Remembering one of the great - albeit underappreciated - actors of the last half-century

 

Yesterday actor Tim Curry died in Los Angeles at the age of 80.  He'd been wheelchair-bound since a stroke in 2012, which curtailed his acting career.

Curry was an absolute master of different roles, characters and persona.  Here are just a few of his many roles over the years.  Of course, we have to start with the one that made him (in)famous:  Dr. Frankenfurter in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".

(Read on to the bottom of this article to see an extended commentary on Rocky Horror (and Tim Curry) from Meat Loaf, one of his co-stars.)

Curry did some serious acting, too.  His role as Chief Medical Officer Petrov in "The Hunt For Red October" was relatively insubstantial, but as a character switch from Rocky Horror always struck me as going from one extreme to another.

Nevertheless, he truly shone in comedy roles.  Here are snippets from his performance as Colonel Anatoly Cherdenko in the 2008 video game "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3".  You can see him struggling to hold back laughter as he plays the character in a magnificently tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top delivery.

In 1992 he played Mr. Hector, the concierge at the Plaza Hotel, in "Home Alone 2: Lost In New York".  This is one of my favorite scenes from that movie.

He memorably played Long John Silver the pirate in "Muppet Treasure Island".

He left his mark on the entertainment world, on stage and screen, with performances like those.  I can't think offhand of any current actor who can replace him in characters like those.  Rest in peace, Mr. Curry, and thank you for many years of viewing pleasure.

I promised you more about the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  Meat Loaf gave an extended commentary on his participation in the movie, and his first (emotionally traumatic) encounter with Tim Curry (which resulted in his getting a jaywalking ticket as he tried to flee from the theater!).  There are two parts.

One of the funnier memories I have of Rocky Horror is that, back in the 1970's, South Africa had an official Publications Control Board, dominated by the heavily Calvinist teachings of the Dutch Reformed Church, which censored all books, movies and other entertainment media.  The movie must have given them fits of apoplexy, because they censored it heavily.  As a result, neither of the seduction scenes where Frankenfurther waylays first Janet, then Brad, was included - with the result that nobody could figure out their reactions from that point onward in the film!  Bootleg copies of the entire movie were soon smuggled in, clearing up the confusion.

Peter

Thought-provoking comments on trade/craft positions in industry

 

John Ringo, best-selling science fiction author, put up this post on X.com yesterday.  It made me think very hard about the current shortage of skilled professional craft/trade persons, which we've discussed in these pages on previous occasions.  Because some readers don't have access to X.com, I'm going to reproduce almost all of it here.  If you're on X, please feel free to read the many comments following his post, and reply to John there (and leave a comment here anyway!).

One very critical thing to know/remember about 'the trades' and 'why did we get rid of votech in HS?'

I'm a late boomer and not one to automatically blame everything on boomers, but... the boomers are a big reason.

Essentially, boomers filled nearly ALL of the trade positions that the US needed, even got laid off when manufacturing got outsourced, and there were lots and lots of people born between 1946 and 1964 who were doing plumbing, electrician, mechanic, etc jobs.

And they didn't retire. It used to be skilled union workers could retire after 20 years. The boomers didn't. My best friend is a NETA Level Four and has been doing ETT for 30 years. All the 'kids' who would have moved into his job couldn't... because he was doing it.

During the '90s there just WERE VERY FEW TRADE JOBS AVAILABLE in the United States. There was no reason for HS to keep votech when NOBODY COULD GET A JOB. There WEREN'T (many) plumber jobs, electrician jobs, machinists positions available for people entering the work force. They were all filled up by boomers.

(Example: Have a friend who works in the nuclear industry. Had to regularly certify this big complex part that was hand machined by one guy who had been doing it since 1976. THAT WAS WHEN CARTER WAS IN OFFICE! 'What happens when he retires?' 'We're not sure. There's nobody else on earth that has the skills.')

Now, as they are finally retiring, suddenly WE NEED VOTECH! WE NEED KIDS TO WORK IN TRADES! WE NEED KIDS TO MAN THE ASSEMBLY LINES! WHERE ARE THE WELDERS?! WHAT'S WRONG WITH KIDS THESE DAYS?! THEY'RE JUST LAZY AND WANT TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES/BE INFLUENCERS/PLAY ON THEIR PHONES ALL DAY!

The United States essentially eliminated skilled trade as a POSSIBLE job much less a STATUS VALUE job for at least one entire 25 year generation. We need x million new electricians in 2026. We needed about 5 in 1996. 'Sorry, kid, we're not hiring/training new electrician apprentices unless your dad is a master electrician. We just don't need that many.'

So, most of the training, HS votech, apprenticeships just went away.

It's gonna take time to fix that.

Food for thought indeed!  Please provide your own input on the subject in Comments.

Peter

A snappy answer to a stupid question

 

I dearly love J. K. Rowling's intelligence, wit and superb choice of repartee.  This is one of her best, as she responds to a "woke" gender warrior trying to browbeat opponents.

Zap!  End of argument, right there!

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 325

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

A little bit of whimsy this morning.  I received an e-mail that contained a reference to Billy Currington's country song, "People are Crazy".  I listened to it, and kinda enjoyed it:  so I thought I'd make it today's shared tune as well.

I gather there's another version that substitudes "dogs" for "beer" in the chorus.  Works for me!

Peter

Drone warfare developments - it's a scary future

 

Many of my readers doubtless took note of a report earlier this month about a US-Ukrainian military exercise earlier this year.

Ukrainian drone teams demolished a brigade of US Army tanks and armored vehicles during a live war game held this year—but the US soldiers were lucky enough to get “respawn” attempts while learning from the experience.

