With all the reports in recent months about aircraft being directed to use the same runway at the same time, and other near-tragedies, I thought it might be worthwhile to allow Bob Newhart to remind us of the challenges facing air traffic controllers.
I don't know whether this qualifies or not as the lighter side of air travel, but we can always use a smile or two.
Peter
Today's award goes to a dubiously artistic "cryptocurrency entrepreneur". The BBC reports:
Maurizio Cattelan's provocative artwork of a banana duct-taped to a wall has fetched $6.2m (£4.9m) at Sotheby's in New York - four times higher than pre-sale estimates.
The auction house says Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun outbid six other rivals to get the "Comedian" installation of the Italian visual artist on Wednesday.
"In the coming days, I will personally eat the banana as part of this unique artistic experience," Mr Sun was quoted as saying.
The taped banana - now perhaps one of the most expensive fruits ever sold - was actually bought earlier in the day for a mere $0.35, according to the New York Times.
There's more at the link.
If eating a banana is a "unique artistic experience", then I daresay my next steak dinner is going to be a carnivorous Aztec ritual dismemberment! And as for paying over $6 million for it . . . words fail me.
How anyone can claim that a banana taped to a wall is "art", is utterly beyond me. It's like saying the scribbles on the wall by a three-year-old with a box of crayons is art, instead of meaningless disfigurement. What about a cabbage instead? Or a rutabaga? Or (shudder) arugula?
Oy gevalt . . .
Peter
Austin Bay assesses President Trump's pick for Secretary of Defense.
Pete Hegseth has a very fine mind -- a mind strategically informed by a superb military combat record and some 20 years of active duty and reserve Army service. Dodging bullets and crawling through mud at 0200 hours are physically grueling and mentally sobering experiences. A soldier learns firsthand spinmeisters in Congress and the faculty lounge usually know zero to zip about real-world military challenges.
Based on what he's done in battle as well as said on the record, Hegseth understands the Pentagon's Job One is fielding an American military that is stronger, better prepared and deadlier than any other military on the planet. That means recruiting and training disciplined military personnel who can operate everything from submarines to space craft. That means buying and deploying weapons that not only work but outclass all adversaries, current and future.
Moreover, Hegseth strikes me as having reformist moxie, the confidence, focus and energy required to overhaul the bureaucrat-ossified, morale-degraded and recruit-starved Department of Defense the Biden administration has left the American people.
Hegseth's Bronze Star medals and moxie make him a natural enemy of the Beltway Clerks that infest Washington, the sallow political menials like Biden National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan who never had time to wear a military uniform but excel at looking serious while lying about the Afghanistan withdrawal.
So, yes, he's a fine choice for Donald Trump's secretary of defense.
There's more at the link, including suggestions as to what Secretary Hegseth should tackle as his first priorities.
My take on it is that Hegseth is a combat veteran, decorated for valor in action. That, right there, gives him a perspective on defense that no civilian or bureaucrat lacking it could possibly possess. He won't just be looking at structures and systems from an organization point of view, but asking "How does this help the fighting man at the point of the spear?" That's exactly the perspective we need, IMHO.
Furthermore, my assessment of President Trump's cabinet choices is heavily weighted towards left-wing progressive opposition to them. The more the left is outraged, the more they scream about the unsuitability of each candidate, the stronger that candidate becomes in my mind. The Biblical perspective is "By their fruits ye shall know them"; but their enemies (and their friends) also say a great deal about them. By that standard, Hegseth looks better and better . . .
Peter
Lindt chocolates have long marketed themselves as a high-class, upper-crust sort of confection. Unfortunately, they've just shot their own marketing in the foot.
Lindt, a gourmet chocolate brand, said its delectable goodies are not “expertly crafted with the finest ingredients,” as the packaging suggests.
The Swiss company confessed in an attempt to get a lawsuit against it dismissed, but it backfired when the Eastern District of New York court denied the effort.
Lindt found itself in a sticky situation in 2023 after a US consumer organization reported alleged high levels of lead in its dark chocolate bars.
. . .
Although Lindt isn’t the only brand with lead inside its goods, consumers were frustrated that they were paying significantly more for the chocolate, which promised “quality and safe dark chocolate.”
To combat the accusations, Lindt’s lawyers clarified that some of the product’s components were exaggerated, such as the “excellence” in quality and experts’ involvement in fusing the ingredients.
Disappointed by the company’s actions, the Eastern District court deemed the product to have “exaggerated advertising, blustering and boasting upon which no reasonable buyer would rely.”
There's more at the link.
In a highly competitive market such as gourmet chocolates, that's a pretty damning admission. I won't be surprised if competitors use it in their own advertising, comparing their products favorably to their Lindt competition. They can't be accused of negative campaigning, after all, since Lindt has publicly admitted to their own faults and errors.
I'm all for truth in advertising. Next thing you know, Godiva Chocolatier will be forced to admit that their confectionery wasn't actually paraded naked on horseback through the streets of Coventry!
