Why Does The Dumpster ALways Burn When I Am Away from Keyboard?

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

Why does the dumpster always catch fire when I’m away, and in this case busy getting a family-and-baby fix?

On the Poor Widdle Russia. Screw it, it isn’t, and it never was. Any time you are proposing to repeat FDR’s mistake of making several states slaves to another state’s paranoia, you’ve gone too far. FDR was not a good guy, in any way shape or form, and if he didn’t create the cold war all by himself, he certainly set the dominoes up, and it was only by the grace of G-d we didn’t end with the world enslaved to a system that didn’t work. SOCIALISM doesn’t work, in either “social democracy” or “communism” form, but he set things up so it infected the whole world. And he propped up Russian paranoia and imperialism.
Was the USSR always a potemkin state? Looks like that, yes. Was it true? Probably more true than not.

On the other hand their government believed they were a real threat. And governments tend to believe each other. I don’t think our intelligence was so much lying, as not being prepared with states made of lies. They still aren’t.

Does this mean I’m on the side of the EU and the internationalists? Oh, please. The EU is a mistake that should have never happened, and is going to kill people as it goes down in flames. Again, it’s part of the blue model that FDR popularized all over the world. It’s a center out top down big polity. I know because I was present at EU discussions in the late 70s early 80s that the Europeans looked at the US and decided the reason we were more successful is that we were bigger and more centralized. Poor rats. They’re going to pay for it, too.

Does it mean I’m on the side of the Junta? Put down the hooch. The Junta isn’t even really supporting Ukraine. They claim they are, but mostly they’re lining their own pockets under the massive Aid Bills.

Does it mean I’m on the side of Ukraine? Sure. I’m on the side of anyone being invaded by a power whose justification for war is that we took away their buffer states. Also our own foreign policy is less fraught without a crazy Russia. Maybe they’ll fund fewer “green” groups. Could happen.

So Russia getting smacked on the nose? Fine. None of our business. We shouldn’t send our boys to die over there, and we shouldn’t pass massive aid bills most of which money goes to democrat pockets. We wish plucky Ukraine the best. We have our own fights to fight.

Do I like the conclusion I’ve been coming to over the last three years that the Cold War was mostly self inflicted? Heck no. I will remind you one of the minor skirmishes of the Cold War hit my own life pretty hard.

Were we always wrong? Would the USSR have collapsed earlier, if we’d pushed harder? Almost for sure. Krushev himself admitted in internal documents that they had NOTHING. If we’d pushed they were scr*wed.
Did our people know that? No. Heinlein who was a shrewd, if initially leftist thinker, fell for the whole thing hook line and sinker.

In fact, it was impossible to know until the USSR fell, I think. But now we know. And treating Russia as though we learned nothing from the USSR is …. bad. Whether you want to admit it or not.

So — dumpster fire — we know, because we’ve had regulars go zonkers in the comments before. If these are new commenters, I ban. If they aren’t, I ask, and I’m asking NOW please stop the fight. It’s generating heat, no light.

There are dragons to fight. These aren’t it.

Russia is a bully. It doesn’t need our help. It needs a spanking and put in the corner. It’s getting that without our help.

I wish the plucky people of Russia all the best. I wish their leaders to get spanked hard. Our leaders too.

Actually worldwide leaders of the Marxist persuasion, which right now are pretty much all of them, all need a spanking and put in the corner. Stop defending one set against the other.

Bah.

332 thoughts on “Why Does The Dumpster ALways Burn When I Am Away from Keyboard?”

  1. Treebeard/Mercutio 2024.

    “I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me:”

    “A Plague on both all your houses”

    1. OT, because post from a year ago came up: there are now litter-robot knock offs somewhat different but much cheaper on Amazon. I’ve been tempted just because they’re smaller, and ours are squished. Anyway, you might want to look. They’re like 1/3 the price. If we get a kitten sometime, we might get one.

      1. Thanks. I’ll look.

        Our problem is most of where where I need them, there are not any electrical plugs, and won’t be. But I can get creative on at least one or two areas, maybe.