The semiannual military exercise, called Combined Resolve, gave the US military a firsthand taste of how modern drone warfare has evolved on the battlefields of Ukraine. The Ukrainian drone operators participating in the exercise were easily able to spot and destroy US armored vehicles by mimicking the actions of dropping bombs from above or moving close enough to simulate a kamikaze strike, according to US officials and a participant who spoke with The Wall Street Journal.

. . .

... by repeating the training scenario throughout the two-week exercise, US Army troops got better at figuring out how to disperse and hide from the drones while using countermeasures such as electronic warfare.

The US military is not alone in learning such lessons from battle-hardened Ukrainian drone operators.

Ukrainian drone teams also participated in a Swedish-led military exercise for NATO, called Aurora 26, that was also held in May. A mock mechanized assault by NATO tanks and infantry fighting vehicles allowed Ukrainian drones to take out dozens of the attacking armored vehicles, which eventually forced planners to reset the war game, The Kyiv Independent reported.

There's more at the link.

While trying to find out more, I came across this 45-minute video article from Deutsche Welle.  Itfeatures both a drone operator's perspective (a British soldier fighting for Ukraine) and drone casualties speaking of it from their point of view.  It also goes into how the technology is developing, and how China already has a commanding lead in the field.  As wars become more widespread, what will this mean for soldiers?  I recommend the report very highly if you aren't up to date with recent developments.

The technological advances referred to in the video report are already making headlines.  Earlier this month, we learned that US AI technology is now "enhancing" conventional Ukrainian drones.

In mid-July, the Ukrainian military began receiving Shrike drones made by the Ukrainian company SkyFall equipped with AI-powered autonomy hardware and software developed by the US company Auterion. The companies plan to deliver 50,000 drones equipped with Auterion’s Skynode S strike kits in the coming months.

That allows human operators to manually fly the Shrike first-person view (FPV) drones into a battlefield area, designate a target up to half a mile away, and then “flip the switch to turn it into fire-and-forget terminal guidance mode,” Lorenz Meier, co-founder and CEO of Auterion, told Ars.

The operator can abort a strike or choose a different target as long as they have a radio signal connection with the drone, Meier explained. But the drone can still automatically track and fly into targets without any human guidance, even if it loses its connection with the operator due to buildings or terrain blocking the signal or because of enemy jamming on the same radio frequencies.

To home in on targets, Auterion’s software relies solely on the visual information available from the Shrike drone’s main onboard camera. That means the Shrike drones can track and strike moving targets without any reliance on GPS—a crucial advantage on modern battlefields, where GPS jamming has also become common.

Again, more at the link.

When I think back on my own days in uniform, I can only be devoutly grateful that we didn't have to face such devices on African battlefields almost half a century ago.  I think my odds of surviving such combat would have been a whole lot lower if they'd been around!

The scary thing, to my mind, is that all this technology has already devolved to individual user level, in manufacturing as much as in operation.  A private person can buy just about all the drone propulsion and guidance technology used in military battlefield drones, and assemble his own versions.  A warhead isn't difficult to devise, given a little chemical knowledge and/or access to stolen military or commercial explosives.  What might happen if a well-organized terrorist outfit such as Al Qaeda or ISIS, or their various and sundry offshoots, were able to get hold of drone "swarming" technology and launch fifty or a hundred explosive drones against a major target?  I'm thinking sports stadiums, or government buildings, or even key targets such as the President when he's traveling by vehicle.  What if some of the drones could try to obstruct the takeoff or landing of the Presidential aircraft?  What if they did the same to a normal commercial flight, potentially causing hundreds of casualties and disrupting the entire air transport network for who knows how long?

I fear we haven't even begun to witness how dangerous such technology might be in the wrong hands.

Peter

Our politicians will never agree, but we can dream...

 

My hat's off to President Milei of Argentina for his "Grillete Fiscal" proposal - literally, the "Fiscal Shackles".  He wants to make sure that no future Argentinian government commits the same economic errors that have doomed the nation to half a century or more of economic fluctuations, fiscal irresponsibility, and near-bankruptcy.

Milei first unveiled the proposal in his characteristically entertaining style during a televised address to the Argentine people. The bill must still be approved by Congress, where his party, La Libertad Avanza, is expected to secure the support of allied parliamentary factions in both chambers.

Although Milei lacks a parliamentary majority of his own, his alliances have thus far proved remarkably resilient.

If enacted, the legislation would break with one of modern politics' unwritten rules: the assumption that governments can always buy votes with higher spending, higher taxes, and ever more debt. The business of burdening future generations and taxpayers with politically manufactured credit expansion would, at least for the time being, come to an end.

Milei's idea is straightforward: future Argentine governments should have their wings clipped before they are even able to take flight on another debt-financed spending spree.

The mechanism is equally straightforward. Should the federal budget remain in deficit for several consecutive months, Congress would be given a deadline to restore fiscal balance. Failure to do so would automatically trigger a U.S.-style government shutdown. Non-essential government activities would be suspended automatically—without further parliamentary debate or political horse-trading. The President, Vice President, cabinet ministers, state secretaries, and every member of both houses of Congress would receive not a single peso in salary until the budget is balanced once again.

Furthermore, all new spending would be frozen. No new contracts could be awarded, and no additional public employees could be hired. Even more striking, discretionary transfers from the federal government to Argentina's provinces would also be suspended.

At the same time, the law deliberately protects the state's core responsibilities. Pension payments, healthcare services, unemployment benefits, as well as the salaries of police officers, members of the armed forces, and correctional staff would remain fully exempt from these austerity measures.

There's more at the link.

