that Indonesia has decided to be a processor of nickel ore and cut out the China middle man? Tip to Instapundit.

I'm sorry, but Representative ACK! is just a moron.

I've noted in regard to Hong Kong protests that Americans took time to revolt against British rule--initially demanding our rights as Englishmen. How far along are Hong Kongers on that path?

A mandatory "buy back" of guns is confiscation. The government did not sell the public any weapons so there is no "back" involved.

The NRA should sue the Hell out of San Francisco for declaring the organization a terrorist organization for opposing gun control legislation. What part of  "the right to petition the government" is unclear to those woke fascists in San Francisco?

Funny enough I mentioned this "court costs and fees" outrage recently. I heartily endorse the position, of course.

CPAC went to Hong Kong to stand with Hong Kong protesters opposed to the monsters who want to add tiny Hong Kong to the ranks of the Chinese oppressed. CPAC should help found a League of Democracies in Taiwan.

Fake news as a partisan hit piece. Democracy dies in what? Holy cow, the fakery was so obvious and the author of the fakery so proud of his effect that the target was re-hired. Is this Peak Mob?

No! Way!

Forty-four years of separation created West Germany and East Germany. Thirty years of unification haven't healed that division yet. Will 14 more years do the job? If not, the price of dictatorship is far higher than just the immediate victims of the actual regime than we thought.

Let the Army pilots fly.

China's Hong Kong hand puppet said she will withdraw the extradition bill. But this seems more like an effort to divide the opposition by giving in on something that will satisfy some percentage of protesters and give them a reason to look away while China arrests other protesters. So where are the Hong Kongers on the path from protesting to maintain their limited rights under Chinese authority to protesting for independence?

Oh sweet gods of home lighting salvation! Before the ban on incandescent light bulbs--and yes it was a ban--I would buy extra bulbs when I went to the store. I wouldn't say I stockpiled bulbs. But I had a bunch. At first I thought it would be enough until a second thought on the ban could lift it. But oddly enough given all the talk about how much longer the far more expensive "green" bulbs last, I found that my incandescent "stockpile" would probably actually last me until I died because I rarely had to replace my so-called short-lived bulbs. Go figure. Anyway, I hope the end of the ban is legal. Because as I've noted before, I like the quality of the light; and living in Michigan, giving off heat in the winter months of more darkness is a feature and not a bug. Also, why are the anti-incandescent bulb people so worried that people when given a choice will abandon the green bulbs after being told how superior the green bulbs are?

Yes, Denmark is a good ally and deserved better than the snub Trump gave the country after he took offense at the manner of their refusal to discuss selling Greenland to America. And while I thank Denmark for fighting at our side in Afghanistan, their per-capita losses aren't really the highest when you consider that their combat troop commitment relied on our logistics tail of noncombat troops which dilutes our per capita loss rate there.

Israel is getting closer to war with Hezbollah, which is what I think. But I've thought the conditions for ground war have been there for a long time now. So my dot connecting has not been accurate. And yes, Israel should not punish Lebanon as if it hosts the terror organization. I've long felt that in any war, Israel should focus exclusively on hammering Hezbollah in Lebanon. The hope should be that a Lebanon faced with a crippled Iran-backed Hezbollah will be able to regain control of all Lebanese territory now controlled by Hezbollah.

So it is okay for me to dance on the grave of Professor McKinnon, according to her. Will she celebrate the death of the monster Mugabe with equal enthusiasm?

I wish our Left treated socialism and its history of failure the way it treats people it doesn't like who have a decade-old Tweet that is less than fully woke discovered. (Socialism! You did what during the Cultural Revolution?! I cancel thee!!)

"But people felt good about themselves, and that’s the important thing."

Trump is kind of a jerk and he Tweets too much. So all the Democrats have to do is not act crazy and they could beat him in 2020 notwithstanding good Trump policies, for the most part. But the Democrats can't manage that low bar. It's actually horrifying.

This author thinks Brexit will happen. He notes that if there is a "coup" it is not Prime Minister Johnson but the Remainers trying to overturn the referendum result of three years ago to leave the European Union. He also notes that the members of Parliament who claim Johnson is staging a coup refused to let him call an election. An election that could allow the people to reject Johnson and get him out of office. Ponder that. And he notes what I've noted: that refusing a no-deal Brexit is simply a way to stop any Brexit because the EU knows it needs to offer no concessions to Britain. I hope the author is right and that Britain finally carries out the will of the people expressed in the 2016 referendum that was supposed to settle the issue once and for all.

I'm tired of the woke infecting everything with politics. I had been watching The Wu Assassins on Netflix. I like the story and the characters. It is vaguely like Buffy the Vampire Slayer in that the hero is the chosen one to fight for good. But then there was an episode with a totally pointless confrontation with rural racists who picked a fight with the hero and his father. The only point was to unfairly slam rural white Trump supporters in the real world. It had nothing to do with the story plot. After a few days of that bugging me at a low level, I just deleted the show from my list rather than finish the first season. Screw them. They can do that without me. And if they do that enough, eventually I will decide their product isn't worth their price. Maybe Amazon Prime would be good. It's probably no better on politics but at least it would have things new to me. And I'd have 2-day shipping. Something to ponder.

