What a not-so-beautiful noise...

 

... with apologies to Neil Diamond, of course.

This morning, friend Alma Boykin put up this video clip of the sounds of cicadas in Texas.

It reminded me that I find American cicadas to be so quiet that they're hardly noticeable.  My friends here tell me I'm crazy, that they're really loud . . . but I come from southern Africa, where cicadas can be so loud that you could use them as an instrument of torture - like this:

Must be a different variety of cicada, I guess, or maybe a lot more of them.  I have many memories of camping where the noise was so great, one had to use earplugs to try to fall asleep.  (That was its own hazard, as "things that go bump in the night" were very frequently encountered in the bush, and one needed to be able to hear them in order to do something about them - before they did something about you!  We usually had someone awake and alert, or at the very least not using earplugs.)

Peter

Well, excuse ME!!!

 

I had to laugh at this photograph, found on Gab:

I'd love to hear a translation of the thoughts of the hummingbird on the bottom...

Peter

That's one way to get there...

 

From XKCD a few days ago.  Click the image to be taken to the original at the comic's Web page.

The mouseover text at the original site reads:  "We should have you at the gate in just under two hours - two and a half if we get pulled over".

Given the number of travel disruptions airlines have reported over the past summer (most recently just yesterday), I daresay more than a few of their pilots must have considered that option!

Peter

Tourniquets: they work, but they have dangers of their own

 

I was interested to read an article about the use of tourniquets in Ukraine, particularly because it contrasts between their use in a rapid-evacuation situation (such as US troops mostly encounter) versus taking hours or even days to reach anyone more advanced than a field medic.

The tourniquet has saved many thousands of lives and limbs in war zones around the world, but misuse of the device is causing huge numbers of excess amputations and deaths in Ukraine, say top military surgeons.

Captain Rom A Stevens, a retired senior US medical navy officer who has served in Iraq, Afghanistan, and East Africa, estimates that of the roughly 100,000 amputations performed on Ukrainian soldiers since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, as many as 75,000 were caused by improper use of tourniquets.

“I’ve seen tourniquets that have been left on for days, often for injuries that could have been stopped by other methods. Then [the patient] has to have their limb amputated because the tissue has died,” Captain Stevens told The Telegraph.

Tourniquets are strong bands used to stop catastrophic bleeding by cutting off blood flow, and are standard issue for most modern armies.

But if left on over two hours, they can cause tissue death, meaning the arm or leg which has the tourniquet on is no longer viable and requires amputation.

The device became standard-issue in the 2000s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where rapid air evacuation to military surgical teams was possible in under 60 minutes. If the tourniquet was unnecessary it was removed, and no harm was done.

But in Ukraine, where the skies are infested with drones, injured soldiers are evacuated by land, often far exceeding the safe time window for tourniquet use.

This critical delay has caused tens of thousands of amputations, say experts, many of which were unnecessary because the injuries didn’t require a tourniquet in the first place.

There's more at the link.

I remember our field first aid training in the South African military.  We didn't carry IFAKs (Individual First Aid Kits) - just a single field dressing, a bandage that could be tied in place over an injury to absorb at least some of the bleeding and keep contaminants away from the wound.  Field medics carried a relatively comprehensive kit, with more supplies available aboard our transports:  but none of them were at the level of a medical station or field hospital.  If we were lucky, helicopter evacuation might be available, but not always - our air support was frequently hundreds of miles away, and had to thread its way through the most comprehensive Soviet air defense system outside the Warsaw Pact.  It might take hours to arrive.  For that reason, if a medic applied a tourniquet, he would usually try to note down exactly when it was tightened, and make sure that a record of every time it was tightened and loosened accompanied the patient whenever possible.  That way, permanent damage to the limb might be avoided.  It didn't always work.

It worries me that I see so many "civilian" IFAKs being marketed today.  I have no problem with as many people as possible carrying them;  it's far better to have them available on the spot rather than miles away.  However, relatively few of those carrying them have had any first aid training at all, let alone how to deal with serious blood loss.  The use of blood-clotting powder or bandages is a case in point:  another is the use of a tourniquet.  Neither is as easy as it looks, and one can inflict a lot of damage by doing the wrong thing.  For untrained users, I think of individual IFAKs as being useful supplemental kit for a paramedic or EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) or firefighter or police officer (both of the latter are usually trained in first aid to at least some extent).  If he/she runs out of their own supplies (not impossible where more than one or two casualties are involved), they can offer your IFAKs to provide additional essential gear.

The entire article is worth reading to show how a battlefield situation affects what gear may be useful, and what might not.  A tourniquet is very valuable indeed under certain circumstances, but as noted in the article, might lead to a much greater injury through cutting off the blood supply to a limb for too long.  I hope it motivates those who carry a tourniquet without undergoing training to at least watch a video or two on the subject, or perhaps motivate them to get proper training from local instructors.  One could even attend evening classes for a semester or two and graduate with a basic EMT qualification (like, for example, this course), which puts one head and shoulders above those less well trained.

Peter

Prison reform? Start with the basics

 

City Journal published an article recently advocating that America adopt the Japanese model of prison reform.

America’s federal prisons are decaying and overcrowded, contributing to violence among inmates and undermining opportunities for rehabilitation. But thanks to an infusion of federal cash authorized by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Bureau of Prisons has a chance to clean things up. As the BOP weighs those and other reforms, it should look to Japan, where prisons are spacious, efficient, and largely disorder-free.

. . .

Federal prisons are currently about 10 percent over capacity. At BOP’s high-security lockups, the figure is 23 percent ... Japanese prisons, by contrast, operated at 47 percent of capacity in 2023. Their facilities, not coincidently, haven’t seen riots or wide-scale disorder in decades, and they report far fewer assaults on inmates ... These differences can’t be attributed, moreover, to differences in system size or composition. Though Japan is a much smaller country, its prisons detain roughly the same proportion of people as America’s federal prisons, relative to population.

