The Bad Plotting Society is at it AGAIN

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

UPDATE:

Okay, first of all, and to get this out of the way: We’re still working on the thank you post, partly because not only are people still donating, but we’re finding out people SOMEHOW missed that for donations $10 and over a “shoutout” on the blog was included. So I’m still getting panicked emails from people who didn’t put a note in the donation.

So, statement of where we are below:


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Tomorrow morning I will take the various forms of input and send the data to the completely confused “What do you mean here’s more?” Team Hoyt and with luck and a following wind, we’ll start sending certificates and do a thank you post by Friday. Keep fingers crossed. There are other um… unscripted rewards that will be announced here, so be patient.

Onward to today’s post:

The Bad Plotting Society Is At It Again

Woke up this morning to find out that the PRC is saber rattling over the visit of Lych Pelosi to Taiwan.

Never mind they would never do this ever ever ever if the US weren’t in the control of the Junta of Usurpers whom they own and control….

What you have to ask yourself is why the PRC is so “OFFENDED” over the actions of a country whose elections they subverted and whose current “rulers” (Snort, giggle) the PRC owns unequivocally.

Kind of like you have to ask yourself why Biden encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine, then turned around screaming Putin was the worst evah, all the while of course, behind the back using Putin to broker our unconditional surrender to Iran and also exempting Russian energy from a lot of the actions.

What you have to ask yourself is: Are they that stupid? Or do they have a plan.

I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to choose. It’s both.

Yes, they are that stupid. Yes, they have a plan.

I’ve tried to post about this plan before, but we got lost in the weeds of “But Ukraine, so corrupt, very bad, wow, wow, wow.”

As someone who spent most of the time she was cognizant of the cold war in Europe I’m here to tell we are not at home to “sainted Putin.” Sorry. We know KGB horrors when we see them, even if they’re still sliming around after the fall of the USSR. We also smell “dreams of reconstructing the USSR” a mile off and are here to tell you three things before the subject is closed:

1- This didn’t happen because Ukraine was wearing a short skirt. Yes, Ukraine is corrupt. So are most countries just now, including ours. You think that gives Putin the right to invade us?

2- If Putin had been allowed to get away with this with no rebuke or resistance, he planned to use those street signs printed in Russian, pointing the way all the way to the Atlantic ocean off Portugal. Yes, they existed. Yes, the USSR had plans to invade all of Europe very fast and confront the US with a fait accompli. Yes, they might have managed it had we been stupid enough to re-elect Jimmah Carter. No, Putin doesn’t think it’s too late.

3- No, life wouldn’t be any easier under Putin’s boot than it is now under Germany’s boot, in the extent of Europe. Russian rule is always the same. They strip their colonies and treat the invaded like serfs. At least all Germany has done is pasteurize Portugal. They didn’t actually BOIL it.

Now, for zee stupid plan of our stupid would be rulers:

As I said, this is try #2.

Let me explain: Yes, they want a war. Actually all of them: Russia, China, the EU, our blights in power.

Why do they want a war, the bigger the better and the more horrific the better?

Well, you see, for would be elites whose hold on power is tottering, war has several benefits:

A war distracts the populace from you stupid blunders like oh f*cking up energy supply and destroying agriculture. Not to mention what you’ve done to the chain of supply. Or the unalloyed stupid evil of the last 2 and a half years with lockdowns and insufficiently tested vaccines which people everywhere are getting “wise to” and not particularly happy about.

You can blame every issue, including famine on “the war.”

You can declare/seize war powers and under the cover of those powers remake society and economy without anyone being able to stop you, because if they try they’re “traitors” and “side with the enemy.”

Biden thought a war with Russia was prefect for this, since the democrats have been telling themselves for years now that the “right wing” (Anyone to the right of Lenin) sides with Putin and loves Putin. They expected all of us to unabashadely start praising the old KGB horror, and this would allow them to point at us as pro-Russia traitors and get a bunch of Homeland security acts to suddenly cover us. The more delusional of them might have expected to actually have been able to put anyone who disapproved of them or rightly pointed out the election was stolen into internment camps. This was their path to total control!

Except we didn’t play, the Ukraine didn’t play and to an extent Putin didn’t play. (All his talk of nuking us is either null and void due to decay (and resale under the table) of their arsenal, or he’s not quite sure that the response to such a thing wouldn’t be a fast turn around in US government followed by the mother of all retributions.)

So Lych Biden was reduced to blaming Putin, talking about how dare we talk back to him in a time of war (as though two other nations shooting at each other meant we’re at war) and trying to blame price hikes on Putin.

None of this worked. Not one d*mned thing. And his throat clearings to the extent that he would totally declare war powers for the war on hot weather also didn’t garner the massive support he keeps expecting. (He thinks we’re all as dumb as he is, or tripping balls as much as his son.)

But he needs a war. And he needs war powers to declare that anyone who doesn’t believe him and isn’t 100% behind his program is totally a traitor to the nation and must be arrested. And he needs a war, so his minions can hold on to power and he can continue feeding at the trough for the rest of his very short life.

And China needs a war too, because their people have gotten helloffroggy.

Hence, this is “let’s start a world war, version 2.” This time with Taiwan.

Of course both sides of this “posture and preen” gambit need a short victorious war. How they think that works for both sides, I don’t know, but I believe they’re each lying to the other.

They do, however, desperately need it. China is collapsing and we’re not much better off. If there’s actually — and I believe there will be — hunger in the US (and famine elsewhere) this fall they need to have a war to blame it on.

They need a war to allow them to be as brutal as they want to be on internal dissent.

They need a war possibly to reduce population and leave the survivors too shell shocked to rebel (they’re trying many ways to reduce population.)

They need a war to put US down.

And this is the new gambit. I don’t think it will work. Certainly not to the extent they expect it to.

I’m also sure if it works it won’t work the way they expect. (As in, they won’t be in power, to any extent, even faster.)

I also want to put forth a word to our friend’s in China. Abducting and eating Nancy Pelosi would be a bad idea. A) I believe she’s mostly made of formaldehyde. B) you’d put us in a heck of a bind, making us try to figure out how to attach a thank you note to a nuclear warhead. Perhaps a hologram that deploys ahead of the bomb and says “Thank you guys. You did us a solid. Now eat radiation.” But you know, such things are finicky to plan and it’s not like ten rednecks just started designing the system in their garages. Not at all.

But, at any rate, my husband told me I should tell you what the plan obviously was (I might or might not have been ranting at him about it) so you know.

Yes, it’s a very stupid plot. But in their heads it all makes sense:

World War>Outlaw deplorables>??????>utopia.

Remember these are the people creating the newest Hollywood plots, the ones with more holes than a burst net.

Now, if only I were sure that when they fail to get China to nuke us, they won’t nuke us ourselves, I’d sleep a heck of a lot better.

271 thoughts on “The Bad Plotting Society is at it AGAIN”

            1. They probably don’t have a clue. The CCP doesn’t tolerate dissent from the partly line. The idea that so many of us would be going “Take her, Please!” over a senior member of the government party would be one of those unimaginably incomprehensibly weird Western notions.

                    1. Snort I believe we have a winner! (“keybroad” would have made it perfect…) 🙂

                    4. > “The Reader is stealing this one with Bob C’s modification.”

                      The wizard is doing likewise.

        3. There’s a scene that’s been lurking in my head a bit. I’m not sure where to put it yet, though…

          The attackers lay strewn across the floor like so many dolls, broken and abandoned. Some were merely unconscious. Others… weren’t.

          The elderly man standing in their midst tapped his cane against the cobblestone and sighed.