          1. My spaghetti tried to organize once, but I brought in Pinkertons and gave ’em a whiff of grapeshot. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’m getting over the flu.)

            1. The thing about spaghetti is they wilt when they get into hot water….still better than the frog that’s unaware it’s being cooked, I suppose.

  4. Great analysis. Thanks for your work.

    I don’t think our own Brandon knows what he wants to be. However he does a fine job of making slaves to the socialist plantation. Except we call the slave states communities of aggrieved subgroups of “victims”.

    Keep up the good work.

    Merry Christmas

    Dana

    1. Honestly, I don’t think our own Brandon knows what day it is five times out of seven. To be fair, that is not necessarily unusual for an office as overscheduled as the one he occupies.

        1. Not for me it doesn’t, but it does suck to not be able to say what you think without running into issues.

          1. I could say it; DOD policy is that no one will be recalled from retirement merely for court-martial. But I take the money so I take the obligations that come with it.

            1. Unless of course you are one of the retired officers who repeatedly trashed Trump, in which case the establishment was perfectly fine with what was not mere criticism but outright slander pushing a partisan narrative. There were quite a few of them and to my knowledge, none of them have been punished for breaching UCMJ the way they did.

            1. True. But one who will never be flushed. Even Milley, Mattis, and Petraeus ventured unflattering opinions about their Commander in Chief.

              2. Well, let’s me not pretend to be entirely innocent here. What, after all, is citing to Art. 88 but an expression of contempt for somebody.

              3. He could be. But it would require a massive change in Congress. Or an instance of him doing something to draw so much negative public attention to himself that whoever in Congress is backing him is forced to drop their support.

        3. Heh. Since I’m not a commission officer, 88 isn’t an issue.
          And to be honest, there are two defenses against that charge: one, that you didn’t do it, or it was directed at the staff, and not the official.; or two, that the official in question was acting in such an egregiously contemptable manner that they were bringing discredit on the service, or were a threat to the country, and it was recognizable to any reasonable person.

          1. Officers aren’t covered by 88, only subject to it. I can say, for example, that Miley or Berger are worthless shits who ought to be shot. No crime. And there’s no defense except in a close reading of the elements of the offense for someone who does speak contemptuously of certain political figures.

      2. > “Honestly, I don’t think our own Brandon knows what day it is five times out of seven.”

        Biden: “They think I don’t know how f—in’ old I am?”

        Me: “Joe, I don’t think you know what planet you’re on half the time.”

  5. Wait two years and rerun this one by replacing Russia with China. Other than that you won’t change a thing. A friend did a very good Master’s thesis on the Korean war BTW. I did a read over as in “does this make sense to an ordinary non historian because if it does than I’ve probably gotten the point across”. I asked him if we should have pushed the chicomms hard in Korea. He didn’t have an unequivocal answer as I recall.

  7. Thing is, though, Sarah, that, while, yes, this is a war between Russia and the Ukraine, on one level, it’s also become a war between nationalism and internationalism, on another, because the Internationalisms – outrights reds, in some cases, a plutocratic supervillain in at least one other, plus the banana-banning, left-leaning bureaucracy of the EU – have decided to adopt the Ukies. One can feel vast distaste toward Russia, but I’m not sure that it could even conceptually be vast enough, in anyone with two brain cells to rub together, to side with Soros, Schwab, and their like. And yet that’s what we’re doing. Yes, we’re giving massive help.

    Meanwhile, while we’re claiming Putin is insane (he isn’t), we courting driving him from power, which is to say, also to his death….while he has a shitpot of nukes. Think about that one, we insist he’s a loon and then push him to, as a loon might, launch a war to take everyone down with him. And then congratulate ourselves on our wisdom in confronting Nigeria-with-Nukes? And think we’re not being morons?

    1. Tom, I understand the concern about Russia’s Nukes but I for one am getting tired of all the shit in the “discussions” of this war.

      And while I can’t speak for Sarah and haven’t been following the “discussion” in the other thread, I suspect that she’s tired of the “discussions” about that war.

      She may be too polite to say “shut up about that war”.

