Apparently the Serbs would rather nurse their grievances, reject membership in the West, and seek closer relations with Russia. That will work out just swell for Serbs, I'm sure.
Russia believes their nuclear weapons prevented the West from intervening in Syria in the face of Russia's intervention to either support Turkey or drive the Russians out. This ignores the fact that Western forces were more active in Syria during Russia's intervention in 2015, that Turkey has estranged the West with their Islamist leanings, and that the West is really against intervening in the Middle East now. This crediting of the effectiveness of nukes is disturbing if understandable given Russia's long land border and weak military relative to that border. If Russia really believes nukes are a deterrent that protects whatever Russia does, we really need to pay a lot more attention to NATO Estonia.
Four B-1 bombers capable of carrying anti-ship missiles are on Guam for a stretch of time.
At that price, I assume none of those SLS engines will ever be used by NASA to launch American space payloads. Tip to Instapundit.
I know I've mentioned this many times over the years, but it bears repeating: Feminists are not pro-women. They are the women's auxiliary of the Democratic Party. So of course Linda Hirshman believes Tara Reade and will vote for Biden.
Australian defense requirements.
How the Taliban behaves during a "peace" deal in Afghanistan. Yet American forces are ahead of schedule in getting down to 8,600 by July. And given my distress at those hidden portions of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, WTF? "The publicly released four-page agreement between the Taliban and U.S. does not include language calling on the Taliban to reduce attacks. U.S. officials have yet to declassify and release annexes to the agreement that outline implementation of the deal." Secret portions?! I am not encouraged. I just don't see how America can successfully target non-Taliban terrorists if Afghan government forces are less capable of operating to gather intelligence to act on. Unless coalition forces will continue to train and mentor Afghan government forces.
Don't be shocked if Biden's Senate records in the hands of the University of Delaware no longer have anything incriminating. Tip to Instapundit.
Resistance to Assad is not ended in the south where it all began in 2011.
So America can only complain about what European countries do? And the risk of war isn't from what China has done to us but how we are upset about it? I have no use for the deceptive and oily Ben Rhodes on any issue, including the spelling of his name.
I'm not so sure they're on firm ground to revise estimates of the Justinianic Plague based on models. The models haven't covered themselves in glory thus far in the current pandemic.
I don't know if Biden's VP search has a binder full of women that he's reviewing. The real question is does Biden have a plethora of women candidates?
At this point, federal government help from Trump would cheapen California's claim to be a virtuous "sanctuary" for illegals, wouldn't it? It's a wealthy and virtuous state. Let them handle that problem which they have clearly welcomed. But they'll get help. Because people are in trouble. And Californians will learn nothing from the experience.
Words escape me. I hesitate to put this in the Peak Stupid category. Call it Breadth (or Breath?) of Stupid. To be fair, she could just be protesting the mask requirement and is just trying to technically comply with the mandate while showing her opposition. I hope. Tip to Instapundit.
Yeah, I don't like this no-grades stuff. Cheating is certainly much more possible with online tests. But both of my children will suffer from this decision not to grade because right up until classes were shut down, they were doing "A" work. Now they won't get credit for that. Still, that's just credit on paper for one semester, I guess. In the real world they will show the results of learning. So there's that. And the paper record around that gap will be good. Still annoying, though.
Really, lockdowns and social distancing are lasting way longer than we were told we needed to do them to break the back of the pandemic. Or is my memory hazy? Certainly, those methods aren't working as anticipated.
This is stale but it cracked me up and I finally looked for the video to embed:
Clearly, men need to wear masks all the time now! Thanks Xi Jinping! Tip to Instapundit.
Video pattern recognition for war, law enforcement, or oppression. A two-edged sword, indeed.
Four American warships joined by a British warship returned to old Cold War stomping grounds in the Barents Sea at the doorstep of Russia's major naval power. As long as Russia wants to insist that NATO is their main enemy, did they think NATO wouldn't react? Chimps with nukes, I say.