          “Not my circus,” he murmured. “Not my monkeys.”

          Stepping carefully over the forms of the fallen, he made his way to the door.

          “…And thank evil for that.”

  2. Oh, yes – Joetato in the White House (or whoever is holding his strings or has their hand up his *ss) needs a war, any old war will do — as a distraction from the looming disaster. Disaster of green policies, of trouble in (any) City, shortages in the marketplace, sky-high prices for practically everything, corruption at every level of the Fed-Gov, pending famine also to to green policies, energy shortages ditto, and lets not forget the unfortunate outcomes of repeat so-called vaccinations for the Commie Crud.
    Oh, yeah – all of us patriots will forget instantly that we were called deplorables and worse … and fall obediently into line, saluting the flag.
    Observe my middle fingers. I have a matched pair.

    1. Don’t forget that if you’re following the news there are a lot of notices that the various tech companies are cutting back 5 digits worth of employees.

    2. I’m 63. Unlikely to be recalled to active duty.
      Thing is, even if they did, I’d refuse enlisted duty, and they really don’t want an independent thinking commissioned officer.

    4. Liz Cheny is running for re-election in Wyoming and not doing well at all; people are not happy about her role in the show trials. So, is she out of touch? Well, she got Kevin Costner in jeans to do a, “real men vote for Cheney,” photo-op. We’ll see if it plays well in the real world.

    5. I will never fail to salute the flag, or to do my poor best to thwart and confound the usurpers who want to destroy it and all it stands for. That includes “Not only no, but Hell no!” to their delusions of competence and control.

  3. I suspect the second world war is a large part of what lead the government/academia merger. I’m pretty sure it is what lead to the US retaining a large standing army. Apparently Congress tended to gut those after the wars ended. Korea we more or less had to rusto a bunch of Shermans to even have tanks.

    I’m pretty sure the Manhattan Project is really what got researchers stuck on the government dole. Before that I don’t recall many fields that were funded mostly through government money, and after that, well that’s what won the war, wasn’t it?

    So yeah. I can see the power that be wanting it, and thinking it will be a neat contained little sort of thing.

    Also forgot the talking head economists also say war is good for the economy too, so double yeah…

    1. Well, it’s not so good for the economy of the losing country. The usual suspects are bound to make out like bandits, though.

        1. Many economic measures are.

          GNP/GDP includes government spending, so increased government spending improves GDP. (Several times over, as it can get counted every time it passes through a level of subcontractors.)
          Since GDP is the yardstick used to measure the health of the economy, War improves the economy. Without making the actual citizens better off.

          1. And yet even with that level of boosting by the government, our GDP dropped for two consecutive quarters. Which means the recession really IS bad.

            1. Some of that is due to reduced State and local government spending. Tax revenues are down (at least until they get everybody reassessed – and have survived the inevitable appeals). Many of these jurisdictions actually have to balance their budgets.

              1. Oregon. Doesn’t matter if they up the assessments. There is a limit they can up the taxable assessed value, and the actual taxes. (There are some special taxes that aren’t tied to actual tax paid limit, but we voted, or not, those in ourselves.) Thus even after the housing crash in ’08, our taxable value still went up, because even the new allowed increased amount was way lower than the decreased real value. Maybe not by the estimated $200 – $300k real value, but still by multiples of $10k. But then we bought the house in ’88 for $78k. Now, 33 years later, taxable assessed value is not quite 3x. Newer properties, under newer basis, however did have their taxable assessed values drop. Looking a real estate real values to plummet, doubt they’ll plummet that bad, baring them really screwing the pooch (yes, I know, they could, half not trying).

                1. And don’t the ‘Progressives’ just REEEEEE!! up a storm about how unfair it is that you pay lower tax than somebody that just bought a house for $350,000?

                  It’s never unfair that they pay more mind you, only that you pay less.

                  Got the same thing here in Kalifornia because of Proposition 13 — which the politicians are perennially trying to eliminate with ‘tax fairness’ propositions on the ballot. Again, there’s never a whisper about lowering taxes for new buyers, only raising taxes on long-time property owners. I’d be all for lowering everybody’s taxes, but somehow I never get to vote on that.
                  ———————————
                  The one thing we need more of from the government is LESS!!

                  1. Ours is based on California prop 13, three propositions (which I can never remember the #s of). That cover 3 parts (which is why 3, can have only have one concept per proposition*). 1) Value basis based on 1990 assessed value. 2) no raising values more than 3%/year, or the actual assessed value, depending on which is lower. 3) no more than X% annual increase in taxes, even if the taxable value raises enough to have it higher, with the carve out exception of special taxes. (Example – Bethel School District voted ourselves a 5 year special tax, done now, so that went away.)

                    * Why we can’t have a sales tax vote that is: Add a sales tax, but remove income tax. This is two pieces. Requires two votes. Average citizen won’t vote for a sales tax for fear income tax removal fails. TPTP fear the income tax removal passes and sales tax fails. Impasse.

        2. A lot of it has to do with what happened to the US economy as a result of World War 2. Those advancing the view will note that almost no combat took place on US soil (ignoring the Philippines, of course, which were a US territory at the time), while ignoring the fact that the war forced FDR to put a halt to many of the insane economy-wrecking rules that he’d been putting into place for several years by that point in time.

              1. I thought the bit about the British censoring fashion magazines and clothes pattern catalogues so that women wouldn’t know about the New Look styles with the fuller skirts (that needed more, lighter fabrics, all of which were still rationed) sort of summed up a lot of socialism.

          2. And Guam. And the Aleutian Islands. And it started on Hawaii.

            Didn’t touch the 48 states of the time much. My mother told tales of watching torpedoed ships burn from the shore. German U-boats were active off our Atlantic coast. While not US soil, more then 400 ships were sunk in American waters during WWII.

      2. True, but I sort of expect they’re thinking the losing countries will be Ukraine and Taiwan, not the US, China or Russia.

        As I recall, both the Soviets and the National Socialists got what they wanted out of the Spanish Civil War too.

    2. Korea is what led to our large standing army. I’ve heard that post-WW2 cuts were so deep that the army had to grab tanks from monuments in order to fill out the numbers for the Korean War.

      Remember, conventional wars were supposed to be a thing of the past. No one would dare start a fight with us because we’d turn their cities to atomic ash.

      And then North Korea invaded South Korea, and the US suddenly said, “Oops!”

      1. Called our bluff, didn’t they. Might have been better for everyone if we had given the commies a nuclear FOAD right off the bat and said, “Anybody else wants to start a fight, you can have some too.”

        1. Bomb who? Kim was a puppet, and we pretty much had the entirety of North Korea under UN control before the Chinese intervened. But the Soviets officially weren’t in the war (Russian-speaking MiG-15 pilots notwithstanding), so they weren’t going to get bombed. And quite frankly, I doubt Mao would have cared all that much if we’d bombed some of his cities.

          I suppose we could have used the bomb on the communist front lines after the Chinese invasion. But I suspect that would have ticked off the South Koreans. That’s the problem when you’re fighting in a recently divided country.

          In any case, it wasn’t long before it didn’t matter. The Rosenbergs made sure that the Soviets got the bomb. And then we pretty much had to put troops in Europe.

          1. I think now’s the time to pull our troops out of Europe and close all those military bases. They’re costing a fortune and not doing us any good.
            ———————————
            There are forms of stupidity that businesses can’t indulge in. There are no such limitations on the stupidity of government.

