Sudan continues to be a Third World Hell Hole while South Sudan seems to have advanced to Heck Hole status--for now.
Time heals all wounds (to our sense of propriety).
If you think taxes on the "rich" will pay for a massive expansion of government spending, you might want to check the definitions section for what "rich" means. You will be included in it. Always check the definitions section, I advise.
More on the eDystopian State that China is building. On the bright side, when the revolution comes the victorious rebels will know who to execute based on their high social credit score. So they've got that going for them. Which is nice. Unless corruption undermines the accuracy of the score, of course. Which could also harm the party-state if it merely thinks it has the people securely thought-controlled when they do not.
Oh please, Netanyahu is not the cause of Democratic creeping embrace of anti-semitism. If some leftist was in charge of Israel somebody would just say he was a "pretty face" obscuring Israel's crimes.
Uh oh. That ruling that says Britain has to give up the Chagos Archipelago to Mauritius which could lose America our rather important Diego Garcia base that enables us to operate in the Indian Ocean region. Not that the history of how that happened makes America or Britain look good. And simply hanging on to the island base--even though the ruling is non-binding--would be used by China to justify their actions in the South China Sea despite a binding ruling against them in a dispute with the Philippines. Would Mauritius allow America to keep the base? I'm sure discussions are going on now. Even if Britain declines to obey the ruling, America should probably have some completely unrelated payment to Mauritius (which is quietly completely related and intended to continue should Mauritius gain formal control of Diego Garcia). There is precedent for that. Or would India provide another base option? And if we leave, could China move in and get rights to a base on Diego Garcia? That would be bad. On a related note, the CNN map of "bases" that America has around the world is misleading if you think of it as a major post with major combat units, rather than a mix of those and small contingents of American troops for some purpose. For example, I have no idea why the map shows we have a base in China-owned Hong Kong. Perhaps we have a small staff of Navy personnel to handle the logistics of port visits by our ships. Oh, and being CNN, it has to use the term "manspreading" in the article. Seriously? They still claim to know the difference between apples and bananas?
Question: If climate science is "settled" with a consensus, why does the federal government still allocate money to study climate change? Aren't we bouncing the warming rubble at this point with more study?
Ugh, another 737 dropped from the sky, in Ethiopia this time. Is there a problem to be fixed or just random clumping of rare events?
I'm glad that is cleared up: " [China's facilities for Moslems aren't concentration camps.] They are the same as boarding schools,' [Xinjiang's governor] said, adding that the personal freedoms of the 'students' were guaranteed." Guaranteed to be zero.
I suspect the EUstapo won. I can only hope a no-deal Brexit is the result rather than a victory of Remain over the vote of the people that the terms of the vote said would be final. The Russians must be stunned at how effectively the EU is managing to hold on to their British province despite the vote of the people 2-1/2 years ago to leave the EU given that Russian tanks and secret police couldn't hold their empire together in the 2-1/2 years after the Berlin Wall was cracked open. With a win like this over a major nuclear-armed power, how much longer will the EU proto-imperial state have that prefix? I really hope that my view that the Brexit side should take the deal Prime Minister May offered and work on amending it over time after getting out of the EU because, as I've long worried, turning down a flawed deal just gives the Remain side a chance to reverse the vote is a complete misreading of the British political scene. But killing the good--or even the adequate--in pursuit of the perfect is not a new thing in human thinking.
"Elderly Americans Are Dying Without Getting to Read Mueller's Report - And They're Not Happy About It" Sure, you are thinking it is a funny Onion or Babylon Bee article. But no, it is Newsweek. My how the mighty have fallen.
The king is dead. Long live the king? I suspect this is a tactical victory for the people in a losing war. It would be nice to be wrong. Their young people want more than pretend change. Good luck with that.
The less committed jihadis in the last pocket of ISIL in Syria are surrendering. I'm a bit shocked that there were any less committed jihadis left there. But it is a good sign when people on a mission from God don't fight to the death.
The command and control ship of 7th Fleet sailed through the China-claimed South China Sea and to make it a two-fer, docked in Manila in a symbol of support for the Philippines which is under threat from Chinese claims. I'd be happier if a ship like that was escorted and overwatched as it sailed because one day China may escalate their response.
I know, I know, this time it's different. Honestly, I grow weary of the hysterical cries of doom. I yawn about global warming not because I don't care about the future but because I'm fairly confident we'll be just fine without hysterical responses that cost us ungodly sums of money. Tip to Instapundit.
I don't understand why Jews vote for Democrats so heavily. But I don't understand why African Americans vote heavily for Democrats despite the party's position on increasing immigration that competes with African-American job seekers; and I don't understand why feminists support Democrats despite Democratic tendency to excuse Islamist ideology that is highly misogynist, to say the least. I realize there are other policies that clearly take precedence. But I don't want to hear another damn word about how working class whites vote "against their true interests" by voting Republican. Of course, I deny that supporting a party that just promises to give you stuff is really in one's interest. Tip to the PJ Media Live Blog.