Peter
Recently, while browsing about the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, I came across an organization called Emergency RV. They describe their mission as follows:
EmergencyRV is a charitable organization initially established in response to the massive and deadly November 2018 Campfire, which decimated the entire town of Paradise, California and left more than 50,000 residents traumatized and displaced.
For founder Woody Faircloth and his then six-year-old daughter Luna, watching events unfold on television from Denver was not enough. Determined to help, the father and daughter set out to raise funds to purchase an RV and deliver it by Thanksgiving to a family in need.
Word of their kind act spread quickly and within days, press requests, RV donations, offers of legal services, and funds poured in. Before the Faircloth’s knew it, they were delivering another RV and then another. Since then, EmergencyRV has helped hundreds of victims and expanded its mission to help many more victims of wildfire and other natural disasters.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Emergency RV has placed a number of travel trailers at sites where the owners' homes were severely damaged or destroyed, leaving them nowhere to live. You'll find details of some of them at the organization's X.com feed.
I'm going to donate to them - not an RV or travel trailer (because I don't own one), but money to help buy one and/or pay for their other expenses. I'd like to suggest to you, dear readers, that this might be a cause well worth our support.
Peter
The Mackinac Center for Public Policy highlights an interesting financial conundrum.
The entirety of Ford’s normal vehicle profits was undone by its losses on electric vehicles.
Ford’s 2024 Q3 Earnings Presentation delivers the details: The year-to-date losses on Ford’s EV business (what the company calls “Ford Model e”) totaled $3.7 billion. Profits from Ford’s “Model Blue” division, which sells traditional internal combustion vehicles, also happened to be $3.7 billion.
This past quarter, Ford reported losses of $1.2 billion on its EV business. Energy reporter Robert Bryce calculated that Ford likely lost almost $60,000 for every electric vehicle it sold this past quarter. “Ford has been hemorrhaging cash on EVs for the past two years,” Bryce wrote. “It lost $4.7 billion on EVs in 2023 and $2.2 billion on EVs in 2022.”
General Motors and Stellantis are having their own problems with EV's, of course. Only massive government subsidies are enabling automakers to avoid the reality of the US market. As the Mackinac report points out:
A Gallup poll from March found that 48% of respondents would not consider buying an electric vehicle– a number up 7% from the year prior. while a McKinsey reported in June that 46% of Americans who owned electric vehicles were very likely to buy a gas-powered vehicle next time.
There's more at the link.
Without government tax incentives and subsidies, electric vehicles would be dead on arrival. They can't be produced at a low enough price to persuade people to buy them - let alone their problems with sufficient range, extraordinarily expensive battery replacements, and the like.
Give me an EV that has a practical range of 400-500 miles between recharges (further would be better), while carrying a full load of passengers and/or cargo, in high summer in Texas or deep winter in Montana, with the A/C or heater running full blast, while towing a trailer. Also, let there be an abundance of high-speed recharging stations to allow for long road trips. If EV's can handle that load and those conditions, I'll take a long, hard look at them. Anything less than that, and it's no dice.
Peter
Those who are foodies will know of Fortnum & Mason, the upper-crust department store in England. So-called "hampers" of food and celebratory goodies have been their staple for more than three centuries. I've never been able to afford one of my own, but I've helped friends eat theirs from time to time.
On an idle whim I figured I'd look at F&M's super-deluxe top-of-the-line Imperial Christmas hamper, only to find out that it's not one hamper, but five. Talk about sticker shock - it costs just under $9,000! Click the image below for a larger view.
You'll find all of the products photographed and listed in loving detail at the hamper's Web page. It's interesting to read it from a Christian Christmas perspective; Christ has been taken completely out of their Christmas, replaced by conspicuous consumption and indigestion! Oh, well . . . if that's their thing, so be it. I'm going to enjoy a much more relaxed Christmas with my lady and our friends - without bankrupting any of us!
Still, it was fun to see how the top half of one per cent of the population lives.
Peter
The left's age-old tactic of smearing, vilifying and targeting those they consider potentially dangerous is getting very old. Too many people are shaking their heads and saying "Where there's smoke, there's fire", ignoring the fact that precisely the same attacks have been made against anyone and everyone the progressive left (not to mention RINO's) don't like.
Enough!
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green puts it in a nutshell:
That's precisely what we need to do, for every Congressional representative and every Senator. What did now-Senator Schiff cover up about his "activities" with an unconscious black youth who subsequently died? Why have so many of our political leaders paid off accusers, rather than allow us to find out what really went on?
Let the sunshine in. Publish the entire Epstein visitor list, plus every video he took. Publish the entire list of P. Diddy's sex party guests, along with every video showing what they were doing. Expose every allegation of illegal or unethical behavior by any and every politician, and let the people of this country decide who they want to represent them.
Unless and until that happens, disregard any and every unproven allegation that doesn't have solid, substantive evidence to support it. They're no more than propaganda.
