A grim warning from Europe about financial security - and what it might mean for the USA

 

In my first post this morning, I mentioned the possibility that Europe might take action against private bank accounts to fund its ever-increasing deficit and ever-growing social programs.  As if to echo that warning, here's what Zero Hedge had to say a few hours ago.

In the view of the EU’s chief Eurocrat, private property as a protective wall shielding citizens from an overreaching state has served its purpose as a pillar of civilization.

Central planning, subsidy madness – this is Brussels under the magnifying glass.

. . .

A ruthless expropriation or the decreed redirection of cash, as the finest bureaucratic German puts it, is supposed to solve the problems Brussels itself has caused through its stubborn climate policy, its overregulation and its continuing insanity of interventionism.

Von der Leyen was explicit before the business leaders: Europe has savings, she said, but unfortunately those savings are sitting on the sidelines. Ten trillion euros are sitting as cash savings in the hands of private households in bank accounts, lectures von der Leyen in the manner of a classic central planner who can no longer take her eyes off citizens’ wealth. The European economy must now put this capital to work for its companies, the chief bureaucrat decreed.

. . .

Von der Leyen is following the path of the German chancellor. Friedrich Merz, too, discovered the cash holdings of Germans as political capital for himself more than a year ago – thoroughly socialist, indeed almost dictatorial, the chancellor also pointed to the possibilities opened up by what he called an activation of this money.

Ursula von der Leyen and Friedrich Merz reveal not merely an ethical and ideological abyss; they are contemplating dictatorial control over the private wealth of citizens who are still sovereign.

There's more at the link, including a video recording of Ursula von der Leyen's address.

Don't think that this is only a European problem.  Look at the size of America's deficit, and then consider that we could wipe out two-thirds to three-quarters of it simply by "nationalizing" the retirement savings of Americans, by confiscating the shares and bonds in which they invest.  That's precisely what some US politicians have been saying for years, and are still saying today.  If they get into power, our private savings and investments are under grave threat.

Peter

Points to ponder

 

Several points of interest today (and all are well worth your time).

1.  DiveMedic discusses the Lindsey Clancy (mis)trial, including the evidence of psychiatric medications and other factors.  I agree entirely with his conclusion.

2.  Remember the Ig Nobel awards?  This year's winners have just been announced.  My favorite category:  Biomechanics.

Citation: Matilda Brindle, Catherine Talbot, and Stuart West for devising a more precise definition of kissing—“non-agonistic interactions involving directed, intraspecific, oral-oral contact with some movement of the lips/mouthparts and no food transfer”—in ants, birds, polar bears, and humans.

"Darling, come here.  I want to practice biomechanics with you!"  

3.  Chiefio warns:  "IF you have Money in the EU – Take It Out Now."

The simple fact is that the EU is flat broke, having squandered €Billions on the Ukraine Folly. They have tried regularly to steal the Russian money entrusted to Euroclear, but that mostly failed. They handed a “loan” to Ukraine that doesn’t need to be repaid until Russia pays “reparations”, that will never happen, so kiss that off ... So [Ursula von der Leyen] has stated that people’s savings accounts are a problem (ignoring that savings accounts are what allow banks to make loans for things like cars and mortgages and business working capital). She has stated that this money must be put “to the service of European Companies” (not realizing it already is as prudent business loans IF appropriately vetted). That she wants to “securitize them” and “supervise them” – which means steal your money for her desired expenses.

Remember what happened during the Cyprus banking crisis of 2012-13?  The EU forced the Cypriot government to close that country's second-largest bank, imposing a one-off levy on all uninsured deposits there, and seize many uninsured deposits in the Bank of Cyprus.  Almost 48% of all bank deposits above €100,000 were seized, without compensation.  If the EU could do it once, during a much smaller financial crisis, I wouldn't bet they won't do it again, and more, in the present circumstances.