Israel says it might take direct action to stop Iran's banned oil exports. Is this an Israeli warning for Iran to stay away if Israel hammers Hezbollah?
It's funny that Hollywood prides itself for its resistance to the Trumptatorship given that in their world dissent is not the highest form of artistry. Tip to Instapundit. But of course, Hollywood's predatory nature that victimized women didn't stop Hollywood from posing as defenders of women.
Interesting. I don't consider myself as "pro-Trump" as much as I consider myself relieved that a Trump I did not trust in 2016 has been willing to push conservative policies. I also consider myself pro-Trump supporters (I grew up in Deplorableville and recognize that their concerns have been discounted for a long time) and resent the demonization of them by the Left. And I resent calling any people who oppose a Trump policy or comment as "never Trumpers." And I really don't like the term RINO as if being 80% with you is a crime as bad as being 80% against you. I am never invested so much either for or against an individual person. So I judge Trump on policies and recognize that if our media concealed his flaws the way they hid those of past presidents rather than amplify Trump's flaws, we'd have nothing to discuss about "breaking presidential norms." If that new magazine discussed by Hanson is really just a place for Republicans to oppose Trump, I see no reason to read it despite having positive views from past writings of a number of people associated with it. There's plenty of that genre already. We'll see if those writers are disappointing. But as I said, I don't invest much in individuals.
Hamas and related issues. The idea that it is an Israeli war crime because Israel has lost 2 soldiers while Palestinians have lost over 250 in a year of "protests" that look an awful lot like border assaults with human shields is ludicrous. The war crime charge rests on misapplying the concept of "proportionality" in lawful battle by mistakenly arguing it means balance in death tolls instead of balancing means with ends. My common hyperbolic example is that you don't drop a nuke on an apartment building to get rid of a sniper. Obviously the casualty disparity is not disproportionate given that Hamas continues to assault the Israeli border. If Hamas doesn't feel they are suffering too many deaths why should the world? And if Hamas suddenly gets much better at killing Israelis, is everything all okey dokey?
These people--and those as yet uncharged--should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Actual collusion and obstruction of justice.
I really do keep in mind that it is possible (and necessary) to try to respect people even if I think their ideas are idiotic. I hope that comes through. I really don't think (99% of) people I disagree with here are stupid and/or evil. Although our jihadi enemies are clearly evil and I swear to God the Russian leadership is sand-pounding stupid.
Please remember that it is a myth that President Trump said that both sides--including white nationalists or Nazis as one of the sides--in the 2017 Charlottesville confrontation had "very fine people." He clearly referred to the Confederate statue issue (keep them for history/heritage or tear them down for symbolic justice) and not the confrontation between Antifa and Neo-Nazis. He clearly separated the statue people from the hard core violent people, explicitly condemning the racists. Listen to it. All of it. What is unclear? Or do you really believe he thought people who hate Jewish members of his family are very fine people? And do you really believe he thought some of the Antifa scum on the other side were very fine people, too? Jussie Smollett is surely stunned his hate hoax didn't work out as well.
Sometimes it seems as if our problems with Russia stem from their rapid collapse and defeat in the 1989-1991 period between the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the Soviet Union. It seems like the Russians resented that they were no longer feared and the center of attention. A slow decline might have gotten them used to their loss of centrality, but the big bang collapse did not allow that transition. On the other hand, a slow decline might have led Russia to enter the Thucydides Trap and attempt to roll the dice with a war against NATO while they still had a chance of advancing their tanks to the Rhine River.
Perhaps the senator thought the kids were fine if they were 1/1024th qualified? Just as important, how good are those schools that those unqualified students got into on fake credentials if such students graduate? It's almost like Hollywood knows that all you really need from college is the credential. In their world, anyway. If the students choose a bullshit major--which have long existed--that would be an explanation all by itself. And it doesn't matter if they can't use the bullshit degree for a job--they'll be fine with their family connections. It really is depressing for the issue of equality of opportunity. I grew up in Detroit and getting good scores on the SAT and ACT--and I didn't even know that test preparation courses existed--were my ticket to a good school (the University of Michigan) that bypassed social status and connections (and ability to bribe and cheat). It isn't enough for the well off that they can afford to give their children opportunities that cost scads of money which can be put on a college application to show how "well rounded" the student is. What chance does a bright young person from a place like Detroit have these days on such a tilted playing field even without the bribery? Tips to Instapundit.
It is depressing that the national debt continues to climb with nobody giving a damn.
The Russians tried to stop the production of the F-35 with propaganda claiming it didn't work. Now we know it works. Is a protest group focusing on how the plane is nuclear-capable a replacement effort?
