QOTD - War

 Found at Bijourenaissenceman

In 1882 I was in Vienna, where I met an American whom I had known in the States. He said: 'Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility.' - Hiram P. Maxim, inventor of the water cooled machine gun

 I wonder which might make you wealthier; Inventing a working FTL space drive or inventing a functional, long-range death ray.

Plagiarizing Your Way To A Pulitzer - Ukraine

 Today, my hometown paper, the Denver Post (Ved Nanda), and the Times of London, (Max Hastings) are both running similar articles rehashing the old arguments in favor of buying off aggressive tyrants to somehow buy peace. Shades of Neville Chamberlin. Let the Germans Russians have the Sudetenland Donbas regions, and forestall the possibility of an a actual shooting war. Peace In Our Time!

I bet I know how that will turn out.

Both the abovementioned articles are behind paywalls, but you can get the general gist of both by searching for Chamberlins agreement with Hitler which he waved for the press on his return from negotiations.

The War - A View Closer To The Ground

 All reports should be viewed warily, as they are diminished by the fog of war and you have no real good idea by how much. Some observations, however, can be considered more reliable if they don't change much over time, or if they are backed up with images. Be careful, some of the "Ukrainian images" out there seem to be from Russian operations in Syria. The Traffic Jam on the road into Kiev from the north as been photographed repeatedly and doesn't seem to have changed much in the last 8 days. This is really bad news for the Russkies as large offensive operations generally require movement of some sort to be considered effective. 

Pictures of Russian heavy equipment, mired in mud, with the tires coming off the wheels does not inspire confidence, especially with people close to the situation describing this as a common problem with vehicles fitted with Chinese made tires. When you think about it, you have to wonder: With sanctions and a generally dismal Russian economy, what percentage of their ground forces have been serviced with parts from Harbor Freight? Tires? Diesel engine parts? Combat boots?

On the one hand there are reports that the Ukes have adjusted the dikes and levees in the area surrounding the roadway resulting in the "off road" becoming a swamp. The road itself seems to be best described as 2-lane blacktop with a breakdown shoulder on each side. The Russkies are taking full advantage of this by stacking their vehicles 3-abreast and some 40 miles deep. The problem here is that if the front ranks are out of fuel, the tankers can't get up to service them. If they are damaged, a T-84 tank becomes an 80 ton paperweight. Repairable? Probably, if you could get a repair vehicle up to it. Tankers and wreckers are relatively soft targets, and the Ukes know this. Shoot and scoot. A reliable technique for the last 2000 years.

Here and here are articles by people who seem to be much closer to the action than most of the pundits who are getting the media time. Give them a read and then consider the phrase "Potemkin Army". Keeping in mind. of course that while judicious use of force can drive a bear away from your trash cans, you do NOT want to run up and engage it with bare knuckles. It IS a bear after all.

30th Anniversary Of The End Of WWIII

 Apologies people, I even forgot it myself, but yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the end of WWIII. This was also known as the "Cold War", which sometimes it was, punctuated by periods of decidedly hot war, this one was my war from one of the hot periods in Viet Nam, to the final collapse of the Soviet Union, Dec 25th, 1991. At the collapse, I was employed by  one of the large Aerospace companies, and was working on some aspects of Ronald Reagans Star Wars incentive.

Reagan and the American people were opposed by Mikhail Gorbachev, Ted Kennedy, Tip O'Neil, and a democrat controlled legislature. The Dems didn't want to be seen as weak on defense, but they also held the Soviet system in high regard. They still do. They would allow monies for studies of only the parts that seemed to have the smallest chance of success. Having had a front-row seat in the engineering biz, my observation was that it took us only about 6 months to go from "that'll never fly" to having a working prototype ready to test. The Russians noticed this as well and made a policy of immediately throwing roubles at whatever they thought might counter the American inventions. This quickly bankrupted the Soviet Union. 

We are now fully involved in WW4.

Studying Machiavelli

Everyone should have a copy of The Prince to hand in their book collection. It embodies the essence of every managerial course you're apt to take to get your MBA except the accounting. Labor-Management relations, HR issues etc, etc. If you don't have one, run down to a used book store and pick one up. I got the paperback for $.10.

In one of my favorite chapters he discusses the methodology of doing distasteful things, which from time to time every manager is forced to do. One of the examples was that of a noble who had successfully engineered a “hostile takeover” of some neighboring territory, and was anxious to win the love of the people of the new lands. This would not be easy, as a hostile takeover in the 1500's was quite literally a hostile act involving armies and battles. Following a victory, the winner had to move quickly to minimize dissent and deal with potential rivals among his former enemies.

