Another reason why America is fed up with Pakistan.
While I think the chance of civil war after the election is very low, the chance of violence is high--because we've seen it for four years. And I do worry that some locations could become "Bleeding Kansas" cockpits of violence that could radicalize and polarize people in a way that could increase the chances of civil war at some point in the future. Let's calm down, people. Stop verbalizing your darkest thoughts in public.
The way social media platforms push even more radical information to each side of the political spectrum, pushing radicalization and polarization, is it time for a Butlerian Jihad against social media algorithms?
Yes, we have a credentialed idiot problem. And some of the idiots pursue awful or even evil goals for America. Tip to Instapundit.
I won't deny that having an arsenal plane concept, as the Air Force recently tested, would be a nice thing to have for flexibility. But air transport planes will be in short supply in case of major power war for their primary function.
The Eagle-eyed media fact checkers let this Biden claim go unchallenged. And if you remember how at the time the Obama administration was claiming that strong growth was a thing of the past, you already knew the claim was wrong.
France will increase defense spending despite the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic economic problems.
I can hardly believe that Ethiopia has closed air space above its GERD dam and claimed it would shoot down attackers. While striking a dam is in theory possible by Egypt with Sudan's basing rights and cooperation, that would not work for long. If Ethiopian hostility is to be generated like that, surely Ethiopia could contaminate the waters flowing out of Ethiopia to Sudan and Egypt and do serious harm to the downriver states and their people. I assume the announcement is for domestic consumption as the U.S. pressures Ethiopia to offer protections to Egypt and Sudan about water security more binding than "trust us."
Is the Asymmetric Warfare Group still needed as a stand-alone organization or did it serve its function during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns, and can now see its functions housed elsewhere? I just don't know. I hate to see a needed group go; but I hate to see a body continue on inertia long after it is no longer needed. It's going away. So I hope it is not needed.
As the week starts, there is still violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but I can't really call it "war" yet unless you include spasms of violence in the definition. Although this analyst calls Azerbaijan's actions a "military offensive" I just don't see it. Perhaps I'm just not seeing the media reports that would justify such a description of scope and intensity.
Mali. At least it isn't a haven for jihadis to strike Europe.
Lie back and think of Chinese infrastructure?
The Crypto State for virtual citizenship? I'm skeptical that this is a natural progression beyond tribes which were replaced by nations and states. The massive but extremely thin "relationships" that social media creates globally can't match the loyalties of family, tribe, and nation. Before World War I, Communists thought the working class had transnational loyalties that would defeat national feelings. They were wrong. And since people live in the real world, how does a crypto state protect people or help the truly needy? Won't a crypto state just be an organization of the well off that leaves the sick and poor behind to be taken care of by those "obsolete" states? Nor am I convinced that the basis of such a system--the invulnerability of crypto-currency to theft--is realistic. Things of value will be stolen or counterfeit. Still, it is possible that virtual states could exist as a niche within--and enabled by--the traditional state system. Of course, come back to me and we can discuss this again when virtual reality relationships challenge real world relationships. Via Instapundit.
Let's just assume that a 404 error for an article on FSB dominance of Russia is just a quirky thing. Okay, a couple hours later the link works, so we can read that the FSB is "a quasi-criminal body that has taken on the functions of a 'second government' and invades all spheres of public and private life."
This is funny, but you can't deny that the Xi Jinping Flu covid19 virus let down the Democrats by failing to strike down Trump just like every BS charge they've leveled at Trump over the last four years. May this be symbolic on the eve of the election.
Hole videos popped up on my YouTube feed. Man, I was really attracted to Courtney Love back in the day. Yeah, that was healthy. But perhaps I've shared too much.
I don't understand Republicans who will vote for Biden even though they will grudgingly admit that Trump's policies are far more in line with their views than Biden can possibly be. You go to the election with the candidate you have and not the candidate you wish you had. And that is true for your opponents. I could not reward Democrats for their awful and seemingly criminal behavior the last four years by voting for any Democrat for any office.
Finally some voting integrity and sanity.
Oops. I'm sure Russians in the Far East won't mind potential poisoning at the wholesale--as opposed to the retail--level at all.