I'd dearly love to see similar principles enshrined in US law.  It would take years to achieve, because we'd have to pay down our enormous national debt first;  but it would shackle the hands of future politicians, and stop them buying votes by enacting legislation for massive handouts to attract supporters.  We'd also have to figure out how to keep essential functions (e.g. defense, etc.) going when we're savagely cutting back everywhere else.

There's also the question of what to do with the literally hundreds of millions of Americans (and others) who are dependent on government handouts to a greater or lesser extent.  They'd have to be "weaned" over a period of time, to allow them to grow accustomed to the idea that nobody's going to pay them to live at taxpayer expense any longer.  Expect civil unrest as a minimum;  possibly riots to make the George Floyd/BLM brouhaha look like a Sunday school picnic . . . but it's still an attractive idea.

All those difficulties notwithstanding, unless we can enact some form of President Milei's program here, I can't see how our present system of government can survive in the medium to long term.

Peter

Verily, the mind doth boggle...

 

Believe it or not, this is a genuine e-poster from an outfit calling themselves Mainebreastfeeds.  Click the image for a larger view.

The caption is "National Breastfeeding Month", but the subtitle below it is "Celebrating trans lactation, two-spirit and chestfeeding".  Needless to say, "breastfeeding" and "chestfeeding" are not interchangeable terms (except in the sick minds of those who conceived this travesty)!

I imagine that for most normal people, that image is about as stomach-turning as one could wish.  It makes a mockery of natural breastfeeding, and is medically and physically impossible as well.  I find it nauseating.

I think anyone holding such views, or supporting those who hold them, should have their sanity examined as soon as possible.  That may be the only benefit to such arrant nonsense - to expose those who are, mentally speaking, three or four cents short of a nickel.

Peter

Tab clearing

 

A number of articles caught my attention over the past couple of weeks, but I didn't have time to write about them in detail here.  Therefore, I'll provide links to each, and encourage you to go read them if the subject interests you.  In no particular order:

1.  Evil, by Divemedic.

Speaking of numerous recent reports of child abuse, up to and including murder, he writes:

"So to the people who say the mothers above are sick or should have some sort of mercy given to them because of post partum depression, I have to tell you that there is true evil in this world. I was once one of the victims of that sort of abuse. I’ve also had to be there to see where that abuse often ends. It’s always a tragedy. When I see stories like this, I imagine the child standing there crying to its mother for protection as they watch her strangle their siblings to death, knowing and fearing that they are next, and wondering what they did wrong to deserve this. It’s overwhelming."

Having had to work with child abusers as a prison chaplain, I honestly can't disagree with his sentiments.

2.  How we die, by Eaton Rapids Joe.

Joe writes of the suicide of a young man, but notes that "other causes-of-death are increasing and thus dilute the share caused by suicide".  The accompanying chart is eye-opening, particularly the toll taken by MAiD in Canada, which now accounts for more than 1 in every 20 deaths in that country.

3.  NAMIBIA: The Desert That Swallowed an Entire City

This hour-long documentary is a spectacular look at Namibia, with particular reference to the Namib Desert, one of only three true deserts on the planet.  I've been in most of the places it mentions, and learned to love the Namib as a place to leave the world behind and find your soul.  It made me very nostalgic to watch the video.

4.  Chicago’s Wrongful Conviction Scandal Needs an Investigation, Not a Buy Now, Pay Later Plan.

Chicago Contrarian investigates the extraordinarily wasteful and corrupt system whereby Chicago charges someone with a crime, convicts them, then has to reverse the charges and pay out hundreds of millions of dollars every year in "damages".  Meanwhile, of course, the true perpetrators of the crimes make their getaway and get off scot free.  I'd call it a system tailor-made for corruption, rake-offs and crooked politicians, but what do I know?

5.  The Joke that Sparked Death Threats for Arynne Wexler.

How a young conservative comedian roused the ire of an entire politically correct industry.

She was at the White House in the spring of 2025 as part of an influencer gathering. She got some face time with spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, and she opened with the riff that caused a kerfuffle. Leavitt brought up President Donald Trump’s work with deportations and securing the southern border.

That gave Wexler an opening.

“I can attest to the fact that deportations are working because my Uber drivers finally speak English again,” she told Leavitt.

“Everyone laughed,” she recalled. “I leave the room and my phone is blowing up … I’m getting so many death threats in my Instagram, to my web site. I was put in touch with the FBI because I was getting so many threats over it … over that joke.'”

6.  Making idiots useful, by El Gato Malo.

people speak often of “suicidal empathy” as a plague consuming the west, and to be sure, they have a point. but where does this come from? from whence did it arise and take hold? i have an idea around a dovetail. hear me out on this:

the other day, i spoke about communism being a failure of second order thinking and that basically anyone capable of asking the question “but if we do that, it creates a certain set of incentives and won’t those incentives then lead to X?” does not become a communist. (apart from the select few who know exactly what it will do and see it as a path to personal power. more on them in a minute.)

well, how is “suicidal empathy” not functionally the exact same thing?

7.  Why I Quit the Tenure Track.

(If the article is paywalled, there's an archived version here.)

A black professor discusses his experiences in academic utopia, and how it eventually drove him away with its pretentiousness and condescension.

The very system that was designed to protect the faculty’s right to free thought collapsed. By 1980, as many as two-thirds of American college professors were tenured. Today, only about a quarter are. We went from a world where most faculty members could say what they think without fear of being fired to one where most people teaching college courses have to worry that their contract won’t be renewed if they cause intellectual offense. It is not surprising that a professoriat disproportionately composed of contract workers would also be one that could be pressured into groupthink.

8.  The NGO Business : Your Emotion Is Our Money.

Subtitled "How One Machine Sells Optionality To The Rich And Survival To The Poor And Why You Should Care".  You'll never look at NGO's in the same way again.