To this end, the victorious prince sent one of his ambitious underlings to govern the new lands with orders to crack down hard and make sure everyone understood that no dissent would be tolerated. High taxes and public executions became the order of the day. After 6 months of this, the new prince came to visit the former capitol city in person.

His first act was to greet his deputy, and lock him up. He then went about town asking how things were going, and was told of the harsh rule and high taxes. Terrible conditions. He then called a big gathering in the town square where he assured everyone that he never intended to be anything but Mr Nice Guy, and that the doings of his underling were outrageous and unwarranted. To prove he meant well and would tolerate no abuse of his new subjects, he had the underling, whose tongue had been cut out the night before, brought out and executed by chopping him in half. He also lowered taxes back to levels similar to what they had been and was immediately acclaimed to be a swell fellow by all.

Now move forward to 2020. The Dems win an election, tainted by suggestions of foul play, and elect a demented meat puppet by the greatest margin ever. He, or more properly, the committee running him, proceed to undo everything his predecessor did, alienating about half the country, opens the southern border to anyone, no questions asked, while issuing demands to regular citizens, and imposing huge tax increases and extending regulations to micromanage everyones lives. He gives one of our enemies $80B in military gear, and throws in a couple hundred hostages in case he forgot anything and makes loyalty to his party the big item to consider for military promotions.

Remember that Mr. Biden is NOT the prince here, he's the ambitious underling. The next step, after the worst of the damage is done is the public execution, which in the here and now, will be a low key thing. Also keep in mind that Mrs Harris is also NOT the prince either, and will be run by the same committee as her predecessor. She will be in the position to roll back some of the more egregious insults from Mr Biden, and win a great roar of approval from the adoring press and anyone who still believes anything they say. This is about 30% of the population, currently. With all this favorable coverage, we will be told that polls show overwhelming support for the party, and no one should be surprised to see Dems sweep the 2022 elections by about 5% everywhere. Voting is going on right now in California where Republicans are reporting that they are being told, when they show up to vote, that they have already voted. Anyone want to guess who they've already voted for? No?

QOTD - History

 From Ace of Spades:

The Boston Tea Party: Tax us without representation and we will destroy the goods meant to be taxed.

Lexington and Concord: Come take our guns and we will kill you.

The Battle of Trenton: We'll cross an icy river and kill you in your sleep. On Christmas!

One More Toast

If you happen to have a bit of tipple left over from Christmas, today, raise a glass to the end of the Evil Empire, the Soviet Union which voted itself out of existence on this date in 1991. Consider also a second toast to the 40 million or so they murdered to keep the idea that communism worked alive. Numbers are sketchy since even though most of the slave states have fled the coop, Russia is ruled by leftovers from the ancien regime.

This also represents a major turning point in the Cold War which started with the end of WWII with the refusal of Russia to withdraw its troops from eastern Europe and included Korean war, the Vietnam War, and numerous other on again off again conflicts. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the torch was picked up by the Chinese who seem to have the idea that China should include every piece of land on which a Chinese ever set foot and any expanse of ocean over which a Chinese junk ever sailed.

The Mexican Border and the upcoming election

President trump recently offered President Lopez-Obridor of Mexico military assistance in dealing with the drug cartels that currently run the country, and the offer was refused. Why, do you suppose? Well it's like this; The cartels do in fact control Mexico much like the many little duchies used to control Europe, each one with its own borders, army, and prince. AMLO knows this as does everyone else, presumably including all the Dem candidates who are advocating for an open southern border. The cartels are willing to let him claim to be president of all Mexico as long as he doesn't think he's actually in charge of any of it.

Thus, AMLO is in bed with the cartels, whether he wants to be or not, and he understands that if he tries to get out of bed with them, he won't make it to the door. When El Chapos sons were recently arrested and turned over to the army, the cartel immediately rolled out their own armor and troops, better armed and equipped than the national army and attacked on two fronts, first pinning down the regular army, and at the same time opening a second front which visited the soldiers homes and began killing their families. The army anticipated this and had begun moving the families from on-base housing to more secure locations but not before significant casualties were inflicted.

This seems to be the current state of the state in Mexico. New cartels have sprung up specializing in people smuggling, which the narcos allow to exist as long as they don't try to expand into drugs. As the "refugees from Africa, the Middle East, China, and how could I forget, South and Central America arrive at the U.S. border, they are taken in by the cartel controlling the section of border they happen to bump up against, and hustled across the line.