            1. I’m not averse to providing defensive assistance to Eastern Europe – provided, of course, that the locals contribute their fair share (and some of those nations actually do meet their NATO commitments). Unfortunately, that also means that we’re acting as a shield wall for Western Europe against the only likely aggressor in the region.

          2. Nuking the communist Chinese army would’ve been a perfectly good thing. Maybe fly a plane over where you suspect Mao to be and see if you can get him, too. No, the rest of Korea wouldn’t have been happy about it — but a nuclear strike in the northern half of Korea couldn’t possibly have been a worse outcome for the people who had to continue living there than leaving them all to the commies. (Yeah, I know, it’s a decision that no one was ever going to make and wouldn’t have been that simple, but pointless what-ifs are what blog commenting was made for.)

  4. Now, if only I were sure that when they fail to get China to nuke us, they won’t nuke us ourselves, I’d sleep a heck of a lot better.

    When they appointe Swallwell to a position in a chain of command that has access to “Special weapons”…worry.

  6. Well, I’m not sure that those idiots in the White House can get a nuclear war going with China unless they’re stupid enough to launch first (even there I wonder if the guys in the silos/subs would launch under this idiot President).

    While China may want/need a war (for internal reasons), I doubt that they want a nuclear war.

    I think they’d want a “short victorious war” not a war that could easily end in their destruction.

    I doubt that they’d think that they could have a non-nuclear war with the US even with those idiots in charge.

    I also doubt that the guys in the silos/subs would launch onto the US itself.

    Now, “special teams” with “special weapons”, that’s something to be concerned about but even there I suspect that the Blue areas would have the better targets and I wonder if those idiots would deliberately do an “own goal” sort of attack.

    1. “Now, “special teams” with “special weapons”, that’s something to be concerned about but even there I suspect that the Blue areas would have the better targets and I wonder if those idiots would deliberately do an “own goal” sort of attack.”
      .

      They could always use the nukes Israel has stashed in the US, if Israel were dumb enough to let them, which I doubt. Instead the CIA/Deep State has had seven decades to acquire “special weapons” including older Soviet ones from the fall. Don’t know if they would use one for a false flag or just as leverage like Israel.

      1. They could always use the nukes Israel has stashed in the US, if Israel were dumb enough to let them, which I doubt.

        ????

        There are rumors of secretly stashed Russian suitcase nukes that occassionaly pass around. By now they woudl all be degaded to point they would fizzle- if they ever actually existed. But Israeli nukes? Where did you dig that one up from? What would be their motivation?

        1. There were rumours floating around in the 1990s that Israelis embassies and consulates around the world would each have a couple of suitcase nukes stashed, as an ultimate F-U to supposed allies that abandoned them to their enemies.

  7. I wouldn’t mind a full name: Matthew Amsel
    Seriously, though – I don’t need to be thanked. This comes somewhere between helping a friend and “if I give you money, you do more stuff that I like”

    1. This ^^

      Which is only 25% of why I delayed sending a check (well triggering a check through the bank, their printed check, their mailing cost, cost to me – $0, only pennies, but …)

  8. “War is the health of the state”

    There are plenty of folks in various governments that believe that. Be warned.

  9. Damn. Here I thought that I might get some sleep tonight.
    I just got over reading on Gates of Vienna that the Germans are going jackboots again and incorporating the Bundeswehr into their State police forces, “in case of emergency”, which they plan to have in three or four months.

    Identify and locate one or more people, locally or regionally, who could reasonably be held at least partially responsible for this mess, and pray for them.
    John in Indy

    1. Given the state of the Bundeswehr these days, police forces is likely about all it’s good for. It’s in extremely bad shape.

      Not that such a thing excuses a possible attempt to turn its primary focus inward instead of outward.

      1. And you think the current US “government”, just like the one from 2009-2017, isn’t considering the same thing…why? What else is the restructuring of the military, and the current emphasis on “touchy-feely” instead of on actual combat against external ememies, intended for?

          1. I was replying to your comment about the Bundeswehr, and the (apparent) intention of the German government to turn it against German citizens (“inward”), and noting that the same thing could well apply here, given current trends. I thought that was obvious; sorry if it wasn’t.

  10. Perhaps the USSR could have run all the way to the Atlantic in the mid to late 70’s. However it looks like the USSR military didn’t think it could without major damage to Mother Russia as they decided against it. Current Russia is having trouble taking the Ukraine, and particularly they’re hitting the issue the US did in the Gulf Wars, they’re burning through munitions at a fierce rate and they don’t have the capacity to make more (or replacement parts for things like Artillery) and are starting to hit a wall. Also their forces seem to be having serious morale issues. Sounds like lots of their volunteers did so as there weren’t jobs to go to.

    China having a war with the US is an interesting conundrum. The issue is if its to be land based where? Taiwan? For a variety of physical reasons invading Taiwan is hard. There are only a few weeks out of the year suitable for sea invasion (and airheads are REALLY hard even in the modern world). Attacking Japan is a worse nightmare as their self defense forces are quite capable. Maybe down towards S Korea either directly (just stomp through N. Korea) or using N. Korea as a cats paw ? Certainly N Korea has been on the verge of starvation for years, this crap might push them over the edge if China could promise supplies in return. China’s navy has been growing and their anti Ship capabilities are fairly good. But they’re dependent on trade, even if they have the Turnip in Chief bought and paid for the US Navy might cause issues if the Rules of Engagement aren’t restricted to the point that even the current set of namby pamby paper pushing flag officers would protest. At least so far China is just fuming although they are threatening naval/aviation maneuvers off Taiwan.

    1. China is a face-based culture.

      They rattled the saber against the visit on multiple fronts, and even called in chits to have The Occupant denounce and interfere.

      The bluff was called, and they lost face. Right when they’re already looking impotent and they’re feeling threatened domestically.

      I’m sure their reaction will be well thought out, humble, judicious, and restrained. Totally.

      2. Yeah that is a possibility I understood, but can’t puzzle out. will they do something bat feces crazy to keep face? Or will they give the big lie to the homies (who know they lie like a rug) and suffer the embarrassment in public ? I would have suspected the former, but the longer you let the offense stand the less value any response has in the face saving enterprise.

  11. In the “humans are not widgets” theme, I predict that Jill Biden will inadvertently throw a monkey wrench into the whole rotten edifice. She is Lady MacBeth. She craved the power and the adulation (in her mind) that a First Lady receives. She’s got it now. And she’s not giving it up. She’ll keep him going with drugs and verbal lashing until he strokes out on stage… and then she’ll move him to his bed in the White House and govern in his name. And she’s not just corrupt and grasping, she’s a very unintelligent woman.

    All their schemes of war and totalitarian jackboots might be undone by her stupid, greedy hands. Ok, it’s an optimistic plot, but it is a possibility just the same…

      1. The worst of Eleanor Roosevelt and the worst of Edith Wilson. Now THERE’s a combo to make a horror novel with.

        3. I thought this is exactly what the 25th is suppose to stop?

          Not that she won’t try. Kicking and screeching the entire process.

          1. Yes, but two problems:

            1) The VP and the majority of the Cabinet need to be the ones to formally declare the President unable to perform the duties required of his office. And while Commie LaWhorish would, I suspect, happily and eagerly declare FICUS incapable of holding office, you’d still have to get the rest of the Cabinet to go against DOCTOR! Jill. And since I suspect she strongly influenced FICUS’ decision-making process on appointments, I don’t see that happening.

            2) If the 25th Amendment is somehow successfully invoked and FICUS removed from office, now we have Commie LaWhorish as POTUS and Pelosi (almost certainly) as VPOTUS.