Ask someone to name a humanitarian organization and they will say Red Cross, or Save the Children, or Oxfam, or UNICEF. Ask them to name Chemonics and you will get a blank stare, every time, from almost everyone who has never worked inside this industry. And yet between 2008 and 2024, Chemonics was awarded more than $17 billion in USAID contracts — more than triple its nearest competitor — making it, for over a decade, the largest single implementer of American foreign aid on earth. It is not a charity. Does it have a donation button? Does it have a telethon? No. It is a private, for-profit development firm headquartered in Washington, DC, and roughly 95% of everything it has ever earned came from one single government client.

That fact alone should reorganize how you think this industry works, because it means the entire public image of "the NGO sector" — the child sponsorship letters, the disaster telethons, the branded polo shirts — describes only one half of a market that is actually built from two almost entirely separate businesses wearing the same public label. Understanding the difference between them, and where the real money actually concentrates, teaches you something durable about every heavily regulated, publicly-adjacent industry you will ever look at.

9.  The Permanent Underclass Is Already Here.

Subtitled "While San Francisco’s tech community frets over AI-driven job displacement, we have more to fear from misguided government welfare policies".  

What explains the flurry of concern in San Francisco over the supposedly imminent creation of a “permanent underclass”? The phrase, prominent in tech circles on X, refers to the vast, impoverished caste that many fear AI automation could create as jobs disappear and wealth flows increasingly to owners of capital. Murmurs about the permanent underclass began as a kind of inside joke in San Francisco—a winking reference to the awe and anxiety sweeping the tech industry as AI models steadily improved and engineers realized that they would either embrace the new tools or get left behind. As one popular meme put it: “You have [blank] months to escape the permanent underclass” (where the blank is a stand-in for your “artificial general intelligence timeline”—or how long you think it will take the models to automate almost all work).

... the permanent underclass meme does not just suggest that some people will lose purchasing power. It suggests that they will be irrevocably relegated to misery and destitution. There is a real-life analogue to this class in San Francisco: the drug-addicted and mentally ill homeless allowed to decay on our streets. Maybe the resonance of the “permanent underclass” meme comes less from concerns about downward mobility and more from the experience of passing a half-naked man smoking fentanyl on your way to work; or watching a swarm of drug dealers cater to wheelchair-bound addicts from the window of a self-driving taxi; or repeatedly pressing the “call for assistance” button in front of a locked toiletries display at a pharmacy. These experiences have become banal in many American cities, but their banality is especially striking in San Francisco, the hub of the most consequential technological revolution of our time. The permanent underclass already lives among you—are you just one twist of fate away from joining it?

There you are.  They're all worth reading.  I hope you enjoy them, and that they make you think.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 324

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

I'd never heard of Greg Kihn until last week Zendo Deb, who blogs at 357 Magnum, embedded a video of one of his songs.  I liked it, and did a bit more research and listening.  I figured many of my readers would be more familiar with his music than I was, so here are a few of the songs I found, in roughly chronological order of release.

Let's start with Zendo Deb's choice of "Remember", released in 1978.

From 1981, here's "Womankind".

In 1982 he released "Higher and Higher".

I think "The Breakup Song" was released in 1983.  This video features a slideshow of members of the Greg Kihn Band.

And finally, from 1986, here's the title track from his LP "Love and Rock and Roll".  Guitarist Joe Satriani joined his band for one year, and can be heard on this track.

Greg Kihn died at the age of 75, two years ago.  RIP.

Peter

A sobering look at automation, here and in China

 

Fedex is making news by employing robots to load and unload trailers.

FedEx says that trailer loading remains one of the most physically demanding and challenging workflows in parcel logistics, but has historically been difficult to automate using traditional solutions. However, the workflow is fundamental to FedEx operations since the company loads tens of thousands of trailers daily across its U.S. network.

Through its collaboration with Dexterity, FedEx said it is now establishing not only how physical AI performs in trailer loading operations, but also how the technology integrates into broader hub operations, including destination planning, trailer assignment, maintenance, and workforce processes.

Dexterity says its platform uses the company’s “Foresight” world model for physical AI to make real-time decisions in dynamic environments., and to control its dual-armed superhumanoid robot called “Mech,” that is designed for heavy industrial operations while remaining compact enough to operate inside trailers.

There's more at the link.

That is (or should be) yet another wake-up call to the trades unions representing US transport and cargo handling workers.  Slowly but surely, their members' jobs are being taken over by automation.  Amazon is already using a largely robotic workforce at many of its biggest and busiest customer service warehouses and hubs, and where Fedex goes, UPS and other shippers will go there too (if they haven't done so already).  I suspect most blue-collar workers have not given enough thought to what they'll do for a living if jobs like those are automated out from under them.

The bigger worry, to me, is the enormous gap between automation in first-world economies versus what's happening in China.  Consider this chart (click the image for a larger view):

The article accompanying that chart says, in part:

The data covers only physical industrial robots, not software or consumer technologies.

The chart shows that in 2011, China, the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea were all installing similar numbers of these robots. However, in the decade that followed, the paths of these countries diverged. By 2023, annual installations in China had risen to 276,000 robots, a twelvefold increase.

Over the same period, installations in the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea also increased, but much more slowly: none of them even doubled. The United States, which saw the second-largest rise, went from 21,000 new installations in 2011 to 38,000 in 2023.

These figures refer to new robots installed each year; that is, annual additions to the existing stock of robots. The IFR also publishes data on the total number of robots in operation, and by this measure, China also had the largest installed base, at around 1.76 million robots in 2023.

Again, more at the link.

The USA's total installed base of industrial robots was less than 400,000 units at the end of 2024.  At the same time, China had more than two million units in service.  The gap has only widened since then, and at a faster pace, too.