I've had some confidence that we'll come up with a treatment and vaccine for the Xi Jinping Flu sooner than expected. But that's based on general confidence in our society and the global interest in finding them. I may be woefully ignorant of the actual chances of that. As I've said, I'm way out of my lanes on this issue. Maybe our best hope is that the virus mutates into a less lethal and dangerous form. As they usually do, I guess. Tip to Instapundit.
Heck, leftists have blamed jihadi rage against America on the Crusades, for God's sake. So the 1619 Project is child's play blaming.
I can see that, but what's the cause and what's the effect? Because I'd be depressed if I was vegetarian or vegan and didn't eat meat. Tip to Instapundit.
Three dead doctors under suspicious circumstances in Russia who treated Xi Jinping Flu victims while complaining about conditions? As the expression goes, one bad event is chance, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action. Is it a new doctors' plot?
As China tries to restart their export-reliant economy, the markets just aren't there to sustain production. Shutdowns in America and the rest of the world make it impossible to get back to work like before the Xi Jinping Flu. I've worried about our ability to just restart America (assuming we can all agree that it it obviously impossible to stay locked down until the virus is defeated) and said we should watch China for lessons. Gulp.
How many more need to die before anything but getting a vaccine is a priority for the CDC and NIH?
So we got lucky in the H1N1 epidemic? Which was good because our government screwed the pooch in the response? How dare you claim The One could stumble?Although to be fair to Obama, I wouldn't rely on the model death estimates for back then.
What exactly does the X-37B do during its long missions in space? One of them is going back up this month. Whatever they are doing it must be useful because the Air Force (shouldn't it be a Space Force asset now?) has been doing this for a decade now. I just hope that when it is finally scaled up for actual use that it is big enough to carry a SMOD into space. Here's an article, too. I wish it explained why it is still an Air Force asset.
Liberals are now terrified, naturally. Get well soon, of course.
America denies responsibility for the men arrested in a so-called Venezuela coup/invasion plot. I should hope so. I'd like to think we could plan something better than a worse version of the Bay of Pigs.
Thank you for helping us in our hour of need. Will you be paying us for the privilege by check or credit card? New York really might want to rethink this if they care about their reputation. Or getting help any time soon if something else comes up. Tip to Instapundit.
Some people just belong in prison forever. Because we don't have the death penalty, of course.
I've said it once and I'll say it again, "liberal minded" is not the same as "open minded," and it is a crime against language to think so. Tip to Instapundit.
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday said Tara Reade's sexual assault allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden are 'case closed.'" Video:
Don't let Erdogan get us to help him pay for Russian S-400 missiles. If he thinks Putin is such a pal, Erdogan can ask him to bail Turkey out.
Don't Canadian police know that a Stormtrooper with a blaster is the least likely mass shooter they'll ever face?
Lockdown collateral damage in Canada (and everywhere, I assume). Tip to Instapundit.
China is a breeding ground for viruses because of the close proximity of people and livestock, including chickens. Naturally Ann Arbor will loosen the rules on backyard ducks and chickens.
Sky News Australia has said that "Kim, 36, may have deliberately pretended to be dead so that he could figure out if there were leaks in his inner circle in North Korea." That's just speculation that is no more founded in evidence than my own: "I recall that Saddam Hussein would periodically send loyalists to wake up suspect generals (whether with basis or not, it did not matter) and tell them "Brother, the revolution is on! Are you with us?" Generals quickly learned to decline the invitation. Which thwarted our efforts to turn generals prior to the 2003 Iraq War. I assume Saddam learned this from the Soviets. Anyway, was Kim doing something like that?" And yeah, it was Soviet practice. My memory had been hazy on that.
Let's hope so. Schiff deserves a backlash most severe. He lied through his teeth about seeing evidence of non-existent Russian collusion. Has he no decency, at long last? Tip to Instapundit.
Speaking of deserving a backlash: "China has offered to assist the Philippines in dealing with covid19 as long as they don’t call it the Wuhan virus." I hate
An American carrier is underway in the western Pacific as China intensifies its aggressiveness in the region.
The Xi Jinping Flu is just bouncing the rubble, as far as I can tell.