There's more at the link.

That's all very well, but it ignores some great big red flags over the US prison system - state and local as well as federal.  Having worked as a prison chaplain in both federal and state systems, I can summarize the issues like this:

1. There are far too many people in prison, because we criminalize far too many minor offenses.  What should be handled by a fine, or a "boot camp" for young offenders, or so many hours of public service, is instead shuffled off onto an already overburdened prison and jail system.  The revolving door never stops spinning.  I've known individuals imprisoned three or four times in a single year for short sentences, only to come out, offend again, and be incarcerated once more.  It makes no sense.
2. Prisons themselves are basically warehouses for criminals.  The federal system is better than most state systems, but none of them offer much in the way of rehabilitation, vocational education and/or training, or meaningful efforts to help people change their way of life once they get out of prison.  Nobody cares about the prisoners, to put it bluntly.  They want them out of sight and out of mind, so prison budgets are set to do precisely that - and nothing more.
3. Our prisons are "fed" by a welfare and entitlement system that pays people to live in dysfunctional families, attend dysfunctional schools, and emerge as dysfunctional adults in a dysfunctional society.  To reform our prison system, start by reforming the society in which our prisoners live, out of which they come, and to which they return.
4. Our young offenders are given slaps on the wrist rather than real punishment or correction when they do wrong.  Offenders might get to 17 or 18 years old with literally dozens of arrests and convictions, and never receive any serious punishment - but when they're legally no longer kids, and do precisely and exactly the same thing for the umpteenth time, they're slammed with an adult sentence of years in jail.  They don't understand it, and they resent it, and they become even more bitter and anti-social as a result.  Frankly, I can understand that.  It's like complaining that a puppy pees on the carpet in the living-room, but never trying to train him not to do that.  He's going to go on doing what he can get away with, and never think twice about it.  When he becomes an adult, some owners take their "undomesticated" dogs out back and shoot them, because they're "incorrigible" - but it's the owners' fault in the first place.
5. As a society, we've largely abandoned a working system of ethical and moral values.  "If it feels good, do it" became the mantra of the 1960's, followed by the pagan "An it harm none, do what thou wilt".  The results are to be seen woven into the very fabric of society.  We've abandoned the Biblical wisdom of "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it".  It's going to take generations to reinvent and reapply such basic standards, but unless and until we do, our prisons will bear mute witness to our joint culpability.

If we get those things right, or go back to them, our prison problems will be resolved.  If we don't, then any attempt at prison reform is basically farting against thunder.

Peter

Rather shorter than my driving time!

 

It seems there's a new world record for the longest distance covered by a single flash of lightning.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has confirmed that a 515-mile-long "megaflash" of lightning in 2017 is a new world record.

The flash, a term for lightning inside a cloud that does not hit the ground, moved from northern Texas into Missouri and was part of a Mesoscale Convective System, a large complex of thunderstorms, on Oct. 22, 2017. This new lightning flash beats the previous record of 477 miles set by a flash on April 29, 2020.

There's more at the link.

If I'm reading that image correctly, the flash took about 7 seconds to cover 515 miles.  Having driven over a similar route between Texas and Missouri in the past, I can only wish that road travel was even a thousandth of that speed!

Peter

A sobering, short-term warning about artificial intelligence and white-collar jobs

 

Basically, any white-collar job (management, technical, administrative, whatever) is under threat.

Mo Gawdat, the former chief business officer of Google X, has a stark message for white-collar professionals: Artificial intelligence isn't just coming for entry-level work — it's coming for everyone, including software developers, CEOs, and podcasters.

In a Monday conversation on the "Diary of a CEO" podcast, Gawdat predicted that most knowledge workers would be replaced in the next decade and said many still underestimated just how rapidly this transformation would unfold.

He cited his own startup, Emma.love, which builds emotional and relationship-focused artificial intelligence and is run by just three people.

"That startup would have been 350 developers in the past," he said.

. . .

But he warned that AI was being deployed by people and institutions driven by profit and ego, not ethics.

"Unless you're in the top 0.1%, you're a peasant," Gawdat said. "There is no middle class."

He predicted a "short-term dystopia" beginning around 2027, driven by mass unemployment, social unrest, and an economic structure that fails to adapt.

There's more at the link.

We're already seeing this in operation in many knowledge-driven fields such as finance, real estate, etc.  A professional is now expected to use AI to augment or supplement his training and experience, conducting searches, market research, etc. in the background while he applies himself to current problems in the foreground.  It's reported that productivity improvements of up to several hundred per cent are being claimed - and those who aren't "getting with the program", learning to use AI to work smarter, are already finding their careers being sidelined or cut short.

It's not just in America, either.

The latest Office for National Statistics data shows that job vacancies in the UK have fallen for 36 consecutive months, obliterating the previous record of 16, which was the result of the global financial crisis in 2008.

At the same time, the past three years has seen the rate of redundancies almost double from 55,000 people per month to 114,000, and the impact has fallen disproportionately on middle-aged and older workers. More than one million people have been made redundant over the past three years, with 34 per cent of the job losses hitting people between 35-49, while 30 per cent were aged 50-plus.

What is truly frightening is that all of this has occurred during a period of economic growth, albeit weak growth. The general consensus is that when an economy grows, jobs are added, and when it shrinks, jobs are lost. Yet this relationship appears to have broken down and experts believe this is down to a convergence of factors, including the rapid advance of AI.

Again, more at the link.

The AI conundrum is of particular interest to writers, people like myself.  There are already literally thousands of books self-published on Amazon that were "written" entirely by artificial intelligence software.  One AI program can be given broad outlines, then produce a novel set in dozens of different genres, using different character names, settings, etc., but all basically the same book.  It can generate them in a matter of a few days.  Amazon tries hard to intercept such books and stop them from being dumped on the market, but an acquaintance there tells me it's getting harder and harder to detect them.  Early AI "composers" (for want of a better word) were amateurish, couldn't parse grammar very well, and were relatively easy to spot.  Newer software is much more capable, and it learns from its mistakes, becoming even better with every iteration.  I won't use such software - I take pride in producing original work, thank you very much - but many people out there have no such scruples.