            1. I don’t think Pelosi would give up the power. If the POTUS and VPOTUS both die, then yes, it would be Speaker of the House, then Senate Majority leader, then State, War/Defense, Treasury and so on. But the new VPOTUS has to be confirmed by the Senate, and San Fran Nan would give up a lot of power. Just my $.02, and I’m assuming an element of sanity that might not be there.

              2. My witty/snarky remarks aside, I think it’s worse because it would be incredibly easy to get Commie LaWhorish 25th Amendmented: she’s already proven herself to be hysterically incompetent at, well, anything other than [REDACTED TO KEEP COMMENT PG-RATED], and my understanding is that NOBODY likes her, so the rest of the cabinet probably wouldn’t be able to declare her unfit fast enough.

                    1. Ummm…”Doctor” Jill, right? Have you listened to her? If your thought is correct, the only rational conclusion (assuming she can actually read) is that whoever programs the teleprompter hates her, and the same person writes Cameltoe Kneepads’ “speeches”, and hates her even worse.

                    2. Apparently I misread the levels, and your comment was about The Cameltoe. Sorry ’bout that, but what I wrote still stands. 😉

              3. And without Kamala to break ties (she can’t preside as POTUS), I don’t think she’d ever get the votes.

                That, BTW, is another reason not to invoke the 25th: instantly deadlocked Senate.

            2. now we have Commie LaWhorish as POTUS and Pelosi (almost certainly) as VPOTUS.

              No, no, no, a thousand times no.

              https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxxv

              If the President is removed via the 25th Amendment Section 4, the VP becomes Acting President and until the actual elected President resigns, dies, or is removed by impeachment, does not ever become the actual President. Compare the language of Section 4 to Section 1. Therefore there is no Section 2 vacancy in the office of Vice President, so no new VP can be nominated and approved.

              So here’s the best case from Kamala’s point of view:

              Kamala conspires with the Cabinet and tells Congress Biden is unable to continue.
              Kamala immediately becomes Acting President
              Presumably, Biden and DR! Jill tell Congress that he’s just fine.
              Biden retakes the office
              Kamala and the Cabinet have four days to tell Congress, “no really, he’s toast”
              Congress has to assemble within 48 hours and then has 21 days to decide.
              They vote in Kamala’s favor, and she resumes being Acting President. Not actual President.
              Kamala continues as Acting President until the next election. Nobody becomes the new Vice President, because Kamala is still the Vice President.

              Except it’s not clear that Biden couldn’t just start over at Step 3 at any time.

              The other unclear thing is whether the Acting President gets to exercise their tie-breaking power in the Senate as well as all the powers of the President.

              1. Dammit, WP deleted my “1.”, “2.” etc.

                ordered

                list test

                unordered
                list test

                1. Yup, WPDE black-holes any number-and-a-dot at the beginning of a line. You have to encode the period in HTML:

                  1.

                  2.

                  3. And it winds up looking like this.

                1. Not trying to pick on you. I just see this over and over and over and over, here and everywhere, because most people only have a vague understanding of what the 25th actually says.

            3. People seem to think the 25th amendment is a one and done. Section 4 of the amendment pretty much gurantees a power struggle. The VP and cabinet send their letter and the VP assumes power, and hours (or minutes) later the written letter that Joe signed saying he is capable of handling the duties of the presidency arrive- and it’s on. Joe and Kamala issue conflicting orders to the Pentagon while Congress is debating. – which order will be obeyed?

              It would be cleaner for the Democrats to impeach him- or arrange for his demise. He would have to be actually unconscious for his permanent and quick removal under the 25th.

    3. The 25th Amendment was written specifically to prevent a repeat of that situation. So Jill can only stay in power if she has help from elsewhere in the government.

    4. I’ve stated it before and I’ll say it again. There are only 2 ways “Dr.” Biden is letting the Turnip in Chief out of the Whitehouse is either after 4 (or 8 please no) years in office and someone else is elected OR in a fancy box to be taken to lie in state at the Capital Rotunda. She’s waited a long time to be First Lady, and being part of being the power behind the throne is exciting. As for comparisons to Lady Macbeth I think you have maligned Lady Macbeth. She at least knew she had done wrong

      “Out! damned spot! One, two, — why, then ‘tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? – Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.”

      And had a conscience. Edith MkII tied her wagon to this particular horse long ago when she went from Baby Sitter to Wife. She perhaps thought she was getting the First Lady position in ’88 but she understimated the Turnips capacity to “Frick Things up”. I suspect the scene after the failure in the ’88. was rather impressive, she seems like the object throwing type. But she wasn’t The Honorable First Lady or even Wife of the Democratic Candidate, she was just Mrs Plagiarizing Idiot. She’s been pushing the Turnip hard and was part of the cabal that kept him in his room during the run up to the 2020 election as even then the decline was starting to show through. As far as I can tell she’s utterly amoral and cares for the Turnip only as her gravy train. Maybe that was not once so, but I wouldn’t be betting on it. Compared to her Lady Macbeth is a paragon of virtue.

      As an amusing side issue the spell checker offers Whorehouse as a correction for Whitehouse. Perhaps it’s heard of the Kennedy and Clinton administrations?

      1. “letting the Turnip in Chief out of the Whorehouse Whitehouse is”

        FIFY (you missed a chance) …. 🙂

  13. “if you qualify for math death”
    This is awesome.
    I can’t decide if I want to be anonymous-ish or not but I suppose I better stop dithering.

      1. “Math Death” has a good ring to it. But it might trig-ger a few of the non-adept inf the plot is too complex and not linear.

    2. I’m sorry. I suffered math death in Algebra 2.

      Please don’t reanimate my corpse for round 3.

      At my age I’d break a hip.

      I’m sure my piddling donation didn’t qualify anyway. But I can’t take the chance.

  15. A couple of weeks ago I was at summer camp with my eldest’s troop, and there was a troop there from Taiwan.

    (1. The BSA has a council in Taiwan. This wasn’t a group from a different country of Scouting, this was a BSA council—The Far East Council, as it happens. 2. There are several such troops in Taiwan, mostly from US expatriates and other English-speaking groups, though many are also ethnically Taiwanese. 3. The scoutmaster had grown up in Stockton and his troop always comes to this camp. Which is pretty cool.)

    Apparently, living in Taiwan is kind of like living in Tornado Alley. There’s always an ever-present threat, and everybody has a “safety cellar” plan, but most of the time they don’t dwell on it, because it’s always there but rarely manifests…

  16. There is no way that an attempted takeover of Taiwan is a “short victorious war” for either side unless the PLAN screws up be the numbers and gets the entire invasion fleet sunk in the strait. This is not entirely impossible but seems unlikely.

    Even assuming the US decides to leave Taiwan swinging in the breeze, Japan will not. Although thanks to the constitution not being reformed to allow for defense of allies some creative interpretations may need to be employed. However they may not if the PLAAF/PLAN are slightly careless about where they go. The closest Japanese island to Taiwan is ~60 miles distant so slightly sloppy navigating will put PLA aircraft or vessels in Japanese territorial waters/airspace. There is no doubt that the constitution allows for those intruders to be attacked and almost certainly doctrines similar to “hot pursuit” would allow Japan to retaliate against other forces in the vicinity.

    And Japan has a very modern Navy and Airforce, errr Marine and Air Self Defense Forces, and no one thinks they are likely to suffer Russian levels of incompetence in deployment either (whereas the PLA probably will)

      1. Two notes regarding the link –

        Izumo is an aircraft carrier now. I think they’re calling her a multi-purpose destroyer, but she is an aircraft carrier, and has finished her first round of conversions. While the Japanese don’t yet have F-35Bs to operate off of her, the USMC had an air wing on her to help the JMSDF familiarize itself with carrier operations. That wing could easily be put back in an emergency. Or the Marines could just turn their planes over to their JMSDF counterparts.