Could Vietnam lease Cam Rahn Bay port facilities to the U. S. Navy? This author thinks it is unlikely. Vietnam doesn't want foreign bases there and America doesn't need a refueling point there. Russia already has a position there, leveraged by Russian servicing for Vietnam's subs. But is a Russia appeasing China likely to serve as a counterweight to a far more powerful China? A basing agreement would be a political agreement that helps Vietnam get a real counterweight to China while America gets some more heft in Southeast Asia diplomacy to resist China. I don't expect a full base there. But a "place" kept warm for the Navy seems fairly likely at some point.
Fake hate crimes at the intersection of liars and credentialed morons: "One professor told Campus Reform that rather than the students’ lies being indicative of a lack of real racism in the community, her actions reflect just the opposite: that racism is such a problem that people feel compelled to make up incidents." I think we could fire half of America's professors and have no effect on higher education at all. Tip to Instapundit.
I don't think we needed a UN report to know that Russian mercenaries are in Libya fighting on Hiftar's (Haftar's) side in Libya. Turkish mercenaries recruited from Syria are on the other side. Turkey's intervention has shifted the balance of power on the western front. Will Hiftar's backers counter-escalate? This is a lesson that giving an enemy time--as Hiftar's slow offensive to take Tripoli did--is a precious gift to your enemy. Interesting enough, Syrian fighters have been sent by Russia, too. Syria is now an exporter of fighters to both sides in the Libyan civil war. Where else will these veterans of the multi-war show up?
This is just another step he is taking toward shaving his beard and selling his testicles collection.
There are people making unfair leaps of logic on both sides of the Michigan protests. But all I know is that 100% of the governors in Michigan unfairly likened the protesters to Nazis and only a small percentage of protesters likened the governor to Hitler. Oh, and despite some armed protesters, there was no violence and no gunfire. Again, not my kind of protest if I got to design it. But I can only wish the media held Antifa to the same standards of decorum. You remember the "largely peaceful" descriptions, right?
I finally got my copy of the Xi Jinping Flu "stimulus" check letter separate from the direct deposit. Expecting a Trump rally in my envelope the way the left hyperventilated, I was pleasantly not-too-surprised to see that it credited Congress with passing the act and basically the only pro-Trump aspect was that Trump signed the letter. The outrage was stupid.
Retired Army general Keane doesn't think the Chinese ruling party wants war or military confrontation, but "I will say this: there are members of the [People's Liberation Army] -- their military -- that have a lot of hubris because they have a huge military capability that they never had." I've mentioned that worry before.
The Trump administration didn't act as quickly as it pretends it did to the Xi Jinping Flu coronavirus. Other than the partial travel ban from China. But I hold that if Trump had tried to act decisively early, Democrats would have accused Trump of trying to hide the impeachment trial "stain" and would have resisted calls for self isolation because it was a Trojan Horse for his long-wished for Trumptatorship. Which because Blue states have been hit harder would have meant there would have been no effect on the spread of the pandemic. I think our highly polarized country would not really react until the disaster was upon us.
Thanks 2020. Is this what happens when we shut down industry? Were they right when I was in middle school that a new Ice Age is coming? Should we be paying people to ditch their electric cars and buy belching SUVs just to stop this madness?
This isn't "news!" It's Chinese propaganda. What would you say if you lived there under the circumstances?
Sweden's more lax approach to resisting the Xi Jinping Flu hasn't worked out very well at all, it seems. But I'll want a better source than Newsweek for an examination of what exactly Sweden did and why the death toll is so high.
South Korea tested a larger warhead capacity for their longer-ranged missiles. As North Korea's nuclear missile program has progressed, the only reason South Korea lagged was American restraint. We eased our restraints.
I guess the Asian "murder hornets" are over-hyped as a threat to people (remember the "killer bees?" I do), but they are a threat to pollinating bees if they spread in North America. Tip to Instapundit.
I'm beginning to think that Peak Stupid is an academic field all by itself.