Effective closure of the border to this sort of thing, possibly along with a reduction in the drug flow will probably result in more aggressive techniques for moving things, possibly involving use of the cartel armies to breach the border and deposit their products deeper inside the U.S. The last time something like this happened, the end result was the Treaty of Guadelupe-Hildago which established the current U.S. -Mexican border. The next time I suppose we might wind up owning all of Mexico, which at this point we could probably do with out. Perhaps we could just inform Mexico that the border was now 200 yards south of its present location, and the strip of land we take will be used to build a roadway with a big wall/fence on the south side of it, thus eliminating the requirement to buy or appropriate any land from American citizens.

Someone should ask the Dem candidates which of the cartels they would turn over control of their newly erased border to and how far north they will tolerate the advance of the narco armies.

Happy Birthday

Remembering this Tweet:

No reason for her to give up. There are some 150-odd other countries she can try in, several of which do not have extradition agreements with the U.S.

How Old Is Bernie Sanders?

Here is probably one of the earliest inspirations for his platform ever.

“Praxagora: I want all to have a share of everything and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all.
Blepyrus: But who will till the soil?
Praxagora: The slaves.”
                                           ―Aristophanes

My guess is that Bernie was in the audience when this play debuted.

H/T to Declination. Drop on over, there's some good stuff there.

Marching Season

The militant wing of the DNC, Antifa, is making news all over the country, in Berzerkly where they vow to shut out any speech they don't like, and the mayor, who is a member, has promised his police will not interfere. In related news, one of the more violent Antifas has been identified as a professor at Berkley.

In Nashville, Antifa goes back to its roots as the communists version of Hitlers Brownshirts and Mussolini's Blackshirts and has a permit for a May Day march and rally. Some Gadsden Flag types have set up a counter rally in the same area. Be interesting to see how well or even if the Nashville cops keep the two groups apart. Nashville denizen Glenn Reynolds has noted that Amazon has some good deals on Hickory ax handles and heavy Texas style walking sticks.

Hippie reservation Portland has cancelled their spring Rose parade after the local Antifa announced it had some 200 soldiers prepared to rush the parade and forcibly remove the Multonah county Republicans if they attempt to participate. Once again, the Mayor doesn't seem to want to send his cops out against his constituents so the entire parade has been cancelled.

The Donks are aware that between 100 and 200 million people were murdered in the last century in attempts to prove that Socialism in one form or another was a viable system, and they want to make sure that those folk didn't die in vain, no matter how many more have to join them.

NOTE: Don't forget your home improvement projects. On your way to the rally, stop be Home Depot for one of these perhaps.

Festivities

The 25th was the birthday of Robert Burns, so off we went to celebrate with traditional Scottish fare:

Haggis and tattie. That's a table serving, not the main course. You take a pie wedge and see if your table mates want the rest. If they're not quick about it, you get another. The rest of the course includes Scotch which is brought in with a piper and served to the leaders of the fest in a two-handed cup which is fortunately not completely full. The drill is that you drink your dram from the cup then signify that you've downed it by turning the cup upside down over your head so it's drink it or wear it.

No Scotch was wasted in the ceremony. The piper on the right had to suffer the indignity of someone over 21 filling in for her. There were several volunteers.

Toasts were made and poetry read. The toast to the president was quite brief which avoided any big embarrassments and frankly I still think mine would have been more warmly greeted, but oh well.

For more Scottish poetry try The Haggis of Private McPhee.

FWIW, not only was there leftover Haggis, but I got a nice chunk of it. Re heated with hash brown potatoes and topped with an egg over easy it makes a fine breakfast.

Festivities

At a social event on my near horizon, part of the festivities will involve eating Haggis*, and drinking some pretty good Scotch, which will make the bagpipes sound better. The Scotch drinking comes in the form of toasts which will be offered to Robert Burns, the lassies, the laddies, many of whom will be wearing kilts, the Queen, and the President. That last one has gotten more and more difficult to find someone to propose it for some reason but where there's an excuse to toss back some single malt, there's a way.