Food for thought.

Peter

The Netanyahu trial in Israel: is this anti-Trump lawfare redux?

 

Tablet magazine has published an interesting overview of the trial of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu on various allegations of corruption.  The key take-away is this:

The trial of Benjamin Netanyahu began in Jerusalem District Court over five years ago, on May 24, 2020. Since that date, Israel has become a different country, one scarred by terror attacks and international condemnation and also boasting stunning military victories. Meanwhile, judges and researchers have cast serious doubt on the evidentiary basis for all four charges against the prime minister, only one of which has of yet been dismissed and none proved in court. Yet no matter how the world changes, the trial itself marches on, immune to both the global situation and to the quality of the evidence presented in court. Instead, prosecutors regularly compel testimony from the prime minister, often several times a week, and force him to demonstrate that the matters of state for which he is responsible are of greater importance in this or that moment than remembering whether or not his wife might have asked a family friend and political supporter to purchase a Bugs Bunny doll for his son in Manhattan nearly 30 years ago.

. . .

Which is not to say that the Netanyahu trial isn’t a very serious matter: It’s the climax of a struggle between two opposing power structures over how Israel is to be governed and by whom. On one side is the machinery of electoral politics, and on the other that of the administrative state. It is also a struggle between right and left, as the right keeps winning elections while the left keeps amassing institutional power beyond the reach of voters. It is therefore also a competition between two visions of the Jewish state: The right holds a national view of liberal democracy, and cherishes the Jewish religion and tradition, while the left is increasingly progressive, globalist, and suspicious of religion and nationalism alike. Finally, it is also a class struggle between the country’s diverse, less affluent majority and the old-guard, established Ashkenazi elite. And when you have an event so cataclysmic as to simultaneously bring all three aspects—the institutional, the ideological and the sociological—to a showdown, you have a political supernova.

. . .

Netanyahu’s voters expect him to fight this legal battle to the end—ironically for the same reason that Aharon Barak would like to see it terminated: The deep state is on trial, too, and it must lose, in order for Israeli democracy to triumph.

There's much more at the link.  Recommended reading.

There will doubtless be those who argue that the Tablet article is not objective enough, or is pro-Netanyahu.  Not being an expert on Israel, I can't speak to that.  Nevertheless, I can't help but notice that the Netanyahu prosecution appears to be very similarly motivated - and the tactics used are often almost identical - as other progressive-left lawsuits in various countries against center or rightist governments and/or policies.  Brazil's courts versus Bolsonaro;  Germany's courts versus AfD, a right-wing political party;  European courts against conservative opposition to leftist European Union policies;  the "lawfare" against President Trump in America - they're so alike as to be striking in their similarity.  This seems to me to be a deliberate international onslaught against the rule of law and popular democracy by the progressive left in all its forms - and it's clearly coordinated between nations and movements, all helping each other to further their legal strategies.

For that reason alone, it's well worth paying attention to what's going on in the Netanyahu trial.  It's a microcosm of left-wing intentions and desires throughout the world.  The Tablet article exposes much of what's happening, and enables that sort of comparison.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 272

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Last week we lost a giant of comedy musical theater.  Mathematician and entertainer Tom Lehrer died at the age of 97.  His obituary (at the previous link) provides many details of his long and varied life;  you can read more here (including that he invented the Jello shot, which is neither musical nor mathematical, but is certainly entertaining!).

I'm sure most of my readers have their own favorite Lehrer tunes.  I've selected a few at random to entertain us, and introduce those who (inexplicably) have never heard of him to his music.  We'll start with my favorite.

At the time of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960's, here's Lehrer's attempt to modernize Church music.

To satisfy wearers of the green, here's his take on an Irish ballad.

And, last but not least, here's an ode to pain (sort of).

Tom Lehrer's mix of talents was perhaps unique in musical history.  God rest him.

Peter

Weapons development: lessons from Ukraine

 

An interview suggests that old-style US defense manufacturers are ignoring lessons from Ukraine in rapid response to battlefield needs and fielding new designs in a hurry.  It's a long interview, with plenty of examples, and contains much food for thought.  Here's a key question and response.

Q: Talk a little bit about developing systems in combat and can you share any real-world examples of weapon systems tested in combat?

A: What is generally happening is that when somebody has an idea or somebody says, ‘Oh, there’s a need we’re going to build to fill it,’ before they ever go anywhere near the Ministry of Defense or anything for purchasing, they are working in tandem with a unit and constantly refining during the build process. And whether it’s refining the hardware, whether it’s refining the software, whatever it may be, all of this stuff is literally being built side-by-side with the military. So by the time it is ready to be purchased, it has already been fully tested. It’s build, test; build, test; build, test. It’s this constant cycle. 

One of the challenges that Ukraine has seen is that a lot of systems that are being sold or are ready for sale, they’ve hit what they’re calling their ready product. However, by the time they bring it to Ukraine, the systems have been closed. They did not build it in an environment that allowed for quick iteration, the fast changes that have to happen. So a lot of the systems that come in from the outside do not work. And it’s not that it’s bad tech in and of itself. It’s just that, and so many of these builds outside of Ukraine, I think, for most people, it’s just utterly unimaginable to build for the electronic warfare and the communications denied environment that exists here.

Q: What lessons does that offer for the U.S. when it comes to a potential conflict in Asia with China and the ability to adapt to what’s happening there? 

A: This is something that I am trying to talk about more, because it is so hard to understand from the outside and there definitely are implications for the United States. There are a couple of things. I think about this in four bullet points of things I really wish that the U.S. understood. 