Those who say that we need to revive US manufacturing aren't looking hard enough at those numbers.  I don't believe it's possible any longer to rejuvenate US manufacturing in the traditional sense.  If we focus on technological sophistication, that's a different story:  but China's working on that just as hard as we are, if not more so.  Yes, I've read recent reports that China's economy is in trouble, and that they may be facing recession or depression:  but that doesn't take away from the immense technological lead they've built up in manufacturing.

This latest news from Fedex is a step forward for the company.  However, it's a drop in the bucket compared to what China is already doing.  American companies had better innovate a lot faster if they want to avoid being swept away by a Chinese-led tsunami in the business world.  That's not just a problem here, of course:  Europe is even worse off than we are.  Trouble is, I don't think enough of our private sector business leaders are paying it enough attention.  They're focused on their next quarterly results, not whether they'll still exist in a few years' time . . .

Let's give the last word to Dire Straits.

Peter

Doofus Of The Day #1,129

 

An "influencer" in Nebraska appears to have generated entirely the wrong kind of influence in the firearms community.

A Lincoln, Nebraska, wannabe influencer had his girlfriend film him while instructing his followers on how to properly handle a newly purchased 9mm pistol.

Then while racking the gun, and ignoring multiple rules of firearm safety (treat every gun like it's loaded, know where your gun is pointing, and keep your finger off the trigger), his pew pew went pew right through his leg.

There's more at the link.  Here's a brief video report about the incident.

Apparently the victim shot himself through the femoral artery (one of the largest blood vessels in the body) and nearly bled to death before responding officers could apply a tourniquet (a very difficult part of the anatomy in which to do that) and get him to a hospital.  He's said to be in critical condition.

Dare one say his prospective career as an influencer went with a bang?

Peter

Health update

 

This is an "omnibus post" to draw together threads from various earlier report-backs and clarify the situation for those interested.  If you don't want to know, that's OK.  Go read the bloggers in the sidebar.

Regular readers will know that for the past three years or so, I've been battling some very debilitating medical issues.  One was resolved (after five hospital procedures) with the removal of my right kidney last year.  The remaining kidney seems to be working just fine, for which I'm duly grateful!

The other problem is proving much, much more difficult to resolve.  Briefly, more than 22 years ago I suffered an injury to my spine.  A discectomy didn't work, so the vertebrae involved had to be fused.  Unfortunately, the injury (aggravated by almost half a year's delay in getting initial surgery, thanks to bureaucratic fumbling) resulted in permanent damage to my left sciatic nerve.  Since then, I've had limited mobility (sometimes very limited) and been in pain 24/7/365.  I've mostly kept it under control through some pretty strong pain medication, but that doesn't always work.  I've learned to grit my teeth through the bad days, and carry on regardless.

About three years ago I became aware of a steady increase in pain levels in my lower back, and more frequent difficulties with nerve pain in my left leg.  Over the past couple of years I've undergone multiple CT scans, neurological examinations and other tests, but could never get doctors to agree on precisely what the problem was and/or what should be done (particularly whether a given procedure would solve all my problems, or require other procedures to deal with some of them).  Eventually, in sheer frustration, a couple of months ago I asked for my case to be referred to a top neurosurgeon in Dallas, to ask for his opinion.

Well . . . I've received his opinion, and I don't like it (not that complaining helps - it's about as much use as farting against thunder).  Basically, he says that yes, several of my lumbar vertebrae need attention.  However, since the exact issues affecting my pain, mobility, etc. can't be accurately determined, the vertebrae involved should not be fused until that is known, because surgery could not be guaranteed to fix things.  Lacking such certainty, other treatment options should be pursued.

All right, then.  We move on to dealing with the symptoms until such time as we can more precisely define the cause.  I've been consulting a pain management specialist for some months, and will discuss the neurosurgeon's opinion and future options with him on Friday.  I don't want to increase my present dosage of (opioid) pain medication, but I may not have much choice in the matter in the short term.

There are three problems needing to be fixed, or at least alleviated.

1. The damaged nerve in my left leg, and its root in the (compressed) spinal cord, are affecting my balance to an ever greater extent.  I've always been slightly unsteady on my feet since my injury, but over the past couple of years this has gotten worse.  I now have to use a walking stick to cover anything other than short distances, in case the nerve "shorts out" for a second or two and dumps me on the ground.  Thank heavens for shopping carts - without them, I couldn't walk around a supermarket for long.  I've had a couple of bad falls, most recently just last week, where I had to call for help to get up again.  When your left leg and hip has turned into a useless meat deadweight and won't respond to your nerve signals at all, it makes life rather tricky!  Still, I won't complain too much about it.  There are people who've suffered the same injury I did who never walked again.  Compared to them, I'm well off.  If worse comes to worst, I guess I may have to look at a mobility scooter or something like that, although I really don't want to use one.
2. The balance issues appear to be conflicting with pain management.  I've been wearing a back brace for several months while walking, which does alleviate some of the pain and helps me stay on my feet longer (and lift things more easily when that becomes necessary).  However, the more often (and longer) I wear the back brace, the less steady my gait becomes and the easier it is to lose my balance.  When I think about it, it was compression of the nerve in the first place (during my original injury) that caused my ongoing problems, so it's perhaps logical that adding additional compression via a back brace may aggravate things.  A neurological Catch-22, perhaps? That will be a topic for discussion with the pain management specialist on Friday.
3. Some of the newer treatments (for example, caudal epidural steroid injections - of which I've had two so far (ouch!) - and, potentially, radiofrequency ablation for pain management, which is a convoluted medical term meaning they cauterize nerve endings) have side effects that can cause and/or aggravate other problems.  (For example, hope and pray they cauterize the right nerve(s), because there's no coming back from that if they don't!)  If I'm to continue with such methods, I need to understand precisely what's involved, and decide whether the promised benefits are worth the almost inevitable downsides.  On the other hand, what (if any) are the alternatives?