Trump returned to the White House and his removal of his mask for a photo op while on a balcony away from anybody else has triggered Democrats??!! Oh FFS.
Oh FFS, saying that the country needs to move on without debilitating levels of fear despite the pandemic does not deny the ordeal that the minority of people who got the virus endured before surviving (which the vast majority of people who get it do). Moving on does not mean we don't take precautions or that we don't take extra precautions for the vulnerable. Every day families send their adults off to work knowing that some of them won't make it due to work accidents, traffic accidents, or crime. It is what it is. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Enough information comes out of Russia to see their pandemic infections going up. But do we really know the extent of the pandemic there given Russia's backwardness and secrecy?
Our media is a joke. Political fluffers.
Taiwan's military is under pressure reacting to Chinese probes.
So it is basically AirLand Battle 2.0 with separated sensors and shooters?
The Navy will test a small ship able to repair the LCS when forward deployed.
India is outgunned on the border with China where China is pressing its advantage. Will China push India to make foreign alliances? Perhaps the Russia-India relationship will be restored if Russia's recent bout of lucidity is any indication. Luckily nothing decisive can take place up there; and if things explode India can escalate to the sea where American naval power could potentially help. Sadly, India still hasn't made much progress in fixing their air force inadequacy.
I see that the British government in World War II made light of the survivors of the Blitz with this insensitive attitude:
Clearly the Brits should have stayed in the air raid shelters until the Nazis were defeated. Somehow.
The Saudis are telling the Palestinians to stop working with Arab enemies and to get a grip and cut a deal with the Israelis instead of continuing to be the most self-destructive people in the world (well, their leaders who profit from the situation anyway). Well, "most self-destructive people in the world" is my wording, but that's a good summary.
How are Obama administration and Clinton campaign officials not in prison for their collusion with Russia to undermine the Trump campaign and administration?!! "According to the declassified notes, Brennan and the U.S. intelligence
community knew months prior to the 2016 election that the collusion
smear was the result of a campaign operation hatched by the campaign of
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton." And that is separate from Clinton's evasion of government communications security with her personal email server. If Biden wins, all that just goes away and there won't be any justice served. A normal press corps would be investigating rather than ignoring this.
I don't know whether Trump will win or not, but CNN and NBC polling registered voters is insane--or politically motivated. That method favors Democrats and always has. So no doubt they show a big Biden edge. Which is why I've mentioned that once the election starts, polling moves to figuring out just who likely voters will be and polling them. It's a bloody giveaway of political bias to poll registered voters now. The only purpose is to discourage Trump voters from voting. I'm not panicking. Apparently there are other ways some pollsters are using that I hadn't even considered. I can't count on the media to inform me about what is going on. But I worry that many of the reasons given not to worry about the polls--and they seem valid--are just a case of whistling past the graveyard. I don't want to conflate what I hope is true with what is true. Maybe there are valid reasons for structuring the polls the way they are. I just don't know because that is out of my lane. What I do know is that if the polls tighten significantly as the election gets closer I will certainly celebrate rather than dismiss them. So should I believe them now? We'll just have to wait and see what actual (and valid) voters do. Keep calm and carry on. And vote like the outcome hangs in the balance.
Again, the idea that Trump could have taken decisive action to shut down America early in the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic before there was a consensus that action was necessary is nonsense when you remember that Democrats would have accused Trump of finally revealing his true nature as a dictator and only interested in suppressing the latest "game changer" BS accusation. (And that's apart from whether it would have worked.) You think I'm wrong? Have you seen the media going nuts claiming that Trump leaving the hospital early is a symbolism of a dictator?
Yeah, what has free market capitalism done for people?
What are the lessons of Armenia's tank losses? Current tanks are surely too expensive to survive on a battlefield of cheap sensors and cheap anti-tank weapons. These high-end tanks surely will lose their dominance one day, perhaps soon. But could better combined arms integration degrade the sensors and suppress the weapons and extend the usefulness of current expensive tanks? What I am sure about is that mobile protected firepower is still needed if there is to be hope of having mobile warfare and avoiding stalemated attrition. And that's a lot of tanks lost for what seems more like skirmishing than a war, at this point. What am I missing?