        Kaga is apparently starting her initial conversion. So no airplanes for her yet.

        Also, iirc, the ROK has also made statements guaranteeing Taiwanese autonomy. While the Korean peninsula is further away, Korean ships would likely be able to transit past the back of Japan, free of PLAN interference, if the ROK decided to intervene in an invasion of Taiwan.

        1. Yeah you’re right I saw reports about the Izumo being converted and training with USMC F-35s

          Having the ROK and Japan cooperate to help defend Taiwan would be kind of mind blowing (though it makes total sense if it happens)

          Talking of the Izumo, I live in the city of Izumo and I’ve seen JSMDF Izumo branded stuff for sale in the local supermarkets over the last year or so. IIRC there was some shochu and some boil in a bag curry and possibly other things. I don’t recall ever seeing stuff liek that before

          1. Yeah, Japan and the ROK fighting together would be really weird, particularly if the US decides not to get heavily involved. In Korean culture, Japan is the historical imperialist warmonger, while China’s mistreatment of the peninsula is largely ignored. Japan is the imminent threat that must always be guarded against, while China is just sort of there.

            I know why that is. But it makes for a weird dichotomy with the modern-day strategic situation. And it would likely cause more than a few eyes to bug out if the two were fighting side by side.

            Most Americans, of course, are completely oblivious to this.

            1. I suspect it’s more complicated. There’s a story about the Korean War when the British army went looking for Korean interpreters as liaisons. They found an old major and sent him to Korea. When he was introduced to the local Korean general he pulled out his pistol and shot the general dead. the old major had been a Japanese POW and the Korean had been commander of his camp. Evidently, the old major had sworn that he’d kill the SOB if he ever saw him again and did.

              1. Korea was literally a part of Japan during most of the first half of the Twentieth Century. And when I say Korea was a part of Japan, I don’t mean it was a colony or a puppet. The two countries were a unified body (at least in name) due to a political treaty that the Korean government ministers were fully onboard with.

                Given the Japanese attitudes toward the rest of Asia at the time, this led to a very confused situation. A lot of atrocities were committed by the Japanese against the Korean population. But at the same time, a lot of Koreans quite happily worked for the Imperial Japanese government.

                So when Korea became independent again following the end of the War, all of the experienced Korean troops, officers, and government employees were people who had worked for the Japanese government. And the reason for this was because there was no one else with experience.

                However, Korea post-war likes to ignore the fact that a good chunk of the population actively worked alongside the Japanese government. They focus on the atrocities instead, and also dredge up memories of the brutal failed invasions of Korea by Hashiba Hideyoshi when he briefly ruled Japan.

          2. I think it’s much more likely that the ROK and Japan would be uncooperative co-belligerents operating in parallel. Korea hates Japan that much, and has good reason to. They also have good historical reasons to hate China, even if those are a little more distant in time.

          3. China dies … eventually. The problem is how much damage they can do in the interim.

        1. I’m afraid of them using anything they can to name the uncooperative Traitors and then blocking banking, food, fuel etc access.

          When stuff gets scarce they will have to limit access to goods and services somehow.

          Enemies of the state will, of course, be the first to be denied.

          War seems to be the next logical step since famine and vaccines petered out.

          1. Popcorn time. When the “enemies of the state” include large numbers of armed and trained civliians and competent ex-military (and, of course, their families), plus LEOs in many red states and significant parts of many blue ones, denial of necessities of life to them might get a wee bit… dicey. There’s this thing about belling the cat…

    3. Anyone who thinks Taiwan will fall to a seaborne assault hasn’t looked at the map. 100 miles with few beaches backed by mountains The only way Taiwan falls is through treachery. This really burns my a—. Look at the draft plans around the proposed invasion of Formosa in 1945.

      My thinking on all this is that China needs the gringo to cover for the depression underway there and The big guy needs cover to cover for being, well, the big guy. They’re all in it together. The very last thing China wants is Taiwan, it’s much more useful as the gringo.

      Driving tanks into the water indeed. They’re not going to float them 100 miles across the strait and, if they do, an American destroyer in the strait of Hormuz will cause China to grind to a halt in a week.

      1. There is a CCP movie about the Dutch attempt to invade Taiwan, back in the day. I bought my dad a copy, under the impression it was a Taiwan movie proving that Taiwan owns China… Because the heroes were Chinese who fled the mainland to escape the corrupt Manchu government….

        Anyhoo, though, the whole point of this movie, I thought, is that you don’t want to invade Taiwan, even if there is a big technology gap between the modern Dutch and the old-fashioned defenders of Taiwan..

        And yet the CCP funded this flick and encouraged everybody to watch it, under the theory that it showed that China owns Taiwan.

        There are a lot of Chinese movies that have ambiguous morals of the story.

    4. And the Reader believes the other wild card is that Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea are undeclared nuclear powers. For which the Chinese can thank themselves for allowing North Korea to run amok and providing the threat.

      1. Huh. I read the phrase ‘undeclared nuclear powers’ and immediately started thinking ironically about the left’s way of talking about ‘closeted’/’uncloseted’ individuals and their ‘coming out’.

        Anyone else seeing parallels?

    5. So here’s a troubling thought –

      Tucker, on his show tonight, suggested that the PRC could go after the Kinmen Islands (known as Quemoy as recently as a few decades ago). This would avoid most of the problems in going after Taiwan proper, as the Kinmen Islands are a pair of small islands and surrounding islets on the mainland side of the Straits of Taiwan. It would be a fairly short hop to get a naval invasion group there, and would be much easier to support than an invasion of Taiwan itself.

      I wasn’t even aware that the Republic of China still had anything that close to the mainland. I suspect that the island is heavily fortified. The PLA used to bombard it regularly, from what I understand. But if PLA troops managed to get a foothold, it would be easier for the PLA invasion troops to resupply than it would for the Taiwanese defenders. The larger (and further) of the two primary islands is within about five miles of the mainland shoreline, and within ten miles of the shore in a 180 degree arc that extends from the northeast to the southwest. There isn’t a spot on the island that’s out of range of artillery on the mainland in that 180 degree arc.

      If the PRC wanted to cause trouble for the ROC, there are worse things to do than to target the Kinmen Islands – whether it’s another bombardment, a blockade, or a full-scale invasion attempt. The latter, if successful, would represent an important symbolic victory for the government in Beijing.

      1. They are part of what makes an invasion of Taiwan more difficult. Any invasion fleet has to pass by their artillery, or sail farther..

        Any invasion of these islands, looks like the start of an invasion of Taiwan. Defense of these islands was an issue in the 60 election. They would be a very costly gain for the CCP. Trade with China ends. Oil to China ends. They might do it, but it risks WWIII. Taiwan must assume an invasion of these islands is the start of an invasion of Taiwan. All CCP ships are in danger of being sunk. So all shipping to and from the mainland ends. A most dangerous game if CCP thinks they can be had cheaply.

        1. If China were to grab them quickly, and then stand down (aside from digging in) and offer a peace treaty, I don’t think there’s much that Taiwan could do. And I suspect that the US (particularly under this government) would be reluctant to try and help get them back. They’re very exposed, and US ships would be required to operate dangerously close to shore to provide any military support for operations on the islands. Beijing might be willing to gamble that a quick, successful operation would allow them to avoid any long-term consequences.