      1. And yet she was discussing it.

        I’m tired of the mindless, essentially fascistic, pro-Ukraine propaganda, not least that coming out of the Ukraine, itself. They’re playing us like cheap whores, cheap and stupid, or like children. And, just like the children they’re taking us to be, we’re accepting the most preposterous nonsense without demure, from the 13 Zombies of Snake Island to the Ghost of the Videogame of Kiev, to the Fraudulent Fallen Female Fighter Jock, to army pet rescue teams to drones that drop hand grenades down turret hatches, to casualty figures for the Russians exaggerated about three times over.

        And because nukes are involved, we are risking the destruction of the only country that ought to matter to us, America, over a corrupt kleptocracy in no way better than Russia, only weaker.

        1. Sir, as I said IMO Sarah is too polite to say “Shut Up About That”.

          While I’m too polite to say that in Sarah’s Place, I’m Thinking Very Strongly About Saying That.

              1. I have no idea how you came up with that one and strongly suspect you don’t either. “Holier than thou”? How in the fuck did you come up with that one?

            2. I did not. I casually hit Putin, which I do reflexively because I can’t stand him. I’m completely entitled to hate a KGB horror.
              I discussed it in this post PRECISELY because I’m tired of it.

              1. That’s not a discussion, eh? Who knew?

                Look, Sarah, if you don’t want the war discussed, we can stop discussing it. Just say so. While you’re saying so, can you also put out a ban on, at the very minimum, idiot propaganda like Foxfier’s map?

              2. By the way, Sarah, you absolutely DID discuss the war.

                “The Junta isn’t even really supporting Ukraine,” That’s the war.

                “So Russia getting smacked on the nose? Fine. None of our business.” That’s the war.

                “Russia is a bully. It doesn’t need our help. It needs a spanking and put in the corner. It’s getting that without our help.” That’s the war, too.

                1. But the best and quickest way to “spank” Russia would be for the US to once again be a net exporter of petroleum products to Western Europe. Drive the price of Russian gas and oil into the basement and Putin could no longer afford a costly and IMHO pointless war against the neighborhood.

                  1. Ah, but that would upset both the Dems’ lunatic base and Klaus Schwab, Lars, and we surely can’t have either of those.

                  4. The Reader always marveled at the ‘Russia collusion’ screams at Trump, given that Trump’s energy policy seriously hurt Russia and helped China much more than the trade spats hurt them.

                  5. I will say once again that Team HarrisBiden and the Democrats wanted Russia to attack Ukraine precisely so the attack could be weaponized in service of their domestic agenda including the Green Leap Forward and the persecution of political opponents. Getting rich on the side from it is just an added feature.

        2. Tom, everything else aside, when have we not been childish cheap whores on the foreign relations front? Why stop now?

          NW
          Musings from the peanut gallery.

    2. I tagged him as “Vlad the Mad”, because he seemed to have let the power get ahead of judgement. How could he, of all Russians, forget the whole “lie to the boss” routine? There is just this way-off note I keep hearing when I look at what they seem to be doing versus what they seem to have planned.

    1. Apparently, that stupid Russia-Ukraine war was being discussed in another thread.

      I missed most of it as well and am glad I did.

      1. Oh dear, has the Ukraine-Russia toxicity that’s stunk up The Bar made its way over here? I stay out of those threads over there. Hate to see folks who are otherwise aligned going at one another’s throats with such gusto. I save it for the Lefties. ;D

      2. Yep. I just started deleting certain person posts (come through email) on that topic because that is all the person was posting on. (I mean. That is one bonus about how WP has changed the email notification once I’m following a post.) Got called on it too (someone else referenced it and called person on it, for which … Thank you.) What is funny is my post wasn’t even in direct response to the person. Oh well.

        1. I’m doing my best not to comment on the topic that started the fire, though it’s disconcerting when someone who has (IMHO) valid points proceeds to blow credibility by crapping all over somebody else’s blog. One blogger I read does the profane/insulting bit in his own blog, but is reasonably polite when he comments elsewhere.