A reminder that the 1619 Project is garbage history and nothing more than anti-American propaganda.
Your Yemen clusterfuck update.
The top members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are self-quarantining because the Coast Guard second in command tested positive for the Xi Jinping Flu. Note that the others have not tested positive.
The Chinese air force is modernizing, shedding obsolete planes, and training harder.
Recall what I wrote a couple weeks ago: "So ABC disguised Democratic partisans as 'uncommitted' voters for a Trump town hall. To be fair, ABC would do the same for Biden." Yeah, NBC did that for two pro-Biden voters. So I got the network wrong. So far. Tip to Instapundit.
Wow, the Russians are everywhere!
I say Portland deserves everything they get if this is what they choose. I mean, if their voters think the current mayor isn't pro-Antifa enough, WTF?
I ended my YouTube TV alternative to cable TV. It went from significantly cheaper than cable to marginally cheaper but with many more channels that I didn't want. I finally gave up on antennas for over-the-air TV. But I found Locast.org which offers streaming over-the-air channels. I pay just $5 per month for that. It is free and after I tested it out a bit, I figured it was worth supporting. Combined with YouTube and streaming services plus other Roku offerings, this will work out just fine.
E-effing-gad. It's a big, weird, world. The Internet of Things is a bad idea and that made it an even worse idea. Tip to Insanity Wrap.
Somebody will entertain us. Let's hope it isn't Hollywood.
Hahahaha! To Senator Harris' right during the Wednesday debate, the words "while evil" hovered over her. Oops. Of course, it says "suffer" by Pence. What is worse? And I just don't get how Harris thinks that the American people won't notice that job losses are because of the Chinese Communist Party-enabled pandemic and subsequent shutdown--which the Democrats want to extend!--and not because of Trump policies that led to record low unemployment right before the pandemic shutdown was ordered. And wow, Harris just serial lied on military, defense, and racial matters. Thank goodness Pence did the job of finally correcting the longstanding "Fine people hoax" that ignores Trump's actual words condemning white supremacists and neo-Nazis. There is no way it will be "fact checked." Oh, and a question. If Harris can go back to the Lincoln era for precedent on Supreme Court nominations--ignoring the intervening decades (and completely getting the history wrong)--can we go back to that era for Democratic views on slavery? Seriously, she seemed oddly pleased with herself for that bit of history that was not followed by precedent the next 150 years.
It looks like #metoo has evolved into celebrating the ability of women with power to abuse subordinates. Or am I missing something?
"I just think that COVID is God's gift to the Left." Seriously? But Trump saying not to excessively fear the Xi Jinping Flu disrespects survivors? Exit question: Is Covid19 better or worse than the Viet Cong?
After reading that algorithms on social media push you to more extreme viewpoints based on your viewing/reading, I have started to keep logged into YouTube when I use it and block any channel that pops up with an author I don't know. I'm deflecting even the potential of sketchy to avoid getting extremist crap. I know it will be an endless battle but it seems worth it, all things considered. And that is the only thing I use that can be considered social media, I guess.
How long before the feverish portions of Twitter (that's saying something) floats the idea that the fly on Pence's hair was actually a micro-drone that spied on Harris notes and was reporting back to him?
Yeah. At this point the real Resistance is composed of Trump supporters who dare not reveal their support for fear of retribution.
The lesson from the Democrats in the VP debate is that the first rule of Court Packing Club is don't talk about Court Packing Club.
It would be nice if Hezbollah is so weakened that the Lebanese government could reclaim sovereignty over all of Lebanon, including Hezbollah's rocket-launching belt along the Israeli border. But it may also be the best chance for Israel to really hammer Hezbollah.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict in the context of the Russia-Turkey rivalry. Strategypage confirms my assessment of the military balance between Russia and Turkey.
Note that a thousand Russian troops inside Belarus for exercises have not left the country after the exercises. They aren't enough to intervene in Belarus but they are enough to defend a receiving point for incoming Russian troops, much like Sevastopol was a base for Russia's take over of Crimea in 2014. Belarus is much larger of course. Would Belarus be in enough chaos to preclude effective resistance much as Ukraine faced in early 2014?