          Of course, whether the operation would be quick, and whether their gamble would be correct, are different matters entirely. But by the time those two answers were learned, shooting would already have started.

          1. This is a way to start world war 3 independent of our coming “civil” war. Taiwan has had 70 years to harden those islands. Read about the blood baths of Iwo and Okinawa at the end of WWII, and bloody Tarawa. We had 3 years of learning what not to do. China has no real experience. Only pretend practice. The danger: To preserve their face, they have to “do something”. Those islands may look easy to leaders who don’t know how hard a contested landing is.

            CCP would learn that an opposed landing on a heavily fortified island is a very painful learning process. This would not be a quick snatch. For Taiwan, this would be the opening round of a battle for their freedom. Even if we didn’t intervene, they would fight to the last man for their freedom. They would never give up. They would know if they let CCP take the islands, it would be the first step to Taiwan. Unlike Hong Kong, Taiwan is heavily armed. My strong suspicion, an undeclared nuke power.

            Oil would stop flowing to China. Trade would stop with China. No ship owner would be willing to send a ship into such a war zone. We would not even have to impose a blockade. China must know the high price to be paid. Once such a war starts, no one can know the results. They must not be told there will be no price to pay for war.

            If CCP is smart, they will wait until our civil war starts, and they no longer have to worry about U.S. intervention. Even then the “simple” task of taking a few islands just off the coast will be hard. The one child policy may have an interesting impact. How many “princes” are willing to die for those islands?

              1. No one in the CCP is allowed to be smart. They are encouraged to be loyal little disposable minions. Right up until the point the big head at the top starts to look weak. Then the loyal little disposable minions will eat him right up, and explode into an orgy of violence until someone is ruthless enough to stand at the top of the beaten pile, judging from what I know of history.

  17. Well, that video of Pelosi speaking incoherently may be a bit relevant.

    If she wasn’t really drunk, the explanation would be cognitive decline.

    She is a key person of interest WRT Biden regime, and to this trip.

    If she can no longer hold her own in the infighting, some lunatic could have decided it was time for her to have an accident.

    Conversely, maybe her handlers decide that the trip was also nonsense, and try to cancel it without creating a stir.

    Whatever the plans are, they are probably terrible plans.

        2. I understand that some alcoholics get less functional when they are not drinking enough.

          1. So if she goes on the wagon the result will be more incoherence? How could you possibly tell?

            Hey, a thought! Maybe Cameltoe Kneepads went on the wagon just before the election! 🙂

          2. Withdrawal symptoms can be bad.

            There’s also state-dependent learning which is why you should never have a drink while writing.

            1. …and never write while drinking, analogous to my HS motto: “If you drink don’t park; accidents cause people”. 🙂

          3. > “I understand that some alcoholics get less functional when they are not drinking enough.”

            So, she’s Bender?

    2. So the top three people “in-line” for the presidency (including the current occupant in that three) are all more or less babbling idiots whenever they open their mouths.

      Schumer’s next after Pelosi, correct? I know there’s a joke in DC that the least safe place to be is between Schumer and a microphone. Have there been instances in which he clearly was having trouble speaking coherently on a topic while in public?

        1. We are fortunate in having inherited a country where the national government’s executive branch does not actually /need/ to be competent in order to avoid disaster. At least, not in ordinary circumstances.

          1. Bob we’re headed into a recession with stagflation under way. Our country is playing tag with global wars with or peer opponents because the Executive and State are so incompetent. Its likely much of the world will see food shortages this winter and Europe will see power and heating issues. The US is STILL seeing supply issues resulting in shortages of all sorts of odd things and some (Baby Formula) that are critical. All of this stems almost directly from Executive policies.

            Like a modern aircraft the system can take a lot when on autopilot. But when things head into the crapper it really helps to have a pilot (preferably competent). What we have is an old guy in a near vegatative state screaming at the clouds, and his underlings aren’t any better as they’re all focused on pronouns and racial inequalities and haven’t noticed that the altimiter is plunging and the brown part of the Artificial Horizon is on the top…

    3. Remember, Pelosi is in line for Vice President when the Fake President dies soon.

      1. Only if she is appointed and approved. The 25th Amendment overrides the Presidential Succession Act (1947 revision). According to all the textbooks and things, the speaker only becomes POTUS if 1) both POTUS and VPOTUS die or are incapacitated at the same time, or 2) if the slot for VPOTUS is unfilled at the time of the POTUS death/incapacitation. The speaker does not automatically become VP. This is assuming that the Speaker and the President Pro Tem of the Senate, as well as cabinet members, are natural born citizens and of age to become president.

        1. To clarify, per the statutes at the moment, as invoked in the past, for the Speaker of the House to move into the VP slot, VP Harris would have to be out first, leaving an unfilled gap at the moment when a VP is needed. That’s very, very muddy legal water, as you can imagine!

          1. and there is a strong inference that people who have made serious plans to profit from gaming this stuff are idiotic lunatics, and terrible planners.

      3. But that isn’t automatic. She has to be confirmed by the Senate…. and Kamala can’t break ties.

      4. TXRed has it right. The one example of this transition in my lifetime was Gerald Ford. When Spiro Agnew resigned Richard Nixon Nominated Gerald Ford (Then Speaker of the Republican held house). He was confirmed (as per section 2 Amendment 25) by majorities in both houses. When Nixon resigned Ford advanced to President and Nominated Nelson Rockefeller. All of this was under Amendment 25 which had been ratified in 1967. So Ford went from Speaker to VP, but under the rules of Amendment 25 NOT earlier Succession Act(s) He just happened to be the Speaker at the time (Likely Nixon’s choice as he was a known quantity, I suspect they had been in congress together at some point).

  18. I don’t think Ukraine was the war Biden wanted. He expected the initial Russian assault to go better than it did and he expected Zelensky to accept his offer of transport. Zelensky would have been traded for the American hostages the Russians have, thus destroying Ukrainian hopes of independence for decades. Any pretend showdown with Russia would have been elsewhere. When plan A failed, Biden had to pivot to helping Ukraine or lose whatever influence we still have in Europe.

    As for any public acknowledgments my screen name works best. My given name is not exactly secret and there are plenty of people still with us who know me by both, but I’ve gone by fast richard since the mid 70s and it seems right for this venue.

  19. “… making us try to figure out how to attach a thank you note to a nuclear warhead. Perhaps a hologram that deploys ahead of the bomb and says “Thank you guys. You did us a solid. Now eat radiation.”

    LOL. How can I worry about what you write in the rest of your post when I’m still ROFL over that one? You do realize the next attempt is already here–MONKEY POX!. Gov. Nuisance has already declared an emergency about a disease for which we have a proven vaccine as well as a treatment, and one that you get mostly by being F..d in da A. Lots of crazies might be willing to virtue signal by wearing a face mask, but CDC-recommended protection against Monkey Pox is going to both less visible and more, er, uncomfortable. Didn’t Patrick Henry say something about, “Give me chastity, or give me death”? How’s that working out for all you right-thinking folk?

    And that brings up the well-reported (I’m skeptical about the reporting, of course.) trend among young liberals going on sex strikes, or is it getting sterilized? So hard to keep up. Anyway that’s to prevent them from having to travel to New York or California at their company’s expense. They might stop at Disneyland while they’re here. I suspect they’ll be giving out promotional tickets at Planned Parenthood clinics to go with your abortion.

    OMG, that totally wasn’t me. My original comment has obviously been hacked. Hacked, I tell you. That totally wasn’t me. I would never say such things. Now I have to stop to hunt down that hacker. I won’t stop until I find the real hacker IYKWIM. Where are my meds when I need them?