So one is just truly the speed of iteration that happens here, and it’s both for the software and the hardware. And because you need to be able to adapt to everything that the Russians do – and I guarantee the Chinese would be exactly the same – in terms of the GPS-denied environments, in terms of being able to respond to the electromagnetic warfare that’s going on. You have to start with systems that are adaptable, and that can be changed. And it’s not going back to the factory that the soldiers themselves can do it. So that’s the iteration part. 

The second thing is, like you said, just the production, the scale of this stuff. Everything that the Ukrainians are using, for the most part, you know, the FPVs, maybe run $500 to $1,000, at most, if they’ve got really sophisticated components like nighttime cameras or something like that. The bigger fixed wings, maybe $10,000, though some of them are $30,000, but you know, those are even bumping up against the high point. And if you think about the scale, we’re talking about millions and millions of drones that are out there that are being used. You can’t have drones that are costing you $100,000, $200,000 a pop. 

So the third point is price. It’s the kind of production and the mass production, and also the price point that balances in that is extremely important. 

And then the fourth point is really the whole procurement process. And this is not in the hands of the producers or anything. I mean, this sits with congressional committees. It sits with the budgeting process. It sits with the Department of Defense in terms of how they’re going to buy things. But the traditional cycle for the DoD to be able to incorporate new technology is not speedy. It is not fast. It can take years. And even, like with Anduril and some of these new ones coming out, this is still not a super speedy cycle. The Ukrainians have done a couple of things that have just sort of been extraordinary and that I know can’t necessarily be reproduced exactly. But Ukraine completely revamped its official MoD procurement cycle, and it’s now down to three to four months. So once there is a product that has been battle tested, that they have proof from commanders out in the field that it works, they can now actually do procurement within about three months. The other thing is that they have given individual units – companies and battalions – their own budgets to be able to buy directly from an approved list of vendors that have already been put into the ecosystem. This speeds up the process because there’s no procurement in there. It’s a transaction that happens very, very quickly.

There's much more at the link.  Highly recommended reading.

I'm particularly interested because in South Africa, during its long border war, weapons development was often inspired by soldiers talking to friends in small companies, putting ideas into practical form, and then testing, improving and developing them into a combat-ready product.  Some of the most effective weapons systems got their start that way, at grass-roots level, just as some of Ukraine's most effective drones have done.

(Of course, sometimes the inexperience of developers and manufacturers caused hiccups in the process.  A very effective armored personnel carrier was developed as an independent design, and a small engineering firm got the contract to produce two full-scale prototypes for military testing.  They were supplied with special armor steel plates to build them.  Unfortunately, their workers somehow mixed up the steel plates, so when the first prototype was tested against standard enemy weapons and ammunition, they penetrated the bodywork without any difficulty.  The firm had to pay for a replacement set of steel panels and build another prototype for testing, which almost bankrupted it - although the vehicle did make it into production, and served very successfully.  A rueful engineer who told me the tale commented that, somewhere out there on an African farm, the farmer had trailers to tow behind his tractors that were as bullet-proof and landmine-proof as a trailer could get, because that's where the first consignment of armor steel plates ended up!)

I foresaw this problem with US drone development and production in a recent article in these pages.  This interview reinforces my perspective on the problem.  I wonder if the US defense establishment is able - or even willing - to loosen its death grip on procurement, to make room for this sort of innovation and rapid development?

Peter

Did ActBlue use mortgage chicanery to disguise money laundering?

 

If a newly released report is correct, that may be the case.  For those who don't know it, ActBlue is a major fund-raising operation of and for the Democratic Party, claiming to have raised up to $16 billion since its establishment.  The question now becomes, where did at least some of that $16 billion come from?

It looks (at least on the basis of the information released so far) as if hundreds of millions of dollars in vaguely-sourced, unattributed funds was used to finance "mortgages" on properties that were overvalued by dozens or scores of times - and once inside the conventional banking system, those mortgage funds could be recycled and "washed" through entirely legal transactions, benefiting both the progressive left and the suppliers of the funds (who might have been drug cartels, agents for one or more foreign powers, billionaire oligarchs, or whatever).

For example, the report notes:

• A woman named Regina Wallace-Jones, along with Stefford Jones, presumably her husband, bought [a] home from Clarum Corporation on May 21, 2002, for $689,500.
• On the same day, Regina Wallace-Jones and Stefford Jones received a $651,600 loan mortgage from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Inc.
• Also on that day, Regina Wallace-Jones received (1) a $651,600 loan and (2) a $552,253 loan from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Inc.
• Also on that day, the sale price was listed as $68,950,000, with two unlisted sources making additional loans of $10,035,000 and $55,125,000.
• On May 21, 2002, when Steffond and Regina bought 1257 Runnymede St. from Clarum Corporation, there were five simultaneous filings on the same day, three with identical $689,500 “sale prices,” but with different loan amounts or borrowers, as well as two other wildly different sales prices and loan amounts.
• On May 21, 2002, the mortgage loan of $10,035,000 versus the listed “sales price” represented “a grossly inflated loan-to-value (LTV) ratio” that appeared to be a “highly likely synthetic debt injection or a placeholder loan.”
• Then, on December 6, 2002, Regina Wallace-Jones and Stefford Jones received two additional mortgage loans, totaling $551,520 from Wells Fargo Home Mortgage Inc. and $100,350 from Wells Fargo Bank.
• On December 24, 2004, Steffond Jones and Regina Wallace-Jones got a $160,000 mortgage loan from Wells Fargo Bank, and on January 13, 2005, the couple got a $250,000 mortgage loan from JPMorgan Chase Bank.
• On July 15, 2015, Steffond Jones appears to have sold the Runnymeade home to himself and his wife using three mortgage loans of (1) $565,000, (2) $74,800, and (3) $565,000, from Wells Fargo Bank.

Put that lot together, and the transactions begin to smell like a very old, very rotten fish, don't they?

As I said, this is very much at an early stage . . . but if further investigation proves the initial report to be accurate, we may be talking about money laundering in the billions, if enough transactions are uncovered.  Is this why ActBlue appeared to go into crisis mode after President Trump was elected?