In practical usage, "mansplaining" is simply a conservative man inconveniently telling a liberal woman why she is wrong or lying. #believeallwomen, I guess.
If the Xi Jinping Flu causes a flight from cities that lasts for a while, it will be an interesting experiment on whether liberals move to cities or whether cities create liberals.
Well that isn't a stupid stunt at all.
Mali's neighbors and partners got over the whole military coup thing. Sadly, what's the choice if you don't want to abandon the place to jihadis?
When the "foes" conspired to commit crimes, they should be in prison! And that is because they committed crimes and not because they are foes. Like these (alleged) criminals, if you want an example more to your liking. I'm glad they were stopped, although shamefully Biden blamed them on Trump ignoring that at least one seems to be an anarchist and that Trump's FBI stopped them. So remember that Trump isn't a free fire zone despite the wishes of the media and Democrats. Whitmer also shamefully blamed Trump. As if any Republican leader blamed Democrats for the gun attack on the Congressional Republican baseball team or the physical assault of Senator Rand Paul.
Please note that I, like pretty much every other taxpayer in my not-lofty bracket, received a tax cut from the Trump tax cuts contrary to the assertions by the Biden team.
This seems about right regarding the Xi Jinping Flu virus (via Instapundit). The safetyism fanatics need to be ignored. I've come to the conclusion that our first four weeks of lockdown were justified in our lack of knowledge and worry that the virus would overwhelm our medical care system. But it is now clear that we have overreacted by continuing lockdowns when the death rate is so low and especially rare among young, healthy people. Nobody is saying we should go back to the "five-second rule." We should focus on protecting the vulnerable and treating those who get sick even as we pursue a vaccine. Yes, wear a mask indoors among strangers and wash your hands a lot; and limit crowd sizes, especially indoors. And a lot of people won't be able to get on with a normal life yet. Me, for example. I have considerations that make me take extra care to avoid spreading the virus. But that's my responsibility and burden and shouldn't define what all people must do. Ultimately, we can't afford to cope with the pandemic if our economy doesn't generate the resources to do that. It seems apparent that the pandemic has been harnessed for political purposes to defeat Trump and Republicans.
I think it is an absolute mistake to withdraw all our troops from Afghanistan by the end of this year. I assume the rest of the coalition will leave too. Will we continue to provide training and maintenance with contractors? Will we provide air support from outside the country? These things could reduce the risks but I don't think it is likely that we can reduce them enough to matter. We can't unilaterally end a war. All we can do is stop fighting and let enemies do what they will. But neither party as configured likes my policies on this issue, I'm afraid.
Speaker Pelosi wants to use the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office for the sin of not dying from Covid19. Actually, I think this is a dry run for using it on Biden if the Harris-Biden team wins. I'm not the only one thinking along those lines.
New American sanctions on Iran. Good.
The secretary of defense discussed Battle Force 2045 to meet China's rising fleet. Reduced reliance on big deck carriers seems to be an option by potentially reducing their number to 8. Although the big ships are still talked up in the strategy. It would be nice if our shipbuilding industry didn't ef up an expansion with poor quality control. If we go to war it would be nice if we didn't shockingly find out there is something wrong with our bloody ships that day.
How is this not science fiction rather than science. Interesting if true, naturally.
The unarmored HMMWV was too vulnerable in counter-insurgency so the armored JLTV was designed. COIN is over and great power competition has returned, meaning the more expensive JLTV is less likely to need its protection in a required transport role. So now the military needs an unarmored cheap light transport.
China adopts the aviation brigade.
Trusting China is nuts. Via Instapundit.
Xi Jinping Flu cases are rising in Germany. Merkel has gotten a lot of credit for Germany's relatively low level of cases and deaths. I suspect we define covid deaths dramatically differently. It will be interesting to eventually find out what factors produced this. When this is all over, of course, and we know what each country endured. And establish uniform definitions. Who knows what determines each country's outcome?