I don't address global warming as I once did. My basic position is 1) I don't trust the data reconstruction of old temperatures on a global scale or the models of the future. 2) I don't trust the panic that even rising temperatures will cause a disaster that we can't adapt to. 3) Even if the problem will be as bad as claimed I don't trust the solutions that the climate change activists advocate, which always seem to involve more state control over our lives. That's it. Plus I wonder about the apparent two-decade "pause" in the global temperature rise. Why did the rise pause--charitably--if human activity is the driving force in climate change? And I actually have confidence that technology will reduce CO2 emissions and allow us to scrub the atmosphere long before we need to cripple our economies or freedom to fight the problem if it proves to be serious. I like to think that I can be persuaded on positions 1 or 2. But 3 is a hard pass for me.
Twenty years after the Kursk disaster Russia has the ability to rescue submarine crews trapped in disabled subs on the floor of the ocean.
This article touts the ability of the F-15EX to be a missile truck for stealthy F-35s that identify aerial targets. But I thought a big part of the argument for the air superiority plane is homeland air defense as the F-15C/Ds get too old to fly. Nobody is flying stealth planes against North America yet so F-35s and F-22s are kind of overkill to escort aging Russian long-range planes away from our region.
The U.S. pulled some missile defense and fighter aircraft from Saudi Arabia to pressure the Saudis on adopting an oil production policy we like more. That's hardball. And odd given our confrontation with Iran. Unless we think that our response to any Iranian attack on Saudi oil facilities would be to strike Iran hard, so we aren't relying on air defenses. Or is the withdrawal unrelated to the oil dispute?
People need to go to prison over this abuse of police powers by the state. And I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg. There was a lot of public lying that didn't hold up under oath in private. Tell me fake news doesn't exist.
This feeds my worries about reopening the economy successfully, but I think it is not proper to compare this shutdown with the 2008 Great Recession. But it will take longer than we hope because the world is interconnected economically and when parts lag in opening up, other parts that are open and need those sellers and buyers can't fully recover.
I find it hard to believe that recovering from the Xi Jinping covid-19 virus is a permanent bar to joining the U.S. military. Surely it is interim because of the uncertainty of whether getting it means you carry it within you and could potentially reignite and spread it.
Spain arrested a man who planned to commit terrorism for the jihadi cause.
A weakening Xi Jinping Flu virus--which may be happening--may be our best salvation over the next 12 months, eh?
So democracies are better at winning wars and fighting epidemics? That's good. That should raise questions about China's claimed success in fighting the Xi Jinping Flu. And I strongly disagree with the notion that America lost the Iraq War. How people can fail to recognize the victory mystifies me.
Gosh, why on Earth would the Czechs want to take down a statue of a Russian? "It began with the dismantling of a statue of a Russian World War II hero and the renaming of a Prague square. Now three of the Czech capital's mayors are under police protection, fearing they are the targets of a Russian assassin carrying a deadly toxin, and Russian-Czech relations are in crisis." Seriously, what is Russia's major malfunction?
VE Day--victory in Europe in World War II--was commemorated last week. Will we celebrate EV Day--elimination of the virus--one day?
Contrary to former president Obama, rule of law requires the dismissal of the entrapment case against Flynn. But you don't rely on The One for legal analysis, do you? People who justify the Flynn prosecution point to the fact that he was fired for lying to the vice president. That is not a crime. It certainly justified his firing. But the criminal prosecution was banana republic-style abuse of power. And that is obvious without raising Flynn to saint status.
San Antonio passed a resolution about hate crimes that included this: "The resolution also states that the use of terms like 'Chinese Virus' or 'Kung Fu virus' encourage hate crimes and incidents against Asians as well as spread misinformation."
Words escape me.Of course she lied about the existence of 2016 Trump-Russia collusion, there was none. Tip to Instapundit.
At the intersection of fake news and liberal loyalty laughs.