Strategypage looks at Hong Kong protests, China's bribes to Moslem states to ignore the Uighers, North Korea, and the South China Sea.

Climate change fiction instead of news isn't a new development, I say. Tip to Instapundit.

Yeah, it seems like CNN made a contribution to the Trump campaign with their 7-hour Democratic candidates climate revival meeting (tip to Instapundit).  It's just a matter of weeks before those candidates start going on about their precious bodily fluids:

Just replace "Communist" with "oil company-funded denier" and it is all up to date. And colorize it, of course. It really is amazing. The media used to hide Democratic insanity from voters. Now the media pushes them to expand on their insane musings and publicly embrace them.

The idea that Senate Democrats are the defenders of NATO is ludicrous. If they are as committed as their attacks on Trump suggest, they will restore the money for NATO construction projects that Trump diverted to building Mexico border barriers. Honestly, this "crisis" should never have arisen. The money for the border should have been provided in the first place as a basic job of our government and Congress.

Perhaps Trump proves that anyone can grow up to be president. But there are a lot of professors--oh, here's one now--who suggest that it just isn't that hard to get a PhD. Tip to Instapundit.

Soylent Green ... is people!

If you have any interest in Catan you might want to see my new Game Night Blog.

One would expect civil libertarian liberals would be horrified at how the Obama administration weaponized law enforcement and intelligence against domestic opponents--but Orange Man Bad, so whatevah.

This is some major bipartisan corruption in Congress. It is an implicit admission of the power of committees to extort money from the interests that have or might have legislation before committees.  Blood, boiling: 1 ea.

A small victory in the battle for rule of law in Afghanistan. We can't win that battle, but rule of law only has to be good enough to beat the also corrupt insurgents and drug gangs.

Russia and Ukraine exchanged 35 prisoners each. Why this would ease tensions short of Russia withdrawing from the Donbas (Crimea seems hopelessly lost to Ukraine for now) or Ukraine ceding Russian-occupied Donbas to Putin is beyond me.

Nip this in the bud. Decisively. More on that SEAL issue.

U.S.-Turkish patrols began today along the Turkey-Syrian border. The safe zone is as much to protect the Kurds from Turkish attacks as it is to protect Turkey from Kurds. Note that Turkey threatened to "attack" Europe with Syrian refugees if the safe zone was not established. Turkey is still alienating the West, I see.

"Decoupling" America from our China imports would make a lot of the tariff "war" with Peking moot. I wonder how many people appreciate that if even a moderate size portion of those Chinese export production facilities go to Mexico and Central America that the push that comes from the poverty in those countries could drop dramatically. The best "wall" to prevent illegal immigration might be factories in Honduras.

Typhoon Lingling swept across South Korea where it killed 3 and inflicted a lot of damage, before moving on to North Korea which because of its already wrecked normality is expected to severely damage the typhoon.

Revise you opinions, comrades. Democrats have always been against this institution! I'm so old I remember when Hillary Clinton supporters boasted of their Electoral College "blue wall" that would guarantee her victory in 2016.

Iran's nutballs desperately want to export oil; yet find themselves battling smugglers who export Iran's heavily subsidized refined fuel. Grant me that this is funny. We should facilitate this smuggling to further harm Iran's economy. Because selling at a loss and making up for it with volume really doesn't work.

So why do Democrats in Congress want America to be defenseless against Russian ICBMs? Sure, that's somewhat unfair. But I'm just playing by the rules the Democrats set.

Speaking of enjoying rules you wrote.

I've long suspected that electric vehicles have a far larger carbon footprint than their fans claim. So this is no shock at all. Battery production (and disposal, I assume) really jumps that problem up. Oh, and the child labor in mining for the battery raw materials. The price of moral superiority posturing.

Academic criminology research is almost always wrong and you'll never guess why! Tip to Instapundit.

I think that instead of canceling the direct meeting with the Taliban because they killed an American soldier that Trump should have held the talks and told the military to conduct massive attacks on Taliban targets timed to begin about an hour before the talks start.

Denmark is sending forces to northeastern Syria to help maintain the defeat of ISIL and to keep Assad out.  I did say that canceling a meeting with Denmark's leader over a perceived rude dismissal of Trump's suggestion that America would consider buying Greenland was an overreaction by Trump. Denmark is a good ally, although their defense spending is not high enough yet.

If Trump rallies caused hate crimes to skyrocket, Hillary rallies were even worse. And to answer the question, yes, professors are that stupid. It's been a long time since as a class they earned our respect.

Reaching out to Russia seems to be in France's DNA after many centuries of practice to balance foes in Europe. Just what is the point of this French "reset?" Well, good luck. As I've said, we should want Russia to join the West. But as long as Putin is in power and occupying Ukrainian territory, that doesn't seem possible. And without America going along, Macron's efforts will be pointless if Russia doesn't reform its ways.

The Navy is continuing its efforts to improve the lethality of the LCS class(es) with mission modules and standard anti-ship weapons incorporated into all ships apart from the mission module inserts.

I really like avoiding domestic political news, as I started to do not long ago--especially on TV. People have gone nuts and I really enjoy not participating in that, even at the viewer level.