This writer wants America to remain engaged in Belarus as protesters continue to demand democracy. Well, Belarus is probably the most important territory in Europe today.
What to do about Nagorno-Karabakh? Sometimes it seems like the Caucasus is the new Balkans for unresolved borders and self determination crises. The Soviet empire did not fragment as nicely as one would like there. And probably couldn't.
Space Force is foreseeing space 3D printing and space tow trucks. That's nice. Get back to me when it foresees Space Marines Orbital Detachments.
The British "infected" Hong Kong with the desire for freedom. Did China infect Britain with the desire for control?
United States Army Europe is now headed by a 4-star general and will merge with U.S. Army Africa.
Would the Democrats really eliminate our land-based nuclear deterrent?! When China is expanding its nuclear arsenal and Russia is reliant on nukes for territorial defense?
Honestly, that's a good sign that government help should skip the middle man of massive government bureaucracies that spend more to perpetuate themselves than on their clients. I've long said I'm in favor of such payments if they replace existing government welfare programs.
Democrats trying to turn this into an outrage are either stupid or too partisan for the good of our country. All the senator was saying is that pure democracy can result in a tyranny of the majority. Which is why America is a republic with rule-of-law and political-minority-protection constraints to prevent that kind of tyranny from happening. That is all. And it is a well known feature of our country and a long-known pitfall of pure democracy. This is Political Science 101. I guess pretending it is an outrage is Politics 101.
Thanks 2020! My mom had that as a child. She remembers being isolated in hospital until she recovered. We don't want it back in an evolved form.
What kind of awful city could produce a police force that killed a suspect?
Qatar should not get the F-35s it has requested to buy as long as Qatar has defense ties with Turkey--which we have blacklisted from the F-35 for its failure to be a good ally by forging ties with Russia.
I will never trust nor pay attention to Republican "Never Trumpers" for helping Biden win the election. I can understand opposing specific policies. I certainly have. I can understand despising the man and hoping his style goes away after he leaves office. I certainly want to leave his style behind. But you go to November with the candidates you have and not the candidates you wish (or pretend) you have. Trump denied the White House to Clinton and he must deny it to Biden-Harris. Helping the current iteration of insane Democrats is so destructive I can't fathom the logic that goes into that decision. These "Republicans" are as nuts as the Democrats they are supporting.
India wants better relations with Iran. That's because India wants to end Pakistan's stranglehold on easy transportation links to the outside world. India has long wanted that. Heck, even I want a transportation link through Iran.
It is pretty amazing that 56% of people say they are better off now than four years ago when you consider the pandemic and related lockdowns, plus the summer of violence. Could that really be true and backed by statistical measures? But if people answering that question are using the question as a proxy for how they will vote, that's rather reassuring. But again, I don't know where my hopes and reality diverge on this issue. I always remember wise words from a fiction book I read when quite young in which a French diplomat in America was sending back nonsense to his superiors in Paris. He explained to the American who questioned him on reinforcing their wrong theories, "Nobody gets credit for being right when your boss is wrong. It is much better to be wrong in the same manner as your boss." I know that it seems unlikely that Biden can win over Trump voters from 2016 with superior policies. But will enough succumb to the Democratic blackmail that the insanity and violence won't end until Trump is defeated? Are pro-Trump writers soothing Trump supporters that all is well just interested (perhaps subconsciously) in being wrong in the same way as their readers? I don't know.
You send a fly? We send a racoon! Will PETA demand that CNN put disclaimers that "no racoons were harmed in the making of this broadcast" on their network?
Wait. What? Pelosi is unveiling a 25th Amendment bill this close to an election? Why isn't she "letting the voters decide" first? It's almost like her term of office goes to January, or something.
The University of Michigan is selling fan cutouts to put in the stadium for home football games. That actually kind of pisses me off. Students could have been spread out in the stadium, but no. What's next, pay $50 to have a cardboard hot dog and drink cup in your cardboard hands?
Germany will send troops to combat a resurgence of the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic. Why not? It's not like its military is fit to fight the Russians.