Peter
Larry Lambert, writing at Virtual Mirage, explains why Big Pharma is so upset at the prospect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being appointed as the Secretary of Health & Human Services.
Why are there so many pharma ads on TV? A TV news president admitted to RFK Jr. that any host allowing him to speak negatively about Big Pharma on air would be FIRED because “this is where our advertisers are.”
Jaws dropped when former pharma insider @CalleyMeans told Tucker Carlson on his show, “The news ad spending from pharma is a public relations lobbying tactic, essentially to BUY OFF the news… The media plays referee because they’re funded by so on all levels.”
Only two countries allow pharmaceutical ads on TV: the United States and New Zealand. And those ads make a big chunk of money. RFK Jr. was told by a network executive that “during non-election years, during some months, up to 70% of his news division revenues are coming from pharma.”
When evidence about the dangers of smoking began to emerge in the 1950s and 1960s, news organizations hesitated to expose Big Tobacco because they depended on the industry for its ad revenue. The same conflict exists today with the pharmaceutical industry and TV news. This is why the mainstream media is in full-blown panic over RFK Jr.’s HHS appointment. They know that once he gets in, he is going to end pharma ads on TV, which will be a devastating blow to their wallets.
That makes sense when one thinks about how often we're bombarded with advertisements for the latest and greatest drugs and medical treatments. In my younger days I wasn't exposed to that, except for advertisements for over-the-counter nostrums to deal with coughs, colds and flu. It was a culture shock to arrive in the USA and find advertisements for rather more intimate medications to treat anything from ingrown toenails to terminal Stage 4 cancer in various organs.
So, if Mr. Kennedy can kill off pharmaceutical advertising, he can also kill off most of our annoying, overbearing, self-obsessed, incestuous television news and entertainment media? Sounds like a win all round to me!
Peter
In a very interesting speech at the National Conservatism 4 Conference in Washington, D.C., Asia Times Business Editor David P. Goldman had quite a lot to say about China's plans, progress and possibilities. I'll embed the 15-minute video below, followed by an excerpt from an abridged transcript of his speech. I very strongly recommend that you read/watch at least one, if not both.
The world’s scarcest resource is young people who can work in a modern economy. Empires of the past fought over territory. China’s goal is to control people.
In 1979 China took a nation of farmers and turned them into industrial workers, and multiplied GDP per capita 30 times. Now it plans to turn a nation of factory workers into a nation of engineers — think of South Korea. That’s a messy and costly transition. But China is doing it.
In 2020 I wrote of China’s plan to Sino-form the Global South. It knows a lot about getting people who make $3 a day to make $10 or $20 a day.
China’s population has been in decline, but its highly educated population is growing:
Ten and a half million university graduates, up 60% in 10 years, 2X our total – and a third are engineers. That’s more engineering graduates than the rest of the world combined.
South Korea quintupled industrial production between 1990 and 2010 while its factory workforce fell by a fifth.
Will China collapse? Compare the US and China aggregate debt burden: the US is 262% of GDP, and China is 278% of GDP –
But China lends the world a trillion dollars a year and we borrow a trillion dollars a year. Countries with positive growth and big current account surpluses don’t have financial crises.
. . .
The other big thing China got right is the transformation of the Global South. It doubled exports to the Global South since Covid – now exports more to the Global South than to all developed markets. Assimilates billions of people into its economic sphere. It did this with 200 soldiers deployed outside China versus our 230,000.
We spent $7 trillion on forever wars. China spent $1 trillion on Belt and Road Initiative investments. Who got more influence?
Forty countries have applied to join the BRICS group.
This isn’t about authoritarianism versus democracy. China’s exports to democracies like India grew as fast as exports to Russia. The Chinese are incurious about how barbarians govern themselves. They want to make the world dependent on Chinese technology and supply chains.
There's much more at the link. It's essential reading to understand how strong China has become in the world economy, and how much ground we have to make up to catch up. Of course, China faces internal problems of its own, including a shrinking workforce, debt crises and others - but it's built up an economic "cushion" that's enabling it to tackle those problems step by step, rather than having to deal with them all at once.
I hope the Trump administration is aware of these issues, because they're going to drive US foreign policy for years to come, whether we like it or not. We may have different priorities, but we're going to have to spend so much time reacting to China's priorities that we may not have much available to act on our own.
Peter
Chris Muir's Day By Day cartoon strip is not one of my favorites. It's often crude and raunchy, rather than funny. However, sometimes crude can be very funny, too.
Witness his cartoon for November 7th this year, discussing President Trump and the possibility of his face being added to the Mount Rushmore memorial. It's not family-friendly, so I won't embed it here, but if you don't mind his rather raw humor, click over there and take a look for yourself. I have to admit, it made me laugh, too!
Now, who to hire as the sculptor?
Peter
... courtesy of Francis Porretto at Liberty's Torch. Click the image for a larger view.