Pass the popcorn . . .

Peter

Late start today

 

Working on a couple of issues, so no time to blog today.  Check back tomorrow.  Thanks!

Peter

Another illegal alien problem - massive fraud and fiscal abuse

 

Following my thoughts yesterday about the seemingly insoluble illegal alien problem, a report from California illustrated yet another aspect of the issue - namely, deep-rooted corruption and abuse of taxpayer funds.

The entire school board for a Sacramento school that teaches English to adult migrants resigned after a state audit revealed mismanagement, fraud, and illegal use of education funding.

. . .

The auditor’s report alleged that the school board engaged in nepotism in hiring Cameron’s daughter, inflated the number of students to get more funding, purposefully avoided providing financial transparency reports to the state, spent money on repair bills for cars owned by board members, paid for luxury items such as food and travel, approved consulting contracts to friends and family members, modified test results, and committed a slew of other violations.

Some of the fraud concerned admissions to the school. The state charter only allows the school to admit migrants aged 22 and up and who don’t already have high school diplomas. However, the audit found that it was admitting students younger than the target age and also students who already had high school diplomas.

State officials allege these violations occurred to grow the school’s attendance numbers to boost the school’s state funding which was based on average daily attendance and the total number of students enrolled...

There's more at the link.

Understandably, some want to recover all the misused funds from the school.  Needless to say, pro-immigration activists disagree:

Some state officials are demanding that the school repay the $180 million in misused funding, but local activists say that forcing repayment would cause the school to shut down, leaving the hundreds of migrants currently enrolled and many thousands of future enrollees without a means to learn English in the area.

As far as I'm concerned, go ahead and shut it down!  If the school's primary reason for existence was to soak up taxpayer money for the benefit of its limited and privileged constituency, there's no reason whatsoever why that malpractice should continue.  Why reward malfeasance by making it possible for it to continue?

Like so many issues, the presence of illegal aliens has been used as a pretext to divert literally billions of dollars of taxpayer money to non-governmental organizations and activists who've grown fat on it.  They do little or nothing for the people they're supposed to help, instead using the funds to perpetuate well-paid jobs for themselves and build a structure that effectively makes their clients dependent upon them, rather than helping them become independent.

I hope those responsible for this mess in San Francisco go to jail for their crimes.

Peter

I don't want to hear him ask me that, either...

 

From the inimitable Stephan Pastis.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.

I think most of us would have to plead guilty to wasting far too much time, and far too much of our lives . . .

Peter

Why illegal aliens will keep on coming

 

I've heard and read a lot of comments about the illegal alien problem in the United States.  Many say - and I agree - that they should not be allowed to "invade" this country, and should be deported if they do.  Others argue for a "compassionate" approach, ignoring cultural and other conflicts in the name of a "shared humanity".  Whilst I'm more of a law-and-order guy, I admit they have at least some right on their side, too.

Problem is, both sides ignore the reality that people want to come here, and to European nations, because our way of life is so immeasurably superior to their own that they'll do literally anything to escape here.  For some it's quite literally a matter of life or death.  Three news headlines over the past week should bear this out.  Click any of them to read the related article.

In a Haitian city ruled by gangs,

young rape survivor raises baby she was told to abort

Thirty Days as a Cuban

WATCH: Gazans Loot United Nations Aid Trucks

There are dozens more articles like those every week.  They are the norm in many countries.  People living there want nothing more than to get out of those hellish conditions, and move somewhere that offers them greater opportunity - and they'll risk their lives, if necessary, to get there.  They don't care about laws that supposedly forbid them from doing so.  What has any law ever done for them where they are?  Laws are things you ignore when trying to survive.  Anything goes.

That's why, while I applaud President Trump's efforts to deport as many as possible of those who've entered this country illegally, I also recognize that those efforts are doomed to failure unless and until we figure out some way to lift the standards of living in the rest of the world.  Clearly, we can't do that, or afford to pay for it, ourselves.  It has to start in every country as a grassroots effort;  but in many countries, those in power cling to it illegitimately, and have no objection to killing any upstart politicians, and destroying any political movements, who try to take over.  They'll strangle such a grassroots effort at birth.

Yes, it's a pipe-dream to suggest that we can reform the rest of the world.  We can't.  However, unless and until the rest of the world does become a better place to live, we're going to continue to be overrun by those who are desperate for a future that doesn't exist for them where they are.  No matter how many we deport, they're going to keep on coming . . . and they're going to bring with them the societal and cultural norms that have shaped and formed them.  They may try to fit into our society, but many of them will find it impossible to do so.  They're already set in their ways - and those ways are not, and please God never will be, ours.

The irresistible force meets the immovable object.  That's our real problem - and I don't know that there's a solution, except to continue to roll our Sisyphean immigration rock uphill.  We daren't stop, because if we do, the invasion will resume in full force, and our society, culture and nation will be overrun.  We're going to have to invest time, resources and a whole lot of money to preserve what we have - but is it moral or ethical for us to do so without at the same time trying to assist other nations to improve conditions for their own people, thus reducing our illegal alien problem?

I have no answers.  I can only face reality - and I think that, at present, too many of us are not facing it at all.  "Kick them all out!" ignores the reality that they'll be back, along with a whole bunch of others who are more and more motivated to do so.  To ignore that reality is to live in cloud cuckoo land, an imaginary "reality" that ignores the truth.

If anyone can offer any really viable solutions, I'd love to hear them.

Peter

Tough kid!

 

We've all heard the expression "Man bites dog" as an example of a strange newspaper headline.  Well, how about "Toddler bites snake"?

A toddler in India bit a venomous cobra so hard that he killed it.

Two-year-old Govinda Kumar was playing in his home in Bankatwa, a village in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, when he spotted the three-foot long snake and grabbed it.

The cobra lunged at the child and coiled itself around his tiny hands during the incident on Friday, his relatives said.