Russia is having problems policing its former empire. Maybe if Putin hadn't wasted money in peripheral adventures in Syria and Africa on top of waging war on Ukraine, Russia would have the money and threat of force to settle Belarus, the Caucasus, and now Kyrgyzstan.
Good. Wear out the equipment and use up the fuel. I doubt if the ICBM displayed represents a working weapon.
To be accused is to be guilty. This will work out well, eh?
Calling in the global reserves.
I have to stop. There are too many good ones this week:
Venezuela hasn't gotten any better with the world distracted by the Xi Jinping Flu pandemic.
If Erdogan wants to rebuild the Ottoman Empire's sphere of influence, Erdogan has to expect Ottoman enemies will band together: "Russia and Egypt will conduct a joint naval exercise in the Black Sea
for the first time, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced Thursday." Egypt also settled its maritime border with Greece, in another sign that Erdogan is prompting the former enemies of the Ottoman Empire to band together.
Again, I hope this analysis of poll accuracy right now is true. Amazingly, the article notes a claim that some pollsters are looking at adult voters. Recall I mentioned that likely voters should be the universe rather than registered voters or--God forbid--all adults. I worry it is more hope than truth.
Can Qatar get the F-35 they want? Honestly, Qatar doesn't need a stealth fighter given that the only target we'd like them to face--and Qatar is too friendly to Iran and Erdogan's Turkey--is Iran, whose air force is a joke.
What most impresses me about activist leftists is their compassion. Tip to Instapundit.
Is the Ford-class carrier a failure already? Is this an opportunity to phase out the big deck dominance of the Navy for sea control missions? More and more I see carriers as mainly useful in the sea control mission as the "cavalry" that exploits the success of a network-centric force that breaks apart the cohesion of enemy fleet defenses and runs down the wounded on a large scale.
You know you love your child when you help her register to vote and get a ballot when you know she will vote for Biden. Failure on so many levels.
An interesting aspect of the Xi Jinping Flu is that we discovered that we didn't actually know how many people die each year from the regular flu strains. Those were modeled estimates. And we thought it was data. The death toll from regular flu viruses was not as great as we believed despite thinking the science was settled.
Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Russia. Or maybe not.
Biden: You deserve to know what I decide you deserve to know. Know your place bloody peasants! Also, he seems unclear about what "news" means. It's not supposed to mean being his agent and publicist. Or maybe I'm unclear about the reality of 2020.
Well, as of dawn on Sunday I made it through my 14-day self-imposed quarantine. I do not have the Xi Jinping Flu. I went to Las Vegas for four days. My luck held with a couple college friends and we drank, gambled, and dined at some nice restaurants. I lost money at half the expected rate. So, yay! You may recall my impression of the Atomic Saloon Show last year (scroll down to the video or search). No shows this year. I only recently discovered gambling--after covering the issue in the state legislature for a couple decades, and drafting the resolutions that allowed the initial tribal casinos--but once per year is more than enough for me. And outside of Vegas I don't know if it would have any appeal. There was hand sanitizer everywhere and temperature scans as you walked into any casino. But the masks available all over were crappy--I'm glad I brought my own. It wasn't nearly as weird as I feared it would be. Much fun. Anyway, it was a risk but damn it, life must be lived. I'm pretty careful otherwise--hence my quarantine just in case. Still, marrying the out-of-work stripper Tatiana at that chapel was possibly a mistake. But perhaps I've shared too much.
Well, Sweden's pandemic strategy worked for Sweden--assuming it isn't too early to judge results. But I don't assume Sweden's policy could have been implemented elsewhere without knowing the similarities and differences in conditions. Via Instapundit.
How to find and kill terrorists.
"The Clinton campaign dreamed up, paid for, and peddled the Trump-Russia collusion farce." And the campaign effort to distract from Clinton's State Department email security-avoidance scheme with a private server was turned by the Obama administration and its loyalists working with the media into a coup attempt. While it failed to deprive Trump of his first term, the lies that have been spread for four years may well deprive him of a second term. This is banana republic stuff and we're living in it. But the media that went all-in on the Trump collusion fantasy ignore the actual collusion. Will there be justice if Trump loses the election?