That hyperbolic trajectory of our national debt means that unless our government manages to halt, then reverse, its trajectory, it won't really matter who's in power, or which political party is in charge. The result will be the same: economic collapse.
That's what President Trump has to fix if any of his policies are to succeed.
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
And now for something completely different . . .
As regular readers will know, I underwent a surgical procedure on my kidney earlier this week. Progress appears OK so far. At any rate, on a whim, I went to YouTube and searched for "kidney music". To my utter astonishment, there's quite a lot of it! Here are four kidney songs, in no particular order.
First, here's comedian Tim Hawkins with "One Is The Loneliest Kidney", sung in honor of his friend Mark Hall, who had just lost a kidney to cancer.
Next, from the satirical TV series 30 Rock, here's "Kidney Now".
For jazz fans, back in 1947 Eddie Vinson wrote "Old Kidney Stew". Here it's performed by the George Van Wagner Blues Band.
And for country music aficionados, here's Billy Ray Osborne with "You Ain't Nothin' But A Kidney Stone".
After hearing those, I'm going to have to make a steak and kidney pie, just for nostalgia's sake!
Peter
From Ashley St. Clair on X:
Whether or not one supports President Trump, it's hard to argue with that!
Peter
Well, I can say for sure that the surgery on Wednesday accomplished quite a lot.
Prior to the procedure, the urologist had indicated that there were still blockages preventing my kidney from draining. The constant pressure of fluid inside the organ had produced what's called hydronephrosis: the kidney had swelled and contorted, putting a lot of stress on it, and preventing that half of the urinary tract from working properly. She drove a camera up the ureter, the tube transporting urine from the kidney to the bladder, and found that kidney stone fragments were actually embedded in its walls. She thinks they'd been broken up by earlier procedures, but had not been properly removed or flushed out, so as they ground their way down the ureter they'd become caught up in scar tissue (also the fruit of those earlier procedures) and attached themselves, becoming ureteral stones. Due to their number and position, they had continued to partly block the ureter and prevent kidney drainage, thus perpetuating the problem. (I'll be having words with the local urologist who performed those earlier procedures, and didn't do a very good job, to put it mildly!)
She took a laser to them, and up into the kidney as well, "dusting" every stone and blockage she could find. She also installed an extra-large ureteric stent, to allow any remaining fragments to drain down the ureter into the bladder without attaching themselves to anything. For the first twelve hours or so after I woke up, it did indeed feel like sand or fine gravel was coming out along with the urine, but by midday yesterday that had (thankfully!) almost completely passed.
I'm here to tell you, things are sure draining now! I wrote earlier about the absorbent underwear I use after such procedures (because with a ureteric stent, one has no control over urine flow - when it comes, it comes, and you normally don't have time to get to a bathroom). They have a maximum absorption capacity of about a quart. Well, in the first 24 hours after the procedure, I went through six of them! Even if not all were filled to capacity, that's still a lot of liquid, and it's had a dramatic effect on my pain levels. I hadn't realized just how much stress a contorted, swollen kidney puts on any and every physical movement involving the abdomen. I'd say it added at least 25% to my permanent pain level, caused by my spinal injury and nerve damage all those years ago. With the sudden decrease in pressure, I'm finding it much easier and less painful to lift my legs, maneuver my body into a car seat, and that sort of thing. I'm also regaining my appetite. I took my wife out for a steak last night, to celebrate the improvement. She says she hasn't seen me eat so much at one sitting for at least six months.
So, I've still got a ways to go, but this latest procedure has already greatly improved my situation. I'll be going in again in about four weeks' time to have the stent removed, and also to undergo more tests to determine whether the drainage has done the job, or whether further intervention will be needed. Needless to say, I'm hoping it won't; but if it is, I think I'll be in very good hands to get it done.
Blogging will be irregular today, because I'm kinda worn out, and will catch up on sleep as and when I can. However, so far, so good. Thank you all very much for your prayers and good wishes. I greatly value them.
Peter
My Calmer Half is home, he's recovering, we're both exhausted. He'll update tomorrow.
Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes!
They worked, and we had a great surgical team: this is the fastest he's ever bounced back from being under the knife. This morning, he was more chipper than I was, even after my coffee kicked in. Still got quite a ways to go, but for the first time in a year, I'm getting a sneaky feeling that the light ahead in the tunnel might actually be the exit, not just a utility junction or an oncoming train.
God bless you all.
-Dorothy
I'm heading down to the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex this morning, for yet another surgical procedure on my kidney. This one's to examine the state of the organ after three previous procedures in a local hospital, about which I wrote extensively earlier this year. According to the DFW specialist - whom I'm told is one of the top urologists in the country - they appear not only to have failed to cure the problem (hydronephrosis), but may actually have damaged the organ and/or the tube(s) leading from it to the bladder. Apparently there is scar tissue buildup that is cause for concern. Today's procedure is to assess the state of my kidney, and decide whether a more invasive procedure will be able to save it, or whether a complete removal will be necessary.