But instead of screaming, Govinda put the snake’s head in its mouth and clenched his jaw, Mateshwari Devi, the boy’s grandmother, recounted.

He quickly lost consciousness after ingesting some of the deadly venom, but was treated in hospital and has since been discharged.

The snake died on the spot.

There's more at the link, including photographs.

Given the biblical reputation of serpents, one can only wonder what the snake's explanation was when it reached whatever hereafter is reserved for cobras.  As for the kid . . . I can see a bright future for him as a snake charmer.  His reptiles will be so scared of him they'll do anything to keep him happy!

Peter

Sounds like a public service homicide to me...

 

An Arkansas man is to stand trial after killing the man who, after already being charged for abusing his daughter, apparently kidnapped her and did so again.

According to records obtained by the Arkansas Times, Spencer initially called 911 just after 1 a.m. on October 8, 2024, to report his 13-year-old daughter missing. Spencer told police he’d been awakened by his dog barking, went to his daughter’s room to check on her and saw she was missing. He said he suspected she was with Fosler, 67, who had been arrested in July and charged with 43 counts, including sexual assault of a minor and internet stalking of a child, related to Fosler’s pursuit of Spencer’s then-13-year-old daughter.

The arrest affidavit for Spencer says he went to look for his daughter and Fosler after calling 911 the first time. The Lonoke County Sheriff’s Office contacted Cabot police to ask them to check a specific address. Prior to hearing back from Cabot police, however, 911 dispatch got a second call from Spencer, who said he had located the “man who kidnapped his daughter” and his daughter, but that Fosler was “dead on the side of the road” and that “he had no choice.”

. . .

On November 27, prosecutors charged Spencer with second-degree murder and commission of a felony with a firearm. That same day, Spencer’s attorneys, Erin Cassinelli and Michael Kaiser, issued a statement calling Spencer “a decorated war hero who protected his country and a loving father whose heroic actions protected his family.” They said Fosler “repeatedly violated his child” and “kidnapped her in the dark of night to continue his assaults on her.”

The statement criticized prosecutors for bringing charges against Spencer at all, accused prosecutors of “perpetuating these horrors instead of protecting legitimate victims and punishing true criminal offenders,” and thanked those who had “voiced their outrage over the treatment Aaron, his child, and the rest of his family had suffered.”

There's more at the link.

Based on the evidence available so far, if I were a member of the jury at Mr. Spencer's trial, I'd be voting him "not guilty" before the trial began!  Sure, he did it, and he admits he did it, but there appears to have been more than enough moral and ethical reason for his actions.  Sometimes jury nullification is the only appropriate response to a letter-of-the-law "crime".

The organization Gun Owners of Arkansas has a legal defense fund that's contributing to Mr. Spencer's case, and they've arranged for his legal representation.  I'll be contributing to it, and I hope my readers will consider doing the same.  At the link, you can read more about the case from Mr. Spencer's wife, Heather.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 271

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

I came across an article at the BBC's Web site discussing the dying art of making the santoor or santur, a traditional Persian string percussion instrument (not to be confused with the similar Indian santoor, which has a different design).  The article is very interesting, and I recommend you click over there and read it for yourself.

Having read it, I wanted to hear what the santur sounded like;  so I turned to YouTube, and found quite a lot of material there.  Here, in no particular order, are three pieces for the instrument and accompanists.

An interesting excursion into a musical tradition that's wholly new to me.  You'll find many more pieces on YouTube.

Peter

Murphy is a weather law in Texas

 

Texas weather is . . . unpredictable.  From the Iowa Park Journal this week:

They planned their roof renovation on the basis of a clear weather forecast.  Had they never heard of Murphy's Law???

Peter

How to groom your dog (sort of)

 

Daddybear, also known as our online and meatspace buddy Tom Rogneby, has published a helpful guide to washing your Labrador retriever.  It's packed full of helpful advice.  For example:

2.  Barricade the gate to the deck stairs. This is crucial. It is amazing how agile a 13 year old lab is when he doesn’t want to do something, and he’ll do a stutter step that will bring a tear to Jerry Rice’s eye and squirt right past you and down into the mud puddle that is your back yard.

6.  Get your hose and start soaking the lab as best you can. Labs have, on average, 13.72 separate layers of fur, so this is going to take a bit.

• Side note – Labrador Retrievers, as a breed, were created for fishing and duck hunting, both of which require the dog to plunge into icy cold water. It can surprise the new dog washer to learn that labs can have that sort of fortitude, but are absolutely against the idea of cold hose water being applied to their person.

8.  Once the wet dog is thoroughly coated in suds, get your hands into a ‘claw’ configuration and proceed to scrub the everliving whey out of that hound’s fur. You’re trying to scrub soap down into all of those layers of hair, so you might have to be a bit more aggressive. Take frequent breaks to flip handfuls of sudsy fur into the yard. The pile you make will survive several thunderstorms, but will be prized by the local gopher population as they soundproof their latest tunnel under your air conditioning unit.

• A side benefit to this activity is that it gets in your cardio for the day. Not only will you be bent over, vigorously moving your upper extremities repeatedly, but you’ll also be wrestling with a sopping wet dog that thinks you’re playing with him. At some point in this process, there will likely be as much suds on you as there is on the dog.

There's much more at the link.

Having grown up with a golden Labrador retriever, and owned another one during my last years in South Africa, I can attest to the truth of Tom's testimony.  Both dogs would happily run and play in the surf at the beach, or in a stream in the mountains, or even run outside in heavy rain - but if you so much as reached for a bucket, their warning antennae kicked in, and they'd do a Houdini every time you tried to corral them for washing.

The only dog I knew who really liked being washed was a huge cross between a St. Bernard and another big breed, possibly a Great Dane.  He weighed 140 pounds, and his shoulders were at waist height on even tall men.  He had some sort of irritating skin condition, which plagued him particularly in the summer months;  so if you appeared with a bucket, shampoo and a hosepipe, he'd eagerly run to meet you and submit to your ministrations with every sign of pleasure.  A dog that big sure gave us a run for our money to get him clean.