Financially, we're coping.  In case you missed earlier posts on this subject, I've had to argue ad nauseam with bureaucrats in both workers comp (for my original injury) and a medical insurer (for current problems).  Neither wants to pay, seeking instead to pin the responsibility for the situation on the other.  Meanwhile, since we can't wait for them to sort out their turf wars, we've had to pay our own way up front.  We hope to recover at least some of that money from one or the other agency in due course.  Thanks to reader generosity during my fundraiser last year (and a few who've continued that support since then - shout out to C. in particular!), plus our savings, plus a second mortgage on our home, we've been able to cope with the bills racked up so far (several tens of thousands of dollars).  We remain deeply grateful for your help and support, without which our lives would be a whole lot more complicated right now.

Anyway, that's the state of my health so far.  Thank you again to everyone who's supported us, and inquired after my health, and sent up prayers for us.  All are greatly appreciated.

Peter

Is the UAE taking combat warship lessons from Israel?

 

Some years ago, I said about the Israeli Navy:

I like the Israeli approach, which crams lots of hitting power into even small hulls (see, for example, its Sa'ar 5 class corvettes, which as far as I know are the most heavily armed ships of their size [just over 1,000 tons] anywhere in the world, and on an armament-per-ton or tons-per-weapon basis might be the most heavily armed warships since the age of the dreadnought).

That approach has since been epitomized even more in Israel's Sa'ar 6 corvettes, almost twice the displacement of the earlier Sa'ar 5's, but even more heavily armed.  There are probably more weapons and weapon systems aboard a Sa'ar 6 than aboard any two, or even three, typical NATO frigates.

I thought about this when reading an article about the new Falaj 3 class "patrol boats" of the United Arab Emirates.  Their displacement is only about 670 tons, but they've packed an awful lot of firepower into that small hull.

Photos of the United Arab Emirates’ Falaj 3 class patrol boat are a reminder that a vessel doesn’t need to be a corvette or even a frigate to be armed like one. At a little over 200 feet long, the Falaj 3 is officially designated an offshore patrol vessel (OPV), but it boasts a weapons suite that would be impressive on a missile corvette and, in some respects, even a light frigate. In fact, at around 670 tons full load displacement, and a crew of just 39, it may be one of the most heavily armed warships anywhere in the world for its size.

OPVs are generally built for constabulary duties rather than high-end naval combat. Their primary missions include enforcing exclusive economic zones, countering piracy and smuggling, fisheries protection, search and rescue, and humanitarian assistance. As a result, they typically prioritize endurance, seakeeping, and low operating costs over heavy armament. Many Western designs in this category carry little more than a medium-caliber gun and a handful of remotely operated weapon systems, with no dedicated anti-ship missiles or significant air-defense systems.

The Falaj 3 takes a very different approach, as is immediately apparent from these photos.

Forward sits a Leonardo 76mm OTO Super Rapid gun equipped with the STRALES guided ammunition system, giving the ship a weapon capable of engaging everything from surface targets to fast-moving aerial threats ... Directly behind the gun is an eight-cell vertical launch system loaded with MBDA VL MICA surface-to-air missiles. This ‘fire and forget’ missile can intercept targets at a range of up to around 12 miles and at altitudes of up to 30,000 feet.  Further aft is a 21-cell Raytheon Mk 49 launcher for the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM), giving the vessel a second, independent layer of point air defense. Most OPVs are fortunate to carry an adapted man-portable air defense system, if they have any dedicated air-defense system at all.

The offensive fit is equally notable. Four MM40 Exocet Block 3C anti-ship missiles provide over-the-horizon strike capability, while two 12-cell Low-cost Guided Imaging Rocket (LOGIR) guided rocket launchers offer an inexpensive way to engage drones, uncrewed surface vessels, and fast attack craft without expending much more costly missiles ... Completing the package are two Electro Optic Systems (EOS) R400-M 30mm remote weapon stations and two 32-barrel Rheinmetall Multi Ammunition Soft-kill System (MASS) decoy launchers, providing close-range firepower and survivability against incoming guided weapons, respectively.

There's more at the link.

I entirely agree with a powerful weapons load-out like that.  It remains a perennial worry to some naval observers (including me) that so many corvettes, frigates and destroyers in US and European service are relatively lightly armed for their size.  There isn't enough depth to their defenses, particularly if they face a swarm of incoming drones or missiles.  If they miss even one, they may suffer severe, disabling damage.  They can't even reload missiles at sea, meaning that in a serious engagement, they'd shoot themselves dry in a relatively short space of time.  After that . . . they're expensive targets.  (Compare them to their equivalents in the former Soviet Union and/or the Russian Navy today.  The Russians have not forgotten the lessons of history, and arm their ships accordingly.  See, for example, that nation's Steregushchiy and Gremyashchiy classes.)

I hope the example of the Falaj 3 class of patrol vessels is studied, and spreads.  We live in an increasingly dangerous world, particularly the ocean passages through narrow straits like Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb, etc.  To defend them, we need larger numbers of considerably more powerful vessels than have so far been employed.  Air power has its place, of course, but in the end ships at sea are like infantry on the ground.  You need them to take and hold strategic areas.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 323

 

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

No Sunday morning music today

 

Sorry.  I had a bad health day Friday, and I'm still getting over it.  No music today.  Hopefully memes as usual tomorrow.

Peter

Why are they still wearing badges and carrying guns?