Needless to say, I'm not thrilled about all that . . . or about the prospect of another month or two with an internal stent, which is (to say the least) highly uncomfortable. When you add it on top of my 24/7/365 pain from my disabling spinal injury, it makes me an unhappy camper. In spades. The fact that this will be my 26th procedure under full anesthetic makes it even worse. One can't help wondering if, one of these days, one isn't going to wake up. This gets old, quickly.
I won't be in blogging mode for at least two days, Wednesday and Thursday. All being well, I'll be able to post something on Friday 11/15: but if I'm admitted to hospital for a longer period, that may not work well, either. If that happens, I'll ask my wife to put up a progress report, either here or on her blog. Also, I won't be around to moderate comments, so if you leave one, don't expect it to appear until I'm able to get back to my computer.
I'll be very grateful for prayers for healing and Divine mercy, if you share my faith in such things. If you don't, think kindly thoughts at me and the surgical team.
Peter
It seems New York City sued bus companies for busing thousands of "migrants" to the city from Texas, using an almost two-century-old statute as the foundation of its argument. It didn't work.
The court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought by Mayor Eric Adams in January against charter bus companies contracted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. It sought to bar them from knowingly dropping off “needy persons,” citing an 1817 state law that criminalized bringing an indigent person into the state “for the purpose of making him a public charge.”
Justice Mary Rosado said in a sternly worded decision that the law is unconstitutional for several reasons.
For one, she wrote, states are not permitted to regulate the interstate transportation of people based on their economic status.
The statute also “violates a fundamental right — the right to travel,” she added.
. . .
It would have been difficult for New York City to sue Texas due to a legal doctrine known as sovereign immunity, so it went after the private charter companies instead.
Despite the court loss, the Adams administration said the lawsuit has had its desired effect: Fewer charter buses brought immigrants to the city after it was filed, and none have been identified since June, according to a statement from his office. Adams has not given up on further action, either.
“We are reviewing our legal options to address the costs shifted to New York City as a result of the Texas busing scheme,” mayoral spokesperson Liz Garcia said in a statement.
There's more at the link.
The suit was brought in a state court, too, not a federal court, so (to me) that makes the strong anti-NYC finding of the judge more surprising. State courts are notorious for giving deference to local and regional statutes, laws and regulations, with many cases having to be taken to Federal courts for rulings on their constitutionality. I guess the issues were clear enough in this one that the judge had no problem ruling the statute unconstitutional.
Now that the Biden administration will shortly be replaced by the Trump administration, one wonders what will happen to the whole issue of transporting migrants. I imagine buying them a bus ticket to the nearest border crossing might be a lot cheaper than sending them up the length of the country!
Peter
Having read some absolute howlers by aspirant authors, I couldn't help laughing out loud when I came across this advice from Stephan Pastis. Click the image for a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
Recent events demonstrate that some politicians might need to learn the same lessons . . .
Peter
That's the opinion of Michael Deacon, a columnist for the Telegraph newspaper in the UK.
Young, single, Left-wing women across the US are so angry about the result of the election, they’ve embarked on a “sex strike”. That is: they’ve turned celibate, in order to punish men for Donald Trump’s win.
“For the next four years, I am going to abstain from sex with men,” declared one young woman on Tiktok.
“All I have to say [to men] is: ‘Good luck getting laid’,” sniffed another.
“Hope you thought that through, you guys,” jeered a third.
On the face of it, this may sound like bad news for the young men of America. Personally, though, I think they should applaud the strike, and urge its participants to keep going.
This is because any young woman who responds in such a comically petulant manner to the result of a democratic election is clearly an insufferable, spoilt, whiny, immature, narcissistic, attention-seeking, pathologically self-righteous brat. Thanks to the sex strike, therefore, young American men will be spared the tedium of going on a date with someone so mind-bendingly tiresome. Instead, their country’s dating pool will now consist exclusively of women who are sane, and who realise that there is no more unattractive a trait, in either sex, than an all-consuming fixation with politics.
That, however, is not the only reason why young male Trump voters should welcome the strike. There’s another. Because, if the sex strike lasts long enough, these Left-wing women will never reproduce.
Which means that, in future, there will be fewer Left-wing voters, and more conservative victories.
Hard to argue with his logic, isn't it?
Peter
... here's a short movie for Veterans Day.
Peter
Whether we celebrate Veterans Day in the USA, or Armistice Day in most of the rest of the world, it's still an occasion to remember the heroism of those who, in the words of our National Anthem, place their bodies "Between their loved homes and the war's desolation".
Australia does that today with the award of the Victoria Cross, the highest award of Britain and her Commonwealth for valor in action, to a serviceman from the Vietnam War, in which her forces joined America's to fight the Communist invasion of that country.
Awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia – Private Richard Norden
For most conspicuous acts of gallantry in action in the presence of the enemy in the 'AO Surfers' Area of Operations in the Bien Hoa province, Vietnam, on 14 May 1968 during the Battle of Fire Support Base Coral.