4.  If you, like me, are wondering about the vast numbers of data centers under construction, it's worth examining the phenomenon on a worldwide basis.  Statista has compiled the figures for Number of data centers worldwide as of June 2026.  Here are the top ten nations:

For more information, see the Statista link above.  My question:  if the rest of the world isn't frantically building these things by the hundreds, why are we doing so in the United States?  Follow the money, and see who profits... and who pays.

Let us know your reaction(s) in Comments.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 327

 

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

Sunday morning music

 

Here's a treat for lovers of baroque music:  the complete harpsichord concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach, played on antique instruments.  It's a three-CD set from Plectra Music.  Keyboardists are David Moroney, Karen Flint, Arthur Hass, JungHae Kim and Adam Pearl.  Tracklist is as follows:

00:00:00  Disc: 1

 1 - Concerto in a Minor for Four Unaccompanied Harpsichords, BWV 1065: [Allegro] - Karen Flint, Arthur Haas, Davitt Moroney,& Junghae Kim
2 - Concerto in a Minor for Four Unaccompanied Harpsichords, BWV 1065: Largo - Karen Flint, Arthur Haas, Davitt Moroney & Junghae Kim
3 - Concerto in a Minor for Four Unaccompanied Harpsichords, BWV 1065: Allegro - Karen Flint, Arthur Haas, Davitt Moroney & Junghae Kim
4 - Concerto in a Major, BWV 1055: Allegro - Davitt Moroney
5 - Concerto in a Major, BWV 1055: Larghetto - Davitt Moroney
6 - Concerto in a Major, BWV 1055: Allegro Ma Non Tanto - Davitt Moroney
7 - Concerto in C Major for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1061: [Allegro] - Karen Flint & Davitt Moroney
8 - Concerto in C Major for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1061: Adagio Ovvero Largo - Karen Flint & Davitt Moroney
9 - Concerto in C Major for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1061: Fuga - Karen Flint & Davitt Moroney
10 - Concerto in D minor for Three Harpsichords, BWV 1063: [Allegro] - Arthur Haas, Davitt Moroney & Adam Pearl
11 - Concerto in D minor for Three Harpsichords, BWV 1063: Alla Siciliana - Arthur Haas, Davitt Moroney & Adam Pearl
12 - Concerto in D minor for Three Harpsichords, BWV 1063: Allegro - Arthur Haas, Davitt Moroney & Adam Pearl
13 - Concerto in a Minor for Four Harpsichords with Strings, BWV 1065: [Allegro] - Karen Flint, Arthur Haas, Davitt Moroney, Junghae Kim & Adam Pearl
14 - Concerto in a Minor for Four Harpsichords with Strings, BWV 1065: Largo - Karen Flint, Arthur Haas, Davitt Moroney, Junghae Kim & Adam Pearl
15 - Concerto in a Minor for Four Harpsichords with Strings, BWV 1065: Allegro - Karen Flint, Arthur Haas, Davitt Moroney, Junghae Kim & Adam Pearl

01:07:20  Disc: 2 

1 - Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052:Allegro
2 - Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052: Adagio
3 - Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052: Allegro
4 - Concerto in D Major, BWV 1054: [Allegro]
5 - Concerto in D Major, BWV 1054: Adagio E Piano Sempre
6 - Concerto in D Major, BWV 1054: Allegro
7 - Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058: [Allegro]
8 - Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058: Andante
9 - Concerto in G minor, BWV 1058: Allegro Assai
10 - Concerto in E Major, BWV 1053: [Allegro]
11 - Concerto in E Major, BWV 1053: Siciliano
12 - Concerto in E Major, BWV 1053: Allegro