Peter

A kleptomaniac Reynard?

 

I had to smile at this report from Wyoming.

At least one fox has been stealing shoes from campers in Grand Teton National Park, so far racking up a score of at least 32 shoes absconded with. 

It’s become such a problem that the sly fox has become the park’s “most wanted” criminal.

There might be more than one fox involved — a vulpine shoe theft ring, if you will.

Wildlife experts aren’t sure why the fox or foxes decided to start making off with shoes from the Lizard Creek campground. It could be because the furry bandits like their scent, even though humans find stinky shoes repugnant. 

Or, it could be out of curiosity with a touch of mischief.

There's more at the link.

It's odd how animals can develop a taste, or desire, for human artifacts.  Crows and magpies are renowned for picking up small, shiny things, and even giving them as gifts to humans in exchange for food.  Dogs will chew on their owner's shoes, cats will collect and hide small things, and so on.

In Africa, one of the oddest lessons I learned is that one should not carry a bush knife with either a leather-wrapped hilt (as in the famous Marine Corps KA-BAR knife) or a soft wood hilt that can absorb liquids and odor.  If one uses it to clean, skin and joint an animal, blood will impregnate the hilt, which will retain that scent.  Scavengers such as hyenas can scent that from a surprisingly long distance, and will raid your camp site at night while everyone's asleep, picking up the alluringly smelly knife and taking it with them.  If you find it again, the hilt will be chewed to shreds.

The footsy fox in Wyoming makes me wonder what future archaeologists will think, if they excavate its den and find it packed from top to bottom with single shoes, all of different sizes and designs . . .

Peter

Pseudo-German, computer edition

 

Following this morning's first post, I remembered a "warning" that was often found in the coffee room used by mainframe computer operators back in the 1960's and 1970's.  It was very apt at the time, because it warned of something that many visitors actually did when they were allowed into those hallowed portals.  I was a computer operator way back when, and remember it well.  I think you can translate it without assistance.

Achtung! Alles Lookenspeepers!

Das computermaschine ist nicht für gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzundsparken. Ist nicht für gewerken bei das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen das cottenpicken hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlights.

The term "blinkenlights" became computer shorthand for quite a while, until computers progressed to the point that flashing lights on the console were replaced by lines of text on a monitor.  Example, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Those were the days when a computer program might contain several thousand lines of code, each entered onto its own punched card.  They were carried in boxes, and careful programmers made sure to number each card in numerical sequence, in case accidents happened - which they did, from time to time.  If you want to see a computer programmer cry, tell him the operator dropped his boxes of program cards on the stairs while running down to the computer room, and he's going to have to sort seven thousand-odd cards back into the correct order before you can run his program.  If he'd failed to number the cards, you might need to call the suicide prevention team and have them on standby before you told him the good (?) news . . .

Ah, yes.  Memories!

Peter

Germany "streamlines" its armed forces with an unpronounceable law

 

I had to laugh at this headline:

Germany passes ‘Bundeswehrbeschaffungsbeschleunigungsgesetz’ law to streamline army

Ironically, the law, which is supposed to make life easier for defence contractors and trade negotiators, is one of the longest words in the German language and difficult to pronounce.

. . .

Running at 43 letters long, Bundeswehrbeschaffungsbeschleunigungsgesetz is one of the longest words in German.

Germany is no stranger to having very long names for laws and business regulations, such as “Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz,” an archaic rule about beef standards which was once the longest German word.

The longest official German word, at 72 letters, is “Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft”, referring to a trade association for steamboats.

There's more at the link addressing Germany's military purchasing reforms (as opposed to its grammar and vocabulary, which could probably use some streamlining too).  Meanwhile, if Russia tries to sabotage Germany's military buildup, as it's been doing to its efforts to interrupt the supply of weapons to Ukraine, it now has a new problem:  how can it tell its saboteurs to target something they can't pronounce???

Growing up in South Africa, where the Afrikaans language is widely used, I'm accustomed to the problem.  Afrikaans is basically a derivative of Dutch as it was spoken during the 17th and 18th centuries, brought to South Africa by the original settlers;  and that, in turn, was a derivative of medieval Germanic languages.  It led to some very long and convoluted words.  Examples:

• There's a very dry part of the country named Putsonderwater (literally, "hole without water").  However, when a flood came down the Orange River during the 1980's, for a while it became known as Putonderwater (literally, "hole under water"), much to the amusement of everyone except those living there.
• A famous (and probably exaggerated) tale from colonial days tells of the hunter who managed to kill two Cape buffalo with a single shot from his 4-bore muzzle-loading rifle.  He proposed to immortalize the feat by naming the place where he made the shot "Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein" (meaning, in colloquial translation, "The spring where I killed two buffalo with one shot").  Expressing all that as a single word usually led to hilarity.

I want to see how US defense contractors will go about translating that German word (and all its supporting documentation and vocabulary) into English for their sales staff's attention.  This could be entertaining . . . and tongue-twisting!

Peter

Argentina shows the way?

 

All the evidence available so far points to Argentinian president Javier Milei's policies as being a major success story.

Okay, it is still only on a par with Egypt and Suriname. But the credit ratings agency Moody’s this week gave Argentina its second upgrade since its radical libertarian president Javier Milei took power.

It is yet more evidence of the dramatic improvement in the country’s fortunes. Growth has accelerated, inflation is coming under control, rents are falling and its debts are steadily becoming more manageable.

The dire warnings from the economic establishment that Milei’s bold experiment in slashing the burden of the state have been proved woefully wide of the mark.

The only question now is this: when will the rest of the world wake up to the Argentinian miracle?

. . .

One point is surely clear, however: in the 18 months since Milei took office, Argentina’s economy has been transformed.