During Operation Toan Thang, 5th Platoon, B Company were ambushed and came under heavy fire from an estimated squad of seven to ten North Vietnamese Army regular soldiers. Private Norden, a member of the leading section, ran forward under heavy enemy fire to the Section Commander and forward scout who were wounded during the initial contact.
Private Norden killed one North Vietnamese Army soldier whilst moving forward and, having expended his ammunition, recovered that enemy's automatic weapon which he used against further North Vietnamese Army soldiers. He then half-carried, half-dragged the severely wounded Section Commander back to the section.
Private Norden, seriously wounded, again advanced to the forward scout. He pressed forward under enemy fire and reached the scout, killing the North Vietnamese Army soldier who had been using the scout as a shield. Having determined that the scout was dead, Private Norden returned to the section to collect grenades and moved forward for a third time. He cleared the area to enable the body of the scout to be recovered.
Private Norden showed a complete disregard for his own personal safety, and his courage and selfless acts resulted in the enemy position being secured and likely saved the lives of other members of the platoon.
There's more at the link.
Sadly, Pvt. Norden died in the course of duty in 1972, but his surviving family will receive the medal on his behalf.
As General Patton famously said, "It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." Today, Veterans Day, is a good day to do so. I'll be remembering my own comrades in arms as well.
(A tip o' the hat to Australian reader Andrew, who sent me the link to the above news.)
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
Here's an old favorite. Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake has become a staple of the concert and ballet repertoire, and is probably one of the most often performed pieces in its genre. Many have produced what they claim to be "Swan Lake Suites", but there are plenty of variations between them, and I'm not sure whether anyone's ever agreed to a standard, definitive "suite" of pieces from the ballet. Be that as it may, I'll listen to them all.
Here's the Swan Lake Suite from the Third Polish Nationwide Music Schools' Symphonic Orchestras Competition - a long title, but it attracts the best young musicians in Poland to perform for and compete with each other. The conductor is Sylwia Janiak-Kobylińska. The piece was recorded in 2015.
I suppose it might be a bit provocative to play that music while duck hunting season is approaching . . .
Peter
Carpe Donktum asks that question in a very funny thread on Twitter. Here's his original post, and some of the responses.
There are many more at the link, some less family-friendly than the above. Great for a laugh!
Peter
Trent Telenko has an excellent thread discussing this subject, complete with plenty of images, links to other sources, and supporting material. Here's an excerpt.
To date, no one has done a real logistical, cost effectiveness & weapon effect/lethality numerical evaluation of FPV drones versus conventional weapons systems.
. . .
In order to get the weapon effect of the 25mm chain gun, 120mm cannon and GMLRS rocket you just saw in Iraq, a 35-ton, 70 ton or 17-ton vehicle respectively have to be moved by sea halfway across the planet to Iraq.
Now compare all those US Army weapons to the impact of this Mammoth FPV drone with a 4 kg warhead.
. . .
Heck, you can move dozens of FPV on an airline seat.
Meanwhile those M1/M2/HIMARS loaded merchant ships will have to deal with a gauntlet of Houthi/Iranian anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM), anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCM) or Boat-Drones to get there.
Please also note, each 14 of such vehicles there will be one M1070 HET, and either a M88 Hercules tracked ARV or one HEMTT wrecker.
In addition to that, there will be a huge logistical tail of fuelers and ammo trucks running the same Houthi missile/boat-drone gauntlet.
Now compare all those US Army weapons to the impact of this Mammoth FPV drone with a 4 kg warhead.
It is competitive in weapon effect, and in terms of precision, cost and logistics to move it to target, it's far superior.
There's much more at the link.
The cost-effectiveness of modern drones versus "traditional" weapons is so dramatic, so stark, that it's almost mind-boggling. I wasn't surprised to learn, from Mr. Telenko's thread that:
"The artillery heavy, but more analytically inclined, ROK Army is seriously thinking about "Crossing the Drone Logistical Cost Effectiveness Rubicon" versus ballistic shells by converting its battalion mortars into drone units."
The savings in doing so, in terms of equipment cost, personnel, training, ongoing transport, replenishment and support requirements, etc. will be staggering.
One hopes the US military is watching this carefully. I suspect an awful lot of "traditional" weapons manufacturers will be fighting with might and main to prevent their gravy train from being derailed by more modern technology.
Peter
I had to laugh at this report from the BBC.
Two Australian mathematicians have called into question an old adage, that if given an infinite amount of time, a monkey pressing keys on a typewriter would eventually write the complete works of William Shakespeare.
Known as the "infinite monkey theorem", the thought-experiment has long been used to explain the principles of probability and randomness.
However, a new peer-reviewed study led by Sydney-based researchers Stephen Woodcock and Jay Falletta has found that the time it would take for a typing monkey to replicate Shakespeare's plays, sonnets and poems would be longer than the lifespan of our universe.