          1. 100%. I don’t know anything about the topic, even to research on it. I really can’t (well I could, just would be stupid) comment. I understand Sarah’s comment on the topic. I agree. Do not need to bother reading about it given where topic went on Sarah’s blog. If Sarah invites a to guest post on the topic, then … Her blog. But for now? IMHO wrong place. My choice.

        2. > “someone else referenced it and called person on it, for which … Thank you.”

          I assume you mean me, so… You’re welcome.

  9. Poor “Plucky Ukraine” is ruled by a handful of criminal billionaire oligarchs and their neo-nazi private armies, and their “leader” who has banned the other party and arrested anyone who complains about the mass slaughter of untrained draftees, the black market weapons sales and epic theft of funds he’s perpetrating… They were way better off in 1990…

      1. Yes, I am. I HATE Putin, from everything I know about him. I hate every single KGB horror ressurrected, so I do hit at him in posts, as I hit at other Post-but-really-still Marxist Kleptokrats.
        THAT’s it. It wasn’t an invitation to revisit Sainted-putin-dindunoffin. It’s not our war.
        Nukes? prove they work. I would bet you money — or my life — they got NOTHING.
        Also, maybe it would have been better to fight the war back then. Nukes are not magical. the end.

        1. Yet properly applied a few surface nukes would be a highly effective tool in response to global warming. And a damn sight less harmful than tweaking the Yellowstone caldera into a major eruption.
          And neither of those options makes the sense G-d gave a goose as opposed to accepting that climate does and always will change and best bet for humanity is to figure out the best and least painful ways to adapt and overcome those changes. But that would require the Powers That Be to give a flying flip about the issue rather than seeing the whole kerfuffle as yet another opportunity to seize control over the population and drive us all into peon status and serfdom.

          2. After you dive down enough rabbit holes and read enough books, you understand it’s all about the elite bringing back feudalism in the form of socialism.

            What’s happening now is just the various elite power blocks/mafias disagreeing who is going to rule and the cost is mass human death. The “incompetence” is just camouflage, the mission still continues and has since the 19th century.

    3. By your description Ukraine is indistinguishable from Russia. The description fits more closely to the reality of Russia. Ukraine has made at least baby steps toward a better society. Neither Russia nor Ukraine was better off in 1990.

      Incidentally, last I heard the pro-Putin Ukrainian oligarch Hunter worked for is currently living quite comfortably in exile in Monaco and has no connection to the current Ukrainian government.

      1. pyrrhus has always walked and quacked as an agent of influence. The reason he’s here is because I suspect it’s fluffyheadedness rather than being an actual agent of influence.
        I ponder on the regular whether my valuation is too lenient.

        1. Really ridiculous statement…I disagree with virtually everything the “influencers” say, but if pointing out the reality of what’s really happening in this wicked world is “influence”, guilty as charged..I have won cases in SCOTUS, so maybe I can be persuasive…or maybe not…

      1. There certainly are no good guys in DC, when they will appropriate $100 billion for Ukraine while veterans, including wounded veterans, can’t get adequate medical care, and sometimes are forced to live on the street…and where Mitch derailed a bill to give some money to small business owners damaged or destroyed by the fraudulent lockdowns….

    5. ….”the other party”?

      THE other party?

      Dude, it’s Europe, they don’t have two major parties. They have dozens.

      And the ban was basically “hey, no public declarations that us being invaded is great.”

      Ooooh nooooo, that’s terrible when you’re being INVADED…..

      1. Not true, Ukraine has only two main parties….Dissent was and is punished by jail or death, and even non-State controlled media was completely shut down…

  10. I was busy all day doing family stuff inside when not freezing my tail off moving snow. I’m going to go have another delicious Christmas cookie and assume anything I missed is probably just as well. Good night everyone. Stay warm and happy.

    1. Hugs, Kamas. Hope health is better.
      I was seeing kids and one of the readers here, and her brand new baby. Baby cuddling happened. (Well, mostly I petted the baby, because allergies, and I don’t wish to sneeze or cough on baby. But…. he smells new, and is adorable.)