Who says America doesn't think ahead? Fifty-year-old moon rock samples saved until scientific methods advanced will be opened for researchers. On the other hand, it is depressing that NASA assumed that over the course of 50 years we wouldn't get any more moon rocks. Of course, they were right.
Assad warns that the war is not over. He has a point. There are still rebels and terrorists in Syria. The Kurds in the northeast are outside of the state, backed by American and other foreign forces. Turkey and Iran occupy portions of Syria. And Israel attacks Iranian assets at will. The only people Assad welcomes are the Russians who gained bases during the war. But more important, after surviving by telling his backers that the choice was Assad or death at the hands of his enemies, Assad has to be careful about peace. At peace, his backers may relax as the threat dries up and start to react to the brutal casualties and hardships they endured to keep Assad in power. So peace could be just as dangerous to Assad.
An American base in Poland gets closer. We should not base large amounts of ground troops in Poland. It would be enough to scare the paranoid Russians but not be enough to stop the Russians. What I would like to see is a base that is protected against air, missile, and ground attack by special forces or airborne forces, designed to receive reinforcements coming in by air and land. It would have a rotating heavy brigade as we send now; and it would have prepositioned unit sets modelded on the Cold War era REFORGER--REFORPOL, as I called it.
It remains unclear if India actually struck a terrorist camp in Pakistan after a Pakistani terror attack inside India or if India conducted retaliation theater by hitting an empty field somewhere.
Defeating ISIL in the long campaign to liberate Mosul by early 2017 is not the end of the war in Iraq. We've helped liberate Mosul before and if we don't help/prod Iraq in the relative peace we will need to help liberate Mosul from jihadis again. Luckily, we do plan to stay in Iraq to keep the pressure on ISIL, which, yes, has the side benefit of keeping an eye on and blocking Iranian influence in Iraq.
I would love to have unmanned Navy ships take over the forward presence role that is now conducted by crewed ships. We need forward presence in peacetime but if an enemy decides on war our forward ships dangled in front of them and operating on a non-wartime footing will be tempting targets for our enemy. And their presence could in fact prompt an enemy to strike in the hope of taking out a significant portion of our naval combat power to allow the enemy to achieve their military goals in that temporary vacuum of our power. The Japanese went all the way to Pearl Harbor to do that so our forward ships shouldn't be thought of as immune to similar attacks.
Oh? (Massive eye-roll in progress)
A Navy amphibious warfare ship is essentially quarantined at sea in the Middle East because of parotitis? This is probably exactly as described but I do wonder if there is another reason to keep a ship at sea isolated. As I've said many times, you basically don't hide what you are doing by preventing foes from seeing what you are doing, but by giving them a harmless reason why they see what they see. No idea what that could be, but my suspicious mind wonders if the ship picked up something interesting at its last port call in Romania. Again, it is almost surely as described.
I've long noted that as communism falters as a justification for Chinese Communist Party rule--and as economic growth slows, undermining that pillar of legitimacy--that the Chinese rulers seem to be relying more on nationalism to justify the party's monopoly of power. I've worried that the party is riding a tiger it can't control if the people demand China take military action in some crisis. Could the party ignore a widespread call for war by an increasingly nationalist public and remain in power? Losing a war to retain power rather than risking a nationalist rebellion should not be ruled out as the best option from the CCP's point of view. That is why I never take too much comfort from analysts who say China would lose a war with America. That might not be relevant to their decision. I bring this up because I wonder if we have a strange interest in China perfecting their dystopian police state surveillance and social credit rating system if it can blunt a call for war rising from China's people when China's rulers don't want to go to war?
A pack--not a flock. It's almost as if ... they're organized.
Bastard! I hope New Zealand has the death penalty. My God,
While the French updated their carrier, French carrier aircraft trained on board an American carrier to maintain proficiency. Cool. French political leadership may ... frustrate me; but the French do have some good units across the board in capabilities. So when leadership chooses to be an ally, their military can step up.
The Army's "big six" priorities of artillery, armored vehicles, aircraft, a battlefield intetnet, air defense, and infantry.
After decades of hoping that China will be a growing partner, the West led by America is pushing back against China's trade policies, espionage, propaganda, territorial claims, and military build up. And China is vulnerable economically. Just what is "learn to code" in Chinese?
And as the above link notes, China has a 99-year lease on a port in Sri Lanka that China grabbed when Sri Lanka couldn't repay the loan burden China put on them (with Sri Lanka's idiotic cooperation, of course). Which is ironic when you consider how China claimed they endured a century of humiliation at the hands of the West which grabbed ports (like Hong Kong with a 99-year British lease on most of Hong Kong).