    2. I think Frank’s been in Drak’s coffee stash. That one bag waaaay back in the coffee cupboard, with the claw mark and slight scorch on the top.

    3. Y’know, I used to go around claiming to be antisocial. Then I was reminded what antisocial really is. I merely have an advanced case of hermit. Since there are fools criminals going around saying “ignore the bumps, have your sex anyway”, when they go around claiming how wrongfully abused and neglected they were by the System, I’m going to have a hard time not saying “You asked for this. Enjoy”.

      1. An advanced case of hermit.

        I love that ❣️

        If I’m around too many people in one day, I have a much more difficult time praying for them. It’s better for everyone if I keep to myself.

    4. If the “masks” for monkeypox were made by Trojan, it might make sense. Still somewhat dubious in effectiveness, but it would make sense.

      OTOH, I recall reading that St. Fauci wanted face masks for HIV/AIDS, so I’m not expecting anything sensible.

        1. Well, that and performing illegal and/or unethical medical experiments producing killer virii.

          Nuremburg Trial 2.0 is a necessity, and that includes those who knew and said nothing.

          1. Unfortunately, never going to happen.
            I have zero faith in our legal or justice systems, beyond the town police keeping the traffic and domestic disputes down.

            1. Then we need to resign ourselves to them doing it again, and again, and again. No penalty = no reason to do better.

  20. Yep, Sarah, I quite agree with you about this and that while of course strongly disagreeing about that and this.

    I do have a better opinion of today’s Russia and Russians than you, based mostly on friends in, and adventures I’d had, in Russia’s wild wild east.

    I have spent a little, very little, time in the Russian west and less, far less in the Ukraine. However the Russia I admire is all west of the 110th meridian. am sure I’m also influenced by the fact that I am sitting up here on top of the world with Russia to the west of me and a, I don’t hesitate to say a police state, a totalitarian country to my east.

    2. Ah, you’re in Alaska?

      You know, you guys could really use a contiguous land route to the Lower 48. Just saying…

      2. They’ve got one. It just passes through Canada. Unless we annex BC and Yukon.

        1. You’ve got to drive through Alberta to get to Dawson’s Creek and the beginning of the Alcan Highway. But Alberta might be glad to come over to the American side. Nice people.

          1. I used to be roommates with some Albertan Canadians. Apparently, the prospect of trading government from Ottawa to government from Washington DC isn’t quite enough incentive to switch.

          2. Right Dorothy. I’ve told Canuk friends when we establish the Alaskan Republic, Yukon territory, etc., including B.C. can join us as long as Vancouver stay’s in Canada. 🙂

            1. Sounds like a plan. We totally enjoyed wandering through Alberta. And Northern BC. And Yukon.

            2. The problem with that plan is that BC minus Metro Vancouver has a population 3.6 times larger than Alaska. Yukon is a rounding error.

          3. You don’t have to go through Alberta, you can take US 97 up from Washington into BC where it becomes BC 97 and continues north to Dawson Creek. The Alaskan Highway actually continues on from Dawson Creek to Yukon as BC 97. There were even plans back in the 60’s for the US and Alaska DOT to redesignate the Alaskan portion to US 97 if Yukon redesignated their portion as Yukon 97, so that it would be the same number from California through to Alaska, but that never came to pass because the Yukon government couldn’t be bothered.

        1. Eh, most of Washington is good to go and hates the crap that flows out of Olympia and the Puget Sound. It’s only in the past 10-15 years that the progtard infestation reached critical ass. (Yes, ass.)

        2. US 97 tends to pass through the saner portions of Oregon. Don’t confuse us Deplorables with the crazies from Portland.

        3. If we’re annexing BC and Yukon, we need to ditch Vancouver – no reason not to ditch Oregon and Washington west of the Cascades at the same time. Or at least the Portland and Seattle regions.

          1. Cutout Portland greater metro, more or less. There are sane outliers. Eugene might be salvageable with a major wake up call. Rest of Lane County definitely is sane.

            1. I live in Rural ish Clackamas Co. Definitely saner here than Mulnomah. Frankly, if we wall off Portland and Salem and make them federal districts w/no impact on state issues, possibly including Eugene, we will all be much better off.

              1. Was at a family function (cousins wedding reception) 2 Saturdays ago. Take a right, east, southern Woodburn exit, almost to Canby. Let’s just say it was rather nice to not have to guard what I said. Not a lot of politics. But some. Baby sister was definitely majorly outnumbered. Major farming area. The bride’s family farm. They did not have anything nice to say about the ruling junta, be it ours (Oregon), or national.

    3. I’m guessing that the Siberian Russians are probably of a better sort than many of their western brethren. There are limits to how much Moscow can keep an eye on you when you’re out in the middle of the frozen tundra. That, and the much narrower survival margin, probably encourages a more reality-based view of the world.

  21. I had to read this post out loud due to Lych Pelosi. It tickles the funny bone.

    PS. You may want to cntl-f “prefect” with “perfect” can’t figure out a good joke for it.

  23. “such things are finicky to plan and it’s not like ten rednecks just started designing the system in their garages. Not at all.”

    …I can hear everyone shuffling the plans into closets for when company drops by…. Evil Grin

    1. I don’t think I am a red neck.

      I would not work in my garage.

      I’m pretty sure holograms would not be a good approach for this.

      I strongly suspect that any cruise missile or nuclear warhead that I could design at home from my own resources would not be as good as what is available from others. Getting a missile past air defenses would be a pretty demanding task.

    2. I totally guffawed.

      On the other hand, I’ll have both a garage with numerous cabinets and a shed with a bench to work on things come October when we move.

  24. Lady Eleanor Celtic is fine for me, since it isn’t my real name. (Or title, but that kind of goes without saying. Does anyone even have Lords and Ladies at the moment? I know, Scotland, you can put your hand down. You’re selling out titles to anyone who cares to buy them. Not that I mind, really… but I don’t think you count.)

    Is no one else going to reference Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith? Because I’m seeing a lot of parallels between this plan and Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine’s Ultimate Plan For Galactic Domination. (Admittedly, the current suspects are so much worse at playing benevolent, harmless, and wise than that old man – and we’re talking about Mr. ‘Have you ever heard the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?’ here!)

    1. Teh Society for Creative Anachronism has/had ranks of nobility, but they’re getting strange, alas, and it would not surprise me at all if some dukedoms, perhaps not full kingdoms yet, have decided to drop titles as part of their inclusivity and cultural diversity push.

      1. Seeing a lot of folks wearing their “hats” (i.e. coronets/crowns) at Pennsic. I’ve even worn the Cardwoven version of mine. (I’m a Court Baroness, otherwise known as , “poor landless white trash,” until someone gets offended.)
        So far, aside from various rainbow items, things have been low-key, apolitical and very friendly. It has suffered a 25% population drop and there are fewer parties.

    2. I think Italy’s selling off extinct titles too. France takes the attitude of “we’re a republic, you can call yourself what you want, you just can’t get government recognition for it.” Which is how the Orleanist claimant to the hypothetical French crown failed in all legal attempts to stop the Legitimist claimant from calling himself le Duc d’Anjou</>.

    3. Ooo ooo that’s me. My mother’s family is Anglo-Irish gentry and her cousins are lord this, and sir that, and but for the attainder of some other thing. My first cousin has an old Sardinian title that goes back to the 1730’s that we’re sure of and some French and Spanish things. I suspect he’s a Hidalgo and there was something from the HRE. We never pursued it. None of it means anything anymore anyway. Blood is thicker than water, it’s also a great deal nastier.