02:21:10 Disc: 3 

 1 - Concerto in C minor for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1060: Allegro
2 - Concerto in C minor for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1060: Largo Ovvero Adagio
3 - Concerto in C minor for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1060: Allegro
4 - Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056: Allegro
5 - Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056: Adagio
6 - Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056: Presto
7 - Concerto in F Major for Harpsichord and Two Recorders, BWV 1057: [Allegro]
8 - Concerto in F Major for Harpsichord and Two Recorders, BWV 1057:Andante
9 - Concerto in F Major for Harpsichord and Two Recorders, BWV 1057: Allegro Assai
10 - Concerto in C minor for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1062: [Allegro]
11 - Concerto in C minor for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1062: Andante E Piano
12 - Concerto in C minor for Two Harpsichords, BWV 1062: Allegro Assai
13 Concerto in C Major for Three Harpsichords, BWV 1064: [Allegro]
14 Concerto in C Major for Three Harpsichords, BWV 1064: Adagio
15 Concerto in C Major for Three Harpsichords, BWV 1064: Allegro

Either hit "Play" and let it run in the background, or navigate to your favorite among Bach's many harpsichord concertos and enjoy it.

Peter

No blog today

 

I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row, and the little buggers are busting out all over.  I'll be back as soon as I've wrangled them.

Peter

Does the Devil beat Johnny after all?

 

In one of his most recent articles on Substack, Glenn Reynolds linked to an article by Andy Weir on Facebook a few years ago, commenting on the Charlie Daniels song "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" (which I'm sure almost all my readers know - if you don't, it's on YouTube).  I thought you might enjoy Mr. Weir's thoughts too.

You know what always bothered me?

The song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band features the Devil and a Georgia boy named Johnny having a fiddlin' contest. If Johnny wins he gets a fiddle made of gold but if the Devil wins he gets Johnny's soul.

In the song, we hear both the Devil and Johnny play. The Devil concedes that Johnny's fiddlin' was superior. 

Am I the only one who thought the Devil's solo was WAY better than Johnny's? I mean, it's not even close. 

So, as a big supporter of fanfiction, I decided to write some fan lyrics. Consider these to be appended to the end of the song:

Well the Devil headed back to Hell and grinned an evil grin
Cause he knew right from the outset that the fiddle boy would win
The Devil’s song was better, it was clear as night and day
But he gave that golden fiddle to ol’ Johnny anyway

Cause he didn’t just give that Georgia boy a fiddle made of gold
He fed young Jonny’s sin of pride, which he’ll carry ‘till he’s old
And one fine day, when Johnny dies, he’ll pay for all his sins
And only then will Johnny see that the Devil always wins

See, the Devil plays the long game, and he plays the long game well
He knows just what to do to make a fella land in hell
He’ll make you think you beat him, then he’ll watch you fall to sin
But he had to admit: that little shit was the best that’s ever been.

If you're on Facebook, click over there and read the comments following Mr. Weir's article.  They're fun, too.

Peter

One of the last Special Forces veterans of World War II has left us

 

Jack Mann was probably the last surviving member of the Long Range Desert Group in World War II.  If you haven't heard of the LRDG, they were one of the first so-called "Special Forces" units in any Allied nation during that war, and helped to establish successor units such as the Special Air Service and numerous others.

The LRDG never numbered more than 350 men, all of whom were volunteers.

The LRDG was formed specifically to carry out deep penetration, covert reconnaissance patrols and intelligence missions from behind Italian lines, although they sometimes engaged in combat operations. Because the LRDG were experts in desert navigation, they were sometimes assigned to guide other units, including the Special Air Service and secret agents across the desert. During the Desert Campaign between December 1940 and April 1943, the vehicles of the LRDG operated constantly behind the Axis lines, missing a total of only 15 days during the entire period. Possibly their most notable offensive action was during Operation Caravan, an attack on the town of Barce and its associated airfield, on the night of 13 September 1942. However, their most vital role was the 'Road Watch', during which they clandestinely monitored traffic on the main road from Tripoli to Benghazi, transmitting the intelligence to British Army Headquarters.

With the surrender of the Axis forces in Tunisia in May 1943, the LRDG changed roles and moved operations to the eastern Mediterranean, carrying out missions in the Greek islands, Italy and the Balkans. After the end of the war in Europe, the leaders of the LRDG made a request to the War Office for the unit to be transferred to the Far East to conduct operations against the Japanese Empire. The request was declined and the LRDG was disbanded in August 1945.