What amazes me about our shutdown of the economy because of the Xi Jinping Flu that came from Communist China and whose spread globally was enabled by Chinese Communist lies and secrecy (that's for you, San Antonio city council, and your ilk) is that unemployment is "only "14.7%. Which is really bad for a recession. But why isn't it massively higher with a shutdown? I mean, a lot apparently isn't shut down with over 133 million people in America still employed. Maybe getting our economy moving again will be easier than I thought.
We have a long way to go before the Islamist nutballs are defeated in the Islamic Civil War over who defines Islam--the minority of violent Islamist nutballs or the Moslems who would prefer to just coexist.
In my opinion the Russian T-14 Armata tank is the tank of the future--and always will be. And was it based on the old MBT-70 proposal? I recall having a model of it when a lad, and saw a promotional picture (video?) of it "ducking" an incoming tank round with its variable suspension height in action. Unrealistic but cool.
I had a Lockdown Crisis. I thought my TV died Friday night. I leave it off during the day and usually turn it on around 5:00 for some news and then entertainment. But it would not turn on. It had a power light but that was the only sign of life. I checked cables. I replace batteries. The TV had power but neither the Roku remote nor the original remote could power it up. That's bad. I brought down my heavy early model HDTV from upstairs to see if the Roku was the problem. Sadly I forgot how heavy it is and strained my right arm. Embarrassing. I had to check online how to sync the Roku with the old TV, but it worked. I even had a spare HDMI extension cable so the Roku stick could see the light of day in the front of the old TV. Although the TV was old enough to require a change in using a HDMI splitter for all the devices hooked up. So the immediate "crisis" was over. I planned to go buy one and was shocked that a larger good brand 4K smart TV was available nearby for under $300. They've gotten cheaper! I didn't feel like tossing out the broken TV, so set it down for disposal the next day after going first thing in the morning to the store. I was really hoping the TV section wasn't "non-essential." Before I went to bed I couldn't quite let the TV go. I plugged it in and on a whim tried the Roku remote. It turned on! No signal, of course. In the morning I plugged the Roku stick into the now-working TV and that worked, too. So I reinstalled all the cables on the newer TV and restored it to the television stand. The old TV awaits carting it up the stairs. I still don't know what happened. Did the Roku remote reset for some reason? Perhaps I should have tried to re-sync the remote with the TV before I hauled down the old one. Oh well, First World Lockdown Crisis resolved.
Hahaha!
If Trump's record on the Xi Jinping Flu response was as bad as Governor Cuomo's, the media would have crucified him rather than praised him. And (tip to Instapundit) the American response is much better than you likely think compared to those sophisticated Europeans based on deaths.
Experts are not oracles revealing the word of God. Tip to Instapundit.
Yes, Trump didn't wreck journalism. he just exposed how Obama wrecked it by making journalists his ink and pixel militia. Speaking of the militia in action: Governor Cuomo and his media brother. Journalists are the wind beneath Democrats' wings. Tips to Instapundit.
More on Germany's crackdown on Hezbollah in Germany. Sadly, Europeans pretend that Islamists have separate "political" and "military" wings, and that only the latter needs to be banned and fought. Europeans have a long way to go to defeat Islamists in Europe. And even worse, the facts show that the good guys in the Islamic civil war to define who defines Islam--jihadi nutballs or normal people who would rather get along.
Indian and Chinese troops clashed in hand-to-hand combat on the border in India's Sikkim state. It is not clear if this took place inside India or Chinese-occupied Tibet.
Dishonest effort goes into portraying anti-lockdown protesters as Nazis. If that vile ideology is so prevalent why bother to make it up?
Claims that Blue states are net contributors to the federal budget while Red states are takers compare apples to oranges. Retirement benefits go to individuals who tend to move out of blue states to red states where the federal payments to individuals are counted as going to the state the people choose to live in. Also, defense spending goes to contractors and support for military units that are based more in red states. And you pay more in taxes if you have wealthy people--which applies to a number of blue states, who in other issues say that is the right thing to do. And I'll add that a lot of federal money going to red states actually goes to blue cities within them. Anyway, it's not so simple.
How WHO was Xi's puppet in covering up the Xi Jinping Flu coronovirus problem until it was too late to contain in China.