 

A gentleman (?) named Jamarcus Oneal Spates was arrested by a gaggle of Houston police officers on Monday.  It's not clear why so many of the officers were involved, or why they took such extreme precautions, but be that as it may . . .

On-duty uniformed officers arrived and attempted to stop the vehicle with Spates inside, the release states. HPD alleges Spates refused several commands to exit the vehicle.

The responding officers said they shot at Spates after they attempted to move toward the vehicle and saw him open the driver's door of the vehicle and extend his arm "in a shooting position," according to HPD's account. A bullet "grazed" Spates, the release said.

There's more at the link.

A bullet "grazed" Spates.  One bullet.  ONE SINGLE BULLET.

How many rounds were fired by all those officers to obtain just one slight, non-disabling injury to the suspect?  See (and hear) for yourself.

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?????

All those bullets flying around, and the suspect was grazed by just one of them.  Where, pray tell, did the rest of the bullets go?  How many nearby buildings, vehicles, trees, etc. were struck as well?  Oh - and what about innocent bystanders?

That's just about the most sickeningly incompetent firearms handling I've ever seen from uniformed cops.  I've no idea how many rounds were fired in all, but I won't be surprised to hear it was a hundred or more . . . AND ONLY ONE STRUCK ITS TARGET, AND EVEN THEN, ONLY JUST!!!

What's the point of issuing firearms to police at all, if that's the way they're going to handle them in a crisis situation?

No handgun bullet is a very good fight-stopper compared to a rifle or shotgun.  We know this.  It's been common knowledge for years.  However, even a handgun will stop a fight quickly enough if a bullet hits the target's central nervous system - i.e. the brain or the spine.  A penetration of the heart and/or circulatory system will take a bit longer - up to 30-60 seconds for the suspect to "bleed out".  However, if all the bullet does is "graze" the suspect's arm, it's not going to do one single damned thing to stop him.  It may make him lose his temper, but that's about all.

(As the late, great Jeff Cooper used to say about the [infamously puny] .25 ACP round:  "Carry a 25 if it makes you feel good, but do not ever load it. If you load it you may shoot it. If you shoot it you may hit somebody, and if you hit somebody, and he finds out about it, he may be very angry with you."  Considering the lack of success of those police officers, armed with [comparatively much more powerful] 9mm handguns, shotguns and at least one AR-15 rifle, they may as well have been carrying .25 ACP pistols instead!)

I'd take away the badges of the whole lot of them, and send them all for remedial firearms training.  I'd refuse to re-issue their badges unless and until they passed a truly practical, useful firearms test, such as the qualification for a basic handgun certificate from Gunsite or Thunder Ranch or equivalent shooting schools.  Can't do that?  Then you can't carry a gun to defend the public, because you're more of a danger to them than you are to the criminal!

Sheesh . . .

Peter

Animals and aircraft: a sometimes dubious mixture

 

Courtesy of an e-mail from Eaton Rapids Joe, I was led to this account of a massive pig airlift operation.

Business pard's son flies 747's for Atlas Air. Latest load was around 900 pigs from Cincinnati, stop over in Anchorage. A reverse thruster had stuck, so they had to transfer those pigs to another 747. I figure the big plane can haul around 4 double decker, 18 wheeler (pot) loads of pigs. That's a pot load max of around 50K pounds or so, times 4, still under a 747 max load of 250-300K pounds. They were able to open the 747 nose and side doors to give those pigs some air while the new plane was being readied.

I googled Philippine pig problem and found out they have African Swine Fever Virus, which is contagious and deadly. So the govt is importing 32,000 breeding age pigs from USA and Europe, placing them in ASFV free areas. That virus kills pigs, but does not infect humans. Don't ya know those big planes stank after hauling all those pigs. Bud said the pigs were stomping, were actually shaking the plane. Big plane, but lots of stomping pigs. (Stomping, mad pigs.... would make a great Antifa demonstration).

. . .

Wonder what a "pig ticket" for a half the way around the world trip would cost. And times 900.... And ultimately 32,000 pigs.... Only a govt could afford that, for sure not pig farmers.

There's more at the link, particularly comments from other interested readers.  My favorite:  "Ha! In the Philippines they'll offload 900 pigs and haul them off on three motorbikes, two garongs and a jeepney."  Friends who've been there assure me that's more likely than not . . .

The story reminded me of one of the more "interesting" freight problems involved in flying the Hump, the air transportation of men, machines and equipment from India to China during the Second World War.  I wrote about it at some length several years ago.  One of the most difficult tasks was to fly mules and donkeys to China for use as pack animals, which were essential in the heavily forested terrain of Burma and nearby areas.  The Hump loadmasters would cram anything up to a dozen into C-46 or C-47 transports, and fly them all the way to China.  The trouble was, their urine would seep through the aluminum floor plates and corrode the control cables that ran from the cockpit to the tail.  The problem was discovered one day when a C-47 pilot taxied out to the runway in China, to take off for a return flight to India, and discovered that the rudder would no longer answer to his control inputs.  Subsequent inspection revealed that all the planes used for those animal cargoes were in just as parlous a condition, requiring major overhauls and the replacement of many control cables and surfaces before they could go back to work.

Of course, domesticated (or semi-domesticated) livestock is manageable as cargo.  Wild animals . . . not so much.  One of my favorite episodes was Operation Crocodile in South Africa in 1970.  Conservationist Ian Player was trying to rescue a number of Nile crocodiles from an estuary threatened by severe drought.  He appealed to the South African Air Force, which made available one of its then-new Super Frelon helicopters.