Which means that while mathematically true, the theorem is "misleading", they say.
As well as looking at the abilities of a single monkey, the study also did a series of calculations based on the current global population of chimpanzees, which is roughly 200,000.
The results indicated that even if every chimp in the world was enlisted and able to type at a pace of one key per second until the end of the universe, they wouldn't even come close to typing out the Bard's works.
There would be a 5% chance that a single chimp would successfully type the word "bananas" in its own lifetime. And the probability of one chimp constructing a random sentence - such as "I chimp, therefore I am" - comes in at one in 10 million billion billion, the research indicates.
There's more at the link.
I wonder how many man-hours of research went into that particular study - and at what cost per hour? What's more, the report says it was "peer-reviewed". Precisely what "peers" are we discussing? Gorillas? Orangutans? Perhaps the gibbon or the colobus were asked to opine? (Although, since Australia has no native species of monkey or ape, the platypus or the Tasmanian devil might have to stand in for them.)
On the other hand, with odds like that, perhaps we could turn loose a troop of monkeys among the slot machines in a top Las Vegas casino, along with an infinite supply of quarters to feed them. Who knows what they might not win?
Peter
Looks like Britain's Meteorological Office has been lying to the public.
Shocking evidence has emerged that points to the U.K. Met Office inventing temperature data from over 100 non-existent weather stations ... citizen journalist Ray Sanders ... has discovered that 103 stations out of 302 sites supplying temperature averages do not exist. “How would any reasonable observer know that the data was not real and simply ‘made up’ by a Government agency,” asks Sanders. He calls for an “open declaration” of likely inaccuracy of existing published data, “to avoid other institutions and researchers using unreliable data and reaching erroneous conclusions”.
. . .
Of the 302 sites quoted, Sanders notes that the Met Office “declined to advise me” exactly how or where the alleged ‘data’ were derived for these 103 non-existent sites.
The practice of ‘inventing’ temperature data from non-existent stations is a controversial issue in the United States where the local weather service NOAA has been charged with fabricating data for more than 30% of its reporting sites. Data are retrieved from surrounding stations and the resulting averages are given an ‘E’ for estimate. “The addition of the ghost station data means NOAA’s monthly and yearly reports are not representative of reality,” says meteorologist Anthony Watts. “If this kind of process were used in a court of law, then the evidence would be thrown out as being polluted,” he added.
There's more at the link.
Let's not forget that British law, as far as climate change considerations are concerned, is heavily based upon what the Met Office tells the politicians in power. The British Civil Service is like the "deep state" in the USA: its members and management go on regardless of whatever political party forms the government, and they can (and do) drive government policy in many areas by supplying facts and figures on which the politicians base their proposed laws. By deliberately lying about weather readings, the Met is deliberately deceiving the politicians who make British law, and hence undermining those laws and rendering them less than accurate or effective.
Let's not forget, bureaucrats like that also make decisions that lead to murdering innocent animals on the grounds that they violate some minor regulation. I daresay there are British equivalents of Peanut, if one looks hard enough. Give an unelected bureaucrat unfettered regulatory power, and he'll use it, regardless of whether it's the best or most appropriate solution to a problem or not. He won't care. He's not elected, and therefore not answerable to anybody except his fellow bureaucrats - who can be relied upon to cover for him whenever necessary.
Elon Musk is already talking about slashing the Federal bureaucracy in this country. Might be a good idea to offer his services to the British government as well, to cut their civil servants down to size.
Bureaucrats! Grrrr!
Peter
From ReverendAlan on Gab:
Here is a picture of my latest Banana Bread loaf. I subbed ground beef for the banana.
It won't surprise you to learn that he posted it in the Carnivore & Keto diet sub-forum!
Peter
Now that President Trump has been elected the next President of the United States, it's time to acknowledge the reality of the situation.
Trump should have been elected to a second term in 2020. That he was not is due solely and demonstrably to fraudulent manipulation of the results. We wrote about it at the time, exhaustively (see, for example, here, here and here), as did many other observers and commentators. The progressive left denied that for all it was worth, and the progressive news media played along. For the past four years, any mention of vote manipulation in any form has been preceded by the words "false" or "lies" or "unproven allegations". Well, this election has just showed us the reality, as these two graphics (widely circulated on the Internet and social media) demonstrate:
Would anyone care to explain where those massive increases in Democratic votes in 2020 came from? And where did they go to in 2024? They certainly weren't due to voters staying away from the polls, as can be determined by checking the figures for previous elections. They simply appeared on the scene, and then vanished as if they'd never existed - which, in reality, is probably true.
There is another possible explanation, of course:
Be that as it may, the figures above strongly imply that the entire Biden administration has been nothing more than a criminally imposed conspiracy against America, right from the start. To make matters worse, foreign nations who would have had - and demonstrated - rather more respect for President Trump took advantage of President Biden's fecklessness and embarked on adventures that have killed - literally killed - millions of people. The Ukraine invasion: the Iranian adventures in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, etc.: political and criminal upheavals in South America: the list is almost endless. Those people did those things because they were not afraid of US intervention, because Trump was not there to intervene. They didn't think Biden was worth worrying about - and they were proved correct.