It has been achieved by radically slashing the size of the state. Promising a “shock therapy” for the economy, the government has laid off more than 50,000 public sector workers, closed or merged more than 100 state departments and agencies, frozen public infrastructure projects, cut energy and transport subsidies, and even returned the state budget to a surplus.

. . .

The bulk of the policy-making and financial establishment still inhabits a mental universe where government spending is what drives growth, where regulation is seen as the key to innovation, where “national champions” are expected to lead new industries, while industrial strategies will pick the winners of the future, and the only role for the private sector is a “partner” for the finance ministry.

. . .

Argentina under Javier Milei is the only major country taking a different path. Perhaps because subsidies, controls and protectionism have turned it into a basket-case, it was ready to try the alternative.

The results are now clear. In reality, open, free markets and a smaller state are the only way to restore growth, and Milei is proving it all over again.

Moody’s and some of the other credit rating agencies have started to notice – and one day perhaps voters and politicians in the rest of the world will notice as well.

There's more at the link.

One sees a similar reaction on the part of the Left to President Trump's financial policies.  All around us, we see financial "experts" and economic "authorities" moan and wail about how things are really terrible, and the economy's bound to implode, and we'll regret voting for an economically illiterate person.  Yet, our own eyes show us that at least some sectors of the economy are improving, and hundreds of thousands of government bureaucrats have been fired, and tariffs are, indeed, increasing US income rather than devastating it.

Personally, I'm looking forward to Act II of the economic roadshow, both in Argentina and in America.  I think it may be a lot more positive than the "experts" would have us believe.

Peter

Heh

 

Hale and Pace were a popular British comedy duo during the 1980's and 1990's.  Here's one of their most popular skits.

I can imagine most guide dogs watching that with a feeling of immense self-satisfaction . . .

Peter

How is your medical insurance treating you?

 

I'm sure you've seen headlines like these in recent weeks.

Insurers Request Huge Obamacare Rate Hikes, Many Over 20 Percent

Health Insurers Are Becoming Chronically Uninvestable

They indicate that across the health care industry, costs are becoming unaffordable not only for consumers, but for the insurance providers on whom they rely.

I've noticed a new trend this year.  Previously, I've never been denied a treatment or medication prescribed by a doctor.  This year, I've had four denials, two for medication and two for in-patient hospital treatment.  None were issued directly by my insurer;  they all came from some sort of specialist claims investigation agency employed by my insurer to assess whether the prescribed service(s) and/or medication(s) were "appropriate" or "met clinical guidelines".  This is presumably so that my insurer can claim, "Oh, we didn't deny your treatment - an outside agency did.  It's not our fault!"

I'm told that I'm far from alone in this quandary.  It looks as if anything other than the most basic of medical care is being far more heavily scrutinized, and may be denied.  This is of particular concern to me with some major surgeries pending.  What if they become unaffordable for me, thanks to penny-pinching insurers?

That made me wonder.  What's your experience in recent months, dear readers?  Are you finding it increasingly difficult to get the treatment and/or medication and/or medical services you need?  Are you being fobbed off with excuses?  Please let us know in Comments, so we can assess whether or not this is a common trend.

Thanks.

Peter

Are American motor manufacturers and dealers destroying their own market?

 

Karl Denninger thinks so - and alleges that manufacturers and dealers have effectively conspired to hide the real ongoing cost of their vehicles from purchasers.

I refuse to purchase a vehicle where the "infotainment" screen, if the electronics for it or the screen itself, fails, it is single-sourced at the dealer, it costs $2,000 and the car will not operate reasonably without it because, for example, I cannot select heat, air conditioning and defrost without that screen.

. . .

Likewise manufacturers think they have a right to charge you $300 or more for a key -- why?  Because they have locked up the capacity to reprogram them.  That's unacceptable too; never mind what happens if I lose the key while on vacation?  Now I must be towed to a dealer -- what if the closest one is a hundred miles away?  You think I should pay $300 on top of a $200+ tow charge for a $20 or $50 key?  No.

The manufacturers and dealers both think they are entitled to screw people in short and they've been doing so on an increasing basis for the last couple of decades.

Look at one other example from that video ITSELF: "I have a 2024 Tahoe that won't start because the battery died.  The replacement battery costs $340...."

Ok Mr. Dealer: Why did you suborn the production of a vehicle, and accept it for sale as a dealer, when the battery costs $340?  You know damn well batteries are wear items and the customer will have to change it.  You may think he's stupid but perhaps he thinks that the battery should be $150 tops and it would be if you didn't have all that start-stop and similar crap on the vehicle!  Oh by the way, let me guess -- the system has to be calibrated when its replaced too and you think you have a right to force the customer to do that as well at an additional $100 or more cost without which the car will not start instead of the customer taking 5 minutes to swap it in a WalMart parking lot with a couple of wrenches like is the case for all four vehicles I currently maintain.

"People want reliable transportation they can afford, not $80,000 pickups with features they don't need."

Well then, Mr. Dealer, why did you permit the manufacturers to make the latter rather than the former?

Oh, I know the answer: You believed you were entitled to screw people rather than being in business to serve people with reliable products they want to buy at a rational price with rational operating and servicing costs, not a box full of $10,000 surprises when the transmission or engine blows up three months out of warranty or the "stereo" stops working, its proprietary and cannot be swapped for something else, and because it is tied to essential vehicle functions like the heater, A/C or defroster, forces the customer to pay $2,500 to have to have replaced.  The root of the problem is that you think you are entitled to do that to customers without disclosing it up front because if you had he or she would have never bought the vehicle in the first place and you knew damn well every single vehicle on your lot has those sort of forced and undisclosed costs built into them on purpose.

Why do you think plenty of people call your line of business "stealers" rather than "dealers"?

There's more at the link.  Highly recommended reading.

Here's the video he mentions.  It's well worth watching, and warns that the entire US automotive industry is facing disaster.  If the facts and figures the narrator provides are correct . . . he's not wrong.

Food for thought, particularly if you're considering the purchase of a new or used vehicle anytime soon.

Peter