Hilarity - and a great deal of bad language - ensued.  The game rangers and their assistants had to capture, then immobilize the crocodiles, one after another, and load them into cargo nets (a process in which the animals proved to be less than cooperative).  The helicopter would then hover overhead (producing violent protests from the crocodiles, who didn't want anything to do with this strange bird), hook up the net, and airlift the croc to a safer place several miles up-river.  Once there, it was lowered to the ground, the net was removed, and the ropes and tape and other immobilizing bits and pieces were taken off.  This had to be done very carefully, always being prepared for some very high-speed maneuvers to get away from the by now extremely annoyed crocodile.  Video footage of proceedings was very popular with everyone except those immediately involved!

Africa, of course, is a very strange place, and its animals and aviation have their own stories to tell.  One of the worst is, I assure you, absolutely true.  People sometimes accuse me of making it up, so I'll let you read the news report at the link to prove that no, I'm not.

Peter

I bet the locals were a bit garum-py over that...

 

For those who didn't know, the staple sauce throughout the Roman Empire of old was called garum.

Garum is a fermented fish sauce that was used ... in the cuisines of Phoenicia, ancient Greece, Rome, Carthage, and later Byzantium ... The taste of garum is thought to have been comparable to that of today's Asian fish sauces.

Like modern fermented fish sauce and soy sauce, garum was a rich source of umami flavoring due to the presence of glutamates.

There's more at the link.

Believe it or not, after about 2,000 years or thereabouts, you can still buy authentic garum today.  Go check out what's available at the link.  If you prefer something slightly less fishy, British Worcestershire sauce is basically a modern version of garum.  It was developed "by accident", with a nasty unpalatable concoction left forgotten in a basement for years.  When rediscovered, it had matured into what we know today.  Read all about it at the link.

So, fermented fish sauce has a long and celebrated history . . . but one can have too much of a good thing, as the residents of St. Mary's in Canada learned to their cost.

Over 100 tanks of rotten fish sauce are finally being removed from a small Canadian town after stinking up the neighborhood for decades.

The supply of what’s been described as “the worst rotted fish you ever smelled” was left abandoned in the quaint town of St. Mary’s after the Atlantic Seafood Sauce Company shuttered more than 20 years ago.

Over the next few months, workers will embark on a $1.2 million project to drain roughly 110 tanks, each holding 3,000 gallons of fermented fish sauce.

The stinky sauce will then be mixed with peat moss to absorb the liquid, according to St. Mary’s volunteer mayor, Steve Ryan.

Trucks equipped with giant hoses will then suck up the material and deliver it to a massive pit lined with high-density polyethylene, where the waste will be buried in topsoil.

The dilapidated factory full of ditched fish sauce has wafted an indescribable smell over the town of roughly 300 people in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The liquid kept fermenting as the plant kept turning to ruin, with a blown-off roof and a wall knocked out by a storm in January.

There's more at the link.  Here's a video report on the process.

This is one time I'm truly, profoundly, deeply grateful that "scratch and sniff" technology hasn't made it to the pages of the Internet yet - or to the screens of our electronic devices!

Peter

I had no idea these things existed

 

I've heard of machines that deploy barbed or razor wire, making it easy to set up fences, obstacles, etc.  However, I'd never heard of a machine that got rid of those fences, even decades after they'd been strung.

A wire winder mounted on a skid steer can roll up a half-mile of old fence in about two minutes, a task that would probably take a half-day to accomplish by hand, said John Graves, director of conservation and resource management for the Sheridan Community Land Trust.

“It’s pretty darn cool,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “To sit there in the cab of the skid steer and watch that wire come in, it’s great.”

The importance of removing old barbed wire and woven-wire fences can’t be overstated, said Steve Martin, Wyoming director of the North American Pronghorn Association.

Old fences can block pronghorn from reaching thousands of acres of habitat in the Red Desert and other places in Wyoming and Montana, Martin told Cowboy State Daily.

There are countless miles of fence that must be removed and replaced with wildlife-friendly fencing, he said.

. . .

“Unlike deer and elk, pronghorn will rarely, if ever, jump a fence. They want to crawl under it,” he said.

So woven-wire fences are particularly hard on pronghorn, he said, because there’s no way to get underneath them.

Researchers from the University of Wyoming concluded that fences trapped pronghorn in areas of the Red Desert during the harsh 2022-2023 winter, and many of them died.

Recent upgrades to wildlife-friendly fences in the Red Desert opened up about 10,000 acres to pronghorn, Martin said.

There's more at the link.  Here's a brief video clip of the wire winder at work.

That's pretty ingenious.  I wonder who came up with the idea?  It's just another addition to the huge variety of tools and equipment that can be hung onto or off of skid-steer machines.  I saw one around here that had more than a dozen different attachments arranged in a long row at one side of the yard.  The driver could simply drive up to a gap in the row, drop the attachment he'd been using into the open space, drive to the next gizmo he needed, connect it up, and away he went.  It can't have taken more than a minute or two per attachment.  That's productivity for you!

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 322

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

How about a blend of American and British music?  Lonnie Donegan was a very well-known skiffle player in Britain during the 1960's, but he began by performing many American folk songs and introducing them to British audiences.  In turn, this re-popularized some of them in America, and led other American artists to work with Donegan in later years.

As an illustration of his performance of American songs, here's Lonnie in the mid-1950's singing Woody Guthrie's "Grand Coulee Dam".

However, Lonnie is best known for his humorous (and sometimes ribald) comedy English songs.  Some have remained popular to this day, on both sides of the Atlantic.  Here's "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (On The Bedpost Overnight)?"

No tribute to Lonnie would be complete without his famous music-hall-style comedy piece "My Old Man's A Dustman".  It helps to understand Cockney slang (partly explained at the link), but you can get the gist of it even without that.

You'll find plenty more of his music on YouTube and elsewhere.  It seems impossible that all those recordings are today sixty-five years old or more . . .  Dates me, I guess!

Peter