Just remember that it's an ill wind that blows nobody good, so look for those whose sails are filled in the right direction:

“Now fill your glasses and be upstanding as we raise this toast to the finest inspiration to the defenders of the liberties we hold dear, especially the First and Second amendments to the constitution, as well as the best purveyor of firearms and training in their art in the history of the world. Here's to the man whose pivotal pursuit of law and order, race relations, immigration, and foreign relations has made the concealed carry permit the most sought after government document today, surpassing even the coveted green card. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the President of these United States”

*There's haggis then there's Haggis. The old traditional kind was what the Scottish peasants made from a lamb after the local Lord had taken his share away. Believe me the Lords didn't leave much behind. More recently as the Scottish economy improved, the recipe was improved upon, parts of the lamb that were normally eaten by humans were included as well as spices beyond just salt and pepper. Even better, parts of the lamb that were NOT normally eaten by anyone with even a part time job were left out. We're having the good stuff.

The Invasion Of Europe

In 1683 the Grand Vizier Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha arrived at Vienna with 100,000 armed men and was defeated by 45,000 Poles.

So where are the Poles?

Clinton Gun Control

Two mistakes combined to make Bill Clinton the most respected Democrat to be elected president in the previous 50 years. First was his wife's' getting caught trying to organize nationalized health care behind closed doors. The second was the passage of the Assault weapons Ban of 1994. The two of them resulted in the Republicans controlling the House and the Senate for the next 6 years. Prevented from implementing any of his party's favorite programs, he wound up looking not so bad if you ignore the "Bimbo eruptions".

What he wanted was quite a bit more serious. Disturbing even. The administration supported frivolous lawsuits against gun makers and sellers in hopes of either bankrupting them or effectively nationalizing them to be run as the government saw fit. In 2000 Smith and Wesson, then under British ownership conceded to the Clintons and agreed to most of their demands. The resultant boycott reduced the value of the company to about 10% of its original value.

The stuff that S&W agreed to would only have been the beginning. Found at Arms and the Law, is a link to a pdf (6 pages) from the Clinton library detailing what Bill and Co. had in mind for the firearms industry. The first link is a summary and makes for easy reading. The pdf goes into detail with legal jargon. If you can get past the legalese, the details are horrendous. All this was to be put into effect as a result of lawsuits rather than legislation which Bill recognized he could never get passed.

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 largely put a stop to the frivolous lawsuits but keep the contents in mind should Bills Designated Heir actually get elected.

$10 Bill

A solution just occurred to me for the problem of picking a sufficiently distinguished dead woman to grace the $10 bill:

Issue an Executive Order declaring that Alexander Hamilton now self-identifies as a woman and leave the bill alone.

Problem solved. You're welcome.

What It Takes

Bill Whittle seems a bit ecercised in this one as opposed to his usual cool and calm self. Possibly because someone set him off.



All I can add is that I'm very glad I'm not that young lady from Boston College who is held out as 1. A college grad from a fairly prestigious place, and 2. A nitwit of the first order.

The money quote, for me anyway is his summary of the 5 steps to get from somewhere to complete ruin. that is
1. An economically successful scapegoat,
2. An overly powerful state.
3. A fawning media.
4. Disarmament of the populace, and
5. Time.

We already have the first three although they can be checked by a political party with political courage. Anyone seen one of those?

Blogversary

Billlls mind has been idle for 7 years now. Also somewhat earlier, (1775) the battles of Lexington and Concord were fought. All in all a good day for revolting developments.

Poly Sci 101

From the #2 person at the state department, world reknown Harf-wit Marie Harf sez:

1. "We can't kill our way out of this war."

  Note to Ms Harf: In the past, this technique has proven to be quite effective. Multiple examples exist of one side killing the other until few or none of their former enemies were left. Recidivism among the survivors has been historically low.

2.“We cannot kill every terrorist around the world, nor should we try,”

   Note: If you kill enough of them, the rest will get the idea that perhaps theirs is an unproductive line of work. Case in point might be the Somali pirates. Heard from them lately?

Update: Sen Tom Cotton agrees with me.

Fashion

D'Wife is heavily involved in the St. Andrews Society which is a support group for people afflicted with being Scottish. This is an entertaining bunch as the therapy seems to involve Dark beers and single malt Scotch. An elderly fellow had decided to donate a bunch of regalia to the society which would then auction it to raise money. He being a fairly shrimpy fellow, D'Wife insisted I try some of it on once we got home.

I admit I make a brave sight in a traditional shirt and doublet although the kilt was about 4 inches too long. Not my Tartan either. Quick show of hands: How many of you knew the Welch wore kilts and played bagpipes at one point?

I may have to bid on the shirts and doublet. Kilts are expensive and this tartan is not very common. We'll see.