There's more at the link.

Jack Mann had a fascinating and varied career.  Here are some excerpts from his obituary.

Jack Mann, who has died aged 100, served with the SAS and the Special Boat Service (SBS) and was believed to be the last surviving member of the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG).

Mann volunteered to join the LRDG as a radio operator in January 1943 ... Mann was responsible for receiving and deciphering the double-coded messages that directed operations over great distances.

Using modified No 11 sets, housed in cabinets on Chevrolet and Ford trucks, he had to contend with high desert temperatures and sandstorms which degraded equipment and disrupted incoming signals. As the enemy's range-finding equipment became more sophisticated, transmissions became increasingly hazardous.

The LRDG made the desert their accomplice. Their patrols believed that they could always outwit the Axis forces on the ground. Mann, however, hated the desert. "Don't talk to me about sand," he used to say. "I've had it in my eyes, my mouth, up my nose, in my food, everywhere."

. . .

Mann subsequently moved to Nahariya, the base camp of the Special Raiding Forces, and transferred to the newly formed Special Boat Service as a radio operator – one of its original members ... Mann was seconded to the Greek Sacred Squadron, which had trained with the SAS and seen action in North Africa. The Squadron used small boats and took part in hit-and-run amphibious operations against German garrisons in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Aegean Sea and the Dodecanese islands ... Mann was involved in reconnaissance missions using kayaks and a camouflaged hide-out near Bodrum on the Turkish coast. On other raids, Royal Navy motor torpedo boats and launches took members of the squadron to Turkey, where they were transferred to fishing caiques. Their rations were sometimes supplemented by wild boar, and fish dynamited in the sea.

. . .

One night, Mann was asleep in his hide-out on the island of Chios when he and a comrade were awakened by a German "E" Boat, a fast motor torpedo boat, approaching the shore. The two men, armed with rifles but in their underwear, greeted the German crew in Greek. The crew surrendered but they tried to be friendly, claiming that they were all Anglo-Saxons. Mann retorted that he was a Jew, ordered them to cut off their swastika badges and had them placed in the local prison. There they were made to clean a local building of faeces left by the occupying German forces.

. . .

As a Jew, he had been determined to fight the Nazis, and then to help the Jewish diaspora and displaced Jews of Europe when the war ended. In November 1947, the UN passed a resolution to divide British-ruled Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.

Israel declared independence in May 1948. Arab armies invaded in what became known as the Arab-Israeli War and Mann joined the conflict to help establish a state of Israel. He was given the rank of major and put in charge of the Southern Front.

During a crisis in which he had to get to HQ urgently, he commandeered Moshe Dayan's jeep. Ignoring the fact that the commander of the important Jerusalem Front was sitting in it, he ordered the driver to take him straight to HQ.

. . .

He remained closely involved with the veteran associations of the Special Forces in which he had served, and at his funeral his coffin was escorted by standard-bearers from the SAS Regimental Association, the SBS Association and the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women.

Again, more at the link.

I heard many stories of the LRDG, the original SAS in the Western Desert, and the SBS in the Dodecanese campaign and subsequent events, from my father, who served with the Royal Air Force during those same campaigns.  He met several members of all those groups on various occasions while arranging support missions, both resupply and attack operations.  He said that they almost all smelled vile (due to lack of water in the desert for personal hygiene), were extremely rude about official bureaucratic requirements, and "fought like the Devil himself at the drop of a hat, and would drop it themselves if nobody else would"!  Their consumption of beer was likewise legendary, because they could seldom get any in the field, so made up for it when in a town or city by drinking more than one bar dry every night.

Such men were the "Founding Fathers", as it were, of almost all US and European Special Forces units during and after World War II.  I daresay our own members of the SEALs, Delta Force, the Ranger units, the Green Berets, and other related outfits would be happy to raise a glass to the memory of Jack Mann and his comrades in arms.  One hopes they were reunited on the other side of the river - preferably near a well-supplied pub!