      They were Britain’s junkers. Old names, a certain amount of land, little brain, and no money, My da was as common as clay though, which makes me as common as mud. Good thing that is.

      Our hostess almost certainly has an escutcheon or two in the closet. Portugal was positively overrun with nobles, spurious and otherwise. Had to do with tax.

      1. Sort of like Poland, with 10% of the population being noble. Hungary was close to that, when England was 1-2% at most.

        1. England was fussy about nobility. Winston Churchill was a commoner while his first cousin was a Duke. In Continental Europe , they’d all be classed as noble. The college of arms is very clear e.g., that having a coat of arms is not a patent of nobility while having a coat of arms in the rest of Europe is with the distinction there being between old and new, low and high nobility. the vast majority of French “counts” aren’t counts. Outside the few peers, nobles more or less chose what titles they wished and everyone in the family shared a title. The British system is very different.

          Hungary is interesting since whole swaths of soldiers were made nobles during the war with the a Turks. They all share coats of arms. It made sense for the prince since nobles didn’t have to be paid.

          the Catholic side of my family floated around Europe as, technically, mercenary soldiers throughout the 18th century They seem to have picked up various title in lieu of pay but since those crowns don’t exist anymore and the exact lines of decent aren’t entirely clear, it means nothing. I found most of it out in the stud books, like Burke’s Landed Gentry and Debrett’s, and in old documents in my grandparent’s house. Some of the patents are pretty.

      3. I probably have (titles of) nobility somewhere in my ancestry – I’ve seen a family coat of arms. Haven’t dug into it, don’t want to immanentize the escutcheon.

        1. Ran into a guy at a book festival who had the same last name as my birth name – I remarked upon it, and we tried to figure out if we were related. Distant, if we are, but it tracks back to the same area of Northern England. Apparently there is a manor house, a minor title and a coat of arms. He went back and researched it all. Thought it was curious as it is a very uncommon surname. I just don’t care enough to replicate his research and see if we’re entitled to a title.

          1. My parents visited Europe and ran into a Swiss couple we are probably related to, Catelli being a northern Italy name.

            1. One of my best friends in Portugal was descended from North-Italians. Not the same name. But they’re almost a different people than what we associate with Italians. For one, she was over six feet and redheaded.

  25. 1. World War
    2. Outlaw deplorables
    3. ??????
    4. Utopia.

    Their plot is plagiarized from the Underpants Gnomes?

    Without proper attribution, to boot.
    ———————————
    Forget roses, a turd by any other name still stinks.

  26. I now recall a tune Mark Russell did late in the 1984 campaign…

    Zippadee-doo-dah, Zippadee-aay
    Fritz can’t win it on Election Day.
    He needs a few breaks for the job that he seeks,
    Like another Depression – in under two weeks.

    And he could use a war by Tuesday,
    But for defeat he’s headin’
    Unless there’s total Armageddon…

  27. …if these people weren’t so incompetent that they could probably f(YAY!)k us into a war, with monkeypox on the side, I’d be laughing more often.

    Just, none of them understand or want to understand second order consequences…like how GEICO and at least one other insurance company is talking about pulling out of California due to AB5 (most of their insurance people here are contractors).

    I want the stupid to go away.

    I’m just scared it’ll cost so much blood to get there.

  28. And so the Tom Friedman piece today on Zelensky must mean that Ukraine is getting close to winning and that can’t be allowed so Tom gets to drive a Biden bus over him in hopes of disheartening the Ukrainian forces and cutting support so that Russia can continue its slogfest.

  29. YMMV; but here’s where I think we should lean (KJV sounds nice, many other versions available online, pick your favorite):

    Psalm 91, King James Version

    He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

    I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

    Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

    He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

    Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

    Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.

    A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

    Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

    Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

    There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

    For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.

    They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

    Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.

    Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

    He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.

    With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

    .
    .
    .
    Please note that I do not believe this promises our earth-suits will last forever (I’ve had cancer twice and I’m only 64), not that our bank accounts will have more money than we need to spend (partly from our lack of wisdom and partly because He wants us to remember 2 Corinthians 4:7, 16-18), just that we’ll have what is required (Philippians 4:19).

    Again, YMMV.

  31. Remember, remember the 3rd of November
    The tech lord and Soros’s plot
    I know of no reason, the democrats’s treason
    Should ever be forgot

    1. When I was in York, I had supper at the pub associated with Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plotters. It was a little odd, in a good way. The food was good, solid pub food. Those imbibing said the beer and cider were also quite good.

      1. We used to live near Lewes in Sussex. Lewes is the epicenter of the bonfires, they carry burning crosses through the streets and everything. I suspect the near presence of the RC Fitzalan-Howard’s and the small recusant population in Sussex is a big part of that.

        I found Lewes to be, by far, the most unfriendly town in England, which is saying something. Even the shopkeepers are rude when you’re paying them a lot of money. The only place that welcomed children was the Italian restaurant, but then Italy is a civilized nation.

        The gunpowder plot was a disaster for the Catholics, so bad that one would wonder whether it was the Protestants that actually planned it but it was Spain, which explains everything.

        1. The Cecils were Deep State before Deep State was cool, so I have no trouble entertaining the false flag theory of the Gunpowder Plot as a possibility,* but it’s not going to be provable or disprovable at this remove from events.

          *besides, it annoys all the right people.

    2. November 3rd is Jay Bradford’s day. (Raffensperger.)

      January 6th is Nan Pelosi’s day.

  33. My favorite plot hole of the past few seasons was when the Evil Russian Hackers who got Trump elected in 2016 mysteriously vanished just in time for the 2020 election. I think the writers will suddenly bring them back for the midterms.

  34. LOL hellafroggy. that’s one way to put it. if you actually follow the news…outside of what the progressive propaganda ministry spins…the chinese are having interesting times and it’s about to get even more interesting for them. The Chicoms ARE going to need a ‘short victorious’ or even a ‘long drawn out’ war…as a meat grinder to feed their dissatisfed into…and distract the rest. I don’t think it’s going to work out any better for the chicoms than the power brokers here in the US. That being said…sucks to be Taiwan right now because they KNOW they are fucked with the hair sniffing pedo puppet “in charge”

  35. To be honest the whole “We’re gonna shoot down Nancy’s plane!” threat always struck me as aberrational.

    It actually reminded me of an old joke from Gulf War One (1990-1991), while I was still working for the Haze-Grey Navy:

    Saddam Hussein has captured an entire busload of Western journalists…and he’s threatening to release two of them an hour until his demands are met! 🙂

  37. > “you’d put us in a heck of a bind, making us try to figure out how to attach a thank you note to a nuclear warhead”

    Eh, just use the John Crichton method: write it on the warhead in chalk and call it a day.

    Although his message was a bit pithier than yours…

  38. Just saw this in Ace of Spades:
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/scientists-create-necrobotics-to-turn-dead-spiders-into-undead-zombie-robots?via=twitter_page

    This is now officially the worst possible timeline. Zombie Fricking Spiders ?!? Just throw me in that 1984 timeline, Because one boot stomping on your face forever is better than eight little clawed legs crawling everywhere for fricking eternity. Where the Brahmandrans have turned to third rate dystopias for inspiration our alleged scientists seem to be taking inspiration from bad interpretations of Mary Shelly, Plan 9 from Outer space and other fare from MST3K. Oh for heavens sake. Now I see it, zombies, lizard aliens in suits, assorted cross dressing and trans stuff, crappy plotting, poor scripting, no reshoots. The father of lies is letting Ed Wood direct his plans…

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