Oh good grief, for those trying to blame the Christchurch massacre on Trump the killer in New Zealand hates capitalism and America; and is an environmental extremist who admires communist-run China. God almighty does everything have to be about Trump? The killer was Australian so why isn't Australia getting the blame? I have no idea if that site is accurate (or what that site is), but if it accurately conveys the murderer's sick world view it is not what the Trump-obsessed think it is. Even if the killer (and any accomplices) is a panty-throwing Trump fanboy, that no more makes Trump guilty than Islam is guilty because murderous jihadi scum claim to murder on the name of Islam for the benefit of all Moslems. White nationalists should obviously be resisted and defeated. Full stop. The baseless accusations against Americans from those who make excuses for jihadi hatred and murder are hard to take given their record.
Socialism still has so many fans in the West because unlike after World War II when Nazism was exposed and literally tried for its crimes, after the Cold War there was no such reckoning for communism (which was in theory the end result of socialism). Like I've said, we weren't too hard on Russia after the Cold War, we were too easy on them. But with all those ex-Soviet nukes we had no choice. We defeated the dangerous and evil Union of Soviet Socialist Republics despite their nukes; while today we bizarrely have to battle our own people who think socialism means you care. Socialism is quite simply evil and power hungry, and you should have no doubt of that.
Israel pounded Hamas targets after rockets were fired at Tel Aviv. Tit-for-tat is a loser's game.
4,500 years ago, invaders from "people from the steppes near the Black and Caspian seas" basically wiped out the local stock in the Iberian peninsula as DNA analysis shows. The fate of native populations when Europeans arrived in the Americas at the end of the 15th century was less dramatic for the target population than past collisions of people. This is not to defend European impact, except to say that it was once a very normal pattern. Historically speaking they should not be judged by our standards. We would not and should not do that now. But spare a little perspective before tearing down Christopher Columbus statues.
Representative AOC is complaining about working all the time. Well, it is mid-March. So she is right on schedule.
Strategypage looks at the F-15X and how it fills gaps. It seemed obvious to me that the proven design could still be useful. And that's not even counting the foreign sales angle.
The production of our Arleigh Burke destroyers was extended and now extended again before it is anticipated that a replacement ship will go into production. We'll see if the technology designed for the cancelled Zumwalt will allow the new SOZ ship to be affordable. Although that would better be DOZ, I suppose.
U.S-Brazilian military ties are growing. Does this reflect discussions about what Brazil can do with their military? Like if Venezuela finally goes full belly up in the fish bowl? We'll see whether Brazil helps if Guaido gets in trouble in his "next phase" tour of Venezuela to rally support against Maduro's criminal regime.
Well that's generally good news--but for Germany, naturally. And what's with Canada? But for accuracy's sake since the NATO defense spending agreement was made in 2014 it is technically an Obama demand. Not that you heard anything on the paper pledge until Trump.
I'm only slowly reading the Army study of the Iraq War (volumes one and two). One clear failure was that in the aftermath of the war the Army started out without a real overall plan, with each division going its own way in devising a strategy. Combined with poorly drawn divisional boundaries, that hampered our early efforts. I still don't think having a good strategy right off the bat would have prevented the insurgencies given Sunni Arab resentment at losing power-and being stunned by their rapid defeat wouldn't last forever--and Iran's long-standing efforts to build influence in Iraq. But it would have started us off better to face the new threat.
Yeah, no officer wants that kind of attention.
Estonia warns of Russian civilian ships being used for intelligence purposes. Yeah, like interfering in our domestic politics this is nothing new. When I was a child I built a model of a Soviet "fishing trawler" used for intelligence gathering.
I see the
The six reasons buildings collapse so often in Africa are really just one reason: corruption that allows too weak foundations, materials that aren't strong enough, shoddy workmanship, exceeding weight capacity, failure to inspect, and people remaining in condemned building.
Singapore will buy the F-35. Probably.Which provides good air defense if we use the city-state as a base at the southwestern outlet to the South China Sea. Although if the salty sea air is a problem perhaps the carrier F-35C rather than the F-35A land version should be chosen.
Protests that morph into riots continue in France.
There was a false reporting and police reaction to an active shooter on the University of Michigan campus Saturday evening. My first thought was, "where is my daughter?" But my second thought was that I bet it was a hoax. As it turns out this happened right after a campus rally about the Christchurch massacre. So people were primed to think about and fear a shooter. Then there may have been some balloons popped that people assumed were gunshots. After that it snowballed. There was a report of a shooter walking down State Street. Which obviously didn't happen. So it lies somewhere between a hoax and a panic. I lean to the latter.
I see on the news that ANSWER is standing with thug ruler Maduro. ANSWER is a communist group in America that loves to organize protests in defense of threatened thug rulers around the world. The yellow and black signs are a hallmark of the group, for whatever reason.
What's with all those cultural appropriators who aren't even Irish like I am clogging up the pubs today? Who gave them permission to wear green? Should I be micro- or macro-offended?