Peter

Surviving the active shooter: a situation more and more urban dwellers are facing

 

Just following news headlines will make it clear that more and more people living in cities are confronted by so-called "active shooters":  criminals and/or lunatics who start shooting for whatever reason, and often don't stop until they are neutralized.  Consider these few headlines (out of many more I could have used) from the weekend just past:

• Mass shootings rock 2 US cities, leave 3 dead, 18 injured
• Judge signs murder arrest warrant for suspect in Forest Hill homicide
• Armed man captured after shootout with Oakland police
• Tulsa Teen, 19, Shot Outside Event Center as Suspect Remains at Large

If we find ourselves in the middle of such a situation, what can we do about it?  What should we do?

Ed Monk has many years of experience in planning for such situations, and has trained not just individuals, but also police departments and major institutions, in how to handle them.  He's written a short but very informative book titled "First 30 Seconds: The Active Shooter Problem".

Part of the blurb reads:

The author served as an active-duty US Army officer for over 20 years. Throughout this career, planning to give and receive deadly violence was a common, required task. Ten days after his Army retirement, he began teaching public high school, where violence was never allowed, discussed, or planned for. He was STUNNED when school leaders told him the school’s planned response during an Active Shooter attack was to gather in groups and wait to see if the killer or cops got to you first.

This experience started his study of the Active Shooter problem. This book is about what he found.

Massad Ayoob, well-known to readers of this blog, is one of the most authoritative and experienced firearms, self-defense and law enforcement instructors in the United States.  He's released this nine-minute assessment of Ed Monk's book, and recommends it highly.

I've already bought my copy of Ed Monk's book.  I recommend that any reader living in a major urban area should do likewise, and if you live in a more peaceful area, buy one anyway - because you never know who may end up in your area.  It might be a very useful tool to initiate discussions with law enforcement, schools, libraries, etc in your part of the world.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 326

 

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

More next week.

Peter

Sunday morning music

 

We've met German musician and vocalist Jonas Wolf in these pages before.  He has two YouTube channels, the first focusing on sacred and baroque music styles and the second on a more analytical approach to classical and modern music, transcribed for voice in many cases.

Today I've chosen four of his transcriptions of modern songs for baroque and Renaissance style vocals.  If you know the originals, you'll appreciate how cleverly he's reworked them.

You'll find much more of his work at his YouTube channels, and on Facebook and Instagram.

Peter

Brilliant!

 

Following the news that Tennessee plans to rename Nashville International Airport after Dolly Parton, this appeared.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version on X.com.

I can't think of a more perfect tribute.  Dolly herself, known for her robust (you should pardon the expression) sense of humor, would be laughing her head off at that one!

Peter

Autonomous drones: looks like I was right

 

A week ago I put up an article titled "Drone warfare developments - it's a scary future".  In it, I looked at autonomous AI-guided drones that found targets with a minimum of human input, then made the kill/no-kill decision on their own without a "man-in-the-loop" to make the final call.

It's happening already.

Three Ukrainian civilians were slaughtered by Russian drones that were guided by artificial intelligence, marking an ominous escalation in warfare’s robotic age.

Tetiana Bubynets, 19, a university student, and two others were blown to bits last month at a gas station in the city of Zaporizhzhia by a drone outfitted with an experimental artificial intelligence system that decides, without a human operator, where to strike, the New York Times reported.

The drone, which looked like a model airplane, was programmed to fly towards the gas station, but once it closed in, an AI system autonomously chose its target — most likely propane tanks —  based on its training to recognize such objects, experts and military officials told the paper.

“This is a risk for the whole world,” said Col. Serhiy Minaiev, the commander of Ukrainian air defenses in Zaporizhzhia.

“In a few years, we will be living in a ‘Terminator’ movie. It’s no joke. Machines are making decisions to strike.”

Debris recovered from the gas station and other strike sites around the city revealed that the drones were running on Nvidia minicomputers that determined where the drone would detonate, officials and experts said.