How many millions died, or were injured, crippled, or maimed, as a result? I don't suppose we'll ever know, but I'll guaran-damn-tee that it was well into seven figures. Those who rigged the 2020 election bear at least some responsibility for that; possibly a lot more than they'll ever admit.
There's also the immense damage done to our nation by letting in millions of "migrants" and "refugees" who are nothing of the sort. They're nothing more or less than economic migrants, using any excuse to get to the "land of milk and honey" that they see us as being. It's damaged our economy, too, by diverting funds desperately needed elsewhere (such as disaster relief) to aiding migrants, and subsidizing them to the tune of thousands of dollars per month. That needs to stop right away, if not sooner, and will be a good way to begin the process of repatriating them to where they came from. If they can't survive without taxpayer subsidies, we don't need them and we don't want them. As for the vast increase in crimes committed by the "migrants" . . . we'll be dealing with that for years to come, and the costs of doing so are directly attributable to the policies of the Biden administration that let them across the border.
I don't expect President Trump to personally take charge of the investigation into who did what, with which, to whom, and how in 2020. He'll have more than enough on his plate fixing our almost terminally corrupt and inefficient national administration. However, I hope and trust that he'll appoint someone to head up a Commission of Inquiry, or some such body, to go into each and every situation uncovered in 2020 and since then, and prepare lists of the guilty parties and what charges might be brought against them. Thereafter, let's put them all on trial, and if found guilty, lock them up and throw away the key.
As for those who will plead the need for "national reconciliation" and urge that the past be forgotten in the interests of unity . . . to hell with them! The crime is too vast, its consequences too dire and tragic for so many, to be allowed to slide into the dustbin of history. If it takes a national equivalent of the Nuremberg Trials to resolve it, then let's get to work.
In fact, this might be one way to improve relations with Russia and President Putin. If we can nail down those responsible for instigating the war in Ukraine and similar actions in the region, perhaps we could ask Mr. Putin to renovate some of the long-disused Gulags in Siberia, and transfer those convicted to them. I can't think of a more appropriate way for neocon warmongers to spend the rest of their lives! We can even pay for their incarceration in hard currency, which will doubtless help Russia's sanctions-plagued economy. What's not to like?
Peter
EDITED TO ADD: Eugene Volokh suggests that there are several million votes still uncounted, which may change the total votes and margins of victory across the board. They won't change results already declared, but may affect the graphics shown above. I guess we'll wait and see what transpires. Nevertheless, I still want to see a full, in-depth inquiry into the 2020 election results and all the shenanigans that were highlighted at the time.
I was mind-boggled to read about two universities' preparations to "help" their students on Election Day.
Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy — a crucible for our nation’s next generation of elected officials and diplomats that runs a cool $61,200 per year to attend — has opened the “woke” apolitical cocoons to cater to students for whom political discourse is simply too overwhelming.
“In recognition of these stressful times, all McCourt community members are welcome to gather … in the 3rd floor Commons to take a much needed break, joining us for mindfulness activities and snacks throughout the day,” wrote Jaclyn Clevenger, the school’s director of student engagement, in an email to students and obtained by The Free Press.
Inside the suites, which will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday, students will be treated to goodies that wouldn’t be out of place at a child’s birthday party, including a Lego station, coloring books and even milk and cookies and hot chocolate — all at a comfortable remove from anything resembling debate.
At the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash., pupils are also being given options for seeking refuge — not only on Election Day but all week long.
The students can pop into a campus lobby to enjoy some cupcakes before making their way to the campus rotunda to let their minds wander in a “walkable labyrinth” featuring “calming lighting and music.”
Those who still don’t feel they’ve received adequate succor can then partake in some relaxing arts and crafts activities including beading, canvas-bag decorating and painting. Snacks will be provided, natch.
For students who still haven’t shaken off the Election Day willies by Thursday, the school is offering a “post election processing space” where students can create collages, journal using self-care writing prompts and even nosh on some comfort food courtesy of a baked potato bar.
There's more at the link.
I could understand such activities for elementary school students, missing their Mommies and wanting reassurance against the big bad world out there . . . but university students? High school graduates? Preparing to become our next generation of leaders and executives?
Those universities have reduced their student population to a bunch of dependent, childish, self-obsessed, shallow-minded, frightened-of-their-own-shadows little baa lambs. Or, perhaps more accurately, they've allowed them to attend university in that condition, and done nothing to help them break their conditioning and grow into adults.
I wonder if we could mandate that retired Marine Drill Instructors should head every such program, to instill a little esprit de corps - or Corps with a capital letter - into their charges? "What is your major marshmallow malfunction, maggot???"