There's more at the link, including photographs of Russia's autonomous AI-guided drone.

What's particularly ominous about that report is that the drone deliberately targeted three civilians, who would not have been wearing uniform and would not have been in a military location.  Instead, they were at a "gas station", where "an AI system autonomously chose its target — most likely propane tanks —  based on its training to recognize such objects".  Those three civilian deaths can't be classed as "collateral damage", as so many official statements so often label such incidents.  They were deliberate damage, selected by the AI in accordance with its programming, because they happened to be convenient targets to spread terror and fear among the local populace.  Furthermore, the NVIDIA chips powering those Russian drones are officially not allowed to be exported to that country . . . but they got there anyway.  If governments can smuggle them through embargoes, so can non-governmental threat groups and criminals.  It's not all that difficult to do.

What's worse is that AI-driven drone technology, and the tactics to use it, are now spreading from Ukraine and Russia to the rest of the world.  For example, Finland is buying and using Ukrainian drone technology, and hiring battlefield-experienced Ukrainian experts to show them how to use it.

Finland is directly integrating Ukrainian battlefield data into its defense industrial base, with President Alexander Stubb emphasizing that Kyiv possesses unprecedented expertise in modern high-intensity warfare.

Speaking on the strategic value of frontline data, Stubb noted that Ukraine holds more real-world combat insights than the rest of Europe combined. Helsinki is now actively applying these hard-learned lessons across its defense sector, drawing critical data on the tactical deployment of drones, missile systems, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), and combat casualty care under modern fire conditions.

By systematically absorbing Ukraine’s operational data into Nordic defense manufacturing, Helsinki is rapidly adapting NATO’s northern flank to modern, sensor-saturated combat without having to learn those lessons through direct conflict.

Again, more at the link in the X thread - read the many comments from others.  Nor is Finland alone in such measures.  As mentioned last week, a US company is now supplying Ukraine with AI guidance systems for its drone hardware, making them much more deadly on the battlefield.  I've seen reports from at least a dozen countries talking about how they need to learn from Ukraine, and/or buy drone hardware and software from Ukraine, in order to ensure their own national security.  (One of them is Taiwan, which is arming itself to repel a threatened Chinese invasion.  Imagine what a cross-beach amphibious landing would suffer, in terms of both lives and matériel, if it were attacked by a hundred thousand or more autonomous drones before even one enemy soldier had set foot on shore!  Needless to say, China isn't terribly enthusiastic about this.)

It's time we all faced up to the reality of this threat - not just from nations, but from terrorists, and cross-border criminal enterprises such as drug cartels, and even from internal dissident groups such as ANTIFA, BLM and others.  Many of them are extremists, and won't hesitate to garner publicity for their cause by murdering their opponents, or anyone whom they perceive as an enemy.  Think how this might impact routine law enforcement activities.

• A drug cartel in Mexico might find it useful to send a few autonomous drones across the border to attack local, state and federal patrols, so they could sneak their illegal wares into the USA under cover of all the fuss as law enforcement tries to help its comrades.  They're already murdering their own police in Mexico, so why should they hesitate to do the same to ours?
• Rival gangs such as the Crips, the Bloods, the Mexican Mafia, etc. would probably not hesitate to use such weapons against each other (and possibly even against local law enforcement agencies) in their ongoing, never-ending fight to control urban territory for their criminal activities.
• Extremist political groups could use them to attack rival groups and/or individuals.  For example, Charlie Kirk was killed by a sniper while addressing a public gathering.  What if a future speaker could be killed by a high-explosive autonomous drone?  The "shooter" could launch it from several miles away, and be in little or no danger of detection or arrest.

Those are just a few possible examples, and they're all entirely feasible.  I think that in as little as three to five years from now, we're going to see attacks on civilian targets by autonomous drones in many countries, from who knows how many sources.  There's no guarantee that we, personally, might not become a victim of them.

Peter

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