      2. Yeah, I feel pretty good. The fatigue hit this week, but should be done by next. I’m a little behind on my Christmas shopping though.

        I have no idea why my picture didn’t show up on the prior post. WP deleted est? Apple playing funky again?

    2. I made the horrible mistake of making white cornbread instead of yellow cornbread since Morrison makes both.

      I prefer Jiffy, but my spouse calls it “corncake” due to the sweetness. We do usual buy Morrison because they are a local company, (Denton, TX), with a good reputation.

      https://morrisonmilling.com/

  11. “Heinlein who was a shrewd, if initially leftist thinker, fell for the whole thing hook line and sinker.”

    For that matter, so did Jerry Pournelle; the whole motivator for the CoDominium as I read it was that the Soviet Union was actually able to pour piss out of a boot well enough to be worthy of respect. Yes, it fell apart, but no faster than the US.

      2. The point about Pournelle was interesting. He did postulate a CoDominium. He also made it clear that any such CoDominium would be a disaster, the last tyrannical train station on the ride to planetary holocaust, with all scientific and technological progress blocked on purpose. That prediction felt outlandish when I first read it in the late 1970s. Now I look at our current regime and I blink with unwanted familiarity; none of the technological repression of our current junta would have surprised Pournelle in the least.

        I think Heinlein’s views of the Soviets changed substantially after he and Virginia Heinlein visited Russia, with Mrs. Heinlein as his fluent and charming translator. He wrote two essays about the experience which he republished in 1980 along with added comments. Basically, he had great sympathy for Russian people, but considered their regime a hellworld and much of their boasted achievements to be truly Potemkin, including the claimed population size of Moscow. Somewhere in the same 1980 book Heinlein remarked that “we have been bailing them [the Soviets] out repeatedly”.

        1. Yeah, I read that too. The CIA had spent millions of dollars on satellite surveillance and spies, and they bought the Russians’ claims hook-line-and-sinker. RAH spent a week counting trains and determined that the observed logistics couldn’t support a population larger than 300,000.

          The biggest city in Russia was smaller than Toledo, Ohio. And much, much poorer.
          ———————————
          Communism and socialism do not create, they only take, and they collapse when the kommissars run out of stuff to steal.

  12. Honestly, BECAUSE you’re away. As in the analogy you used in that post, use the extinguisher on the kitchen fire before it spreads, and it never becomes a dumpster fire. This is not to say you should never get to go have family time, of course. Just that dumpsters will always coincide with less time available to monitor. Nature of the beast.

  13. I don’t know if I missed reading of the latest dumpster fire or if it’s I see everything this days as part of the same one big fire.

    However locally, the temperature up here on top of the world has climbed to a balmy -14° F. from -25° F. earlier today, no need to put another log on.

  14. I’m reminded of one of the Sharpe’s Rifles episodes, where an Irish priest working in Spain has been spying against the French, and one of the English noble bullyboys asks him why (after said priest had kept him from attacking a young girl who had already escaped the French attack): John Bull’s a bad neighbor, but Napoleon is a bully.

    1. And then the Irish priest, who was a master fencer, proceeded to own said English noble scumbag (who, IIRC, the Irish priest caught attempting to force himself upon an already traumatized nun).

      “God forgive me, but I do wish it had lasted longer!”

      1. Not quite nun. A postulant, I think, which is why she was sent away when the carriage was attacked. The scumbag in question is a recurring villain in the series, too. I thought he’d well and truly died in that one, but unfortunately not. Sharpe almost does, and Patrick gets married. A good episode all around.

        1. Yup. Sir Henry Simmerson, everyone’s favorite baddie (after Obadiah Hakeswill, of course) who we love to hate. But at least Hakeswill finally got his. Sharpe and Simmerson becoming kind of chummy at the end of the last TV movie really threw me for a loop, though.

            1. IIRC, Sharpe Sharpe saved his life (unwillingly), and so Simmerson buried the hatchet. I think? It’s been a looooong time since I’ve seen any of the Sharpe movies.

              1. And I SWEAR that I did NOT type Sharpe twice in that last comment. I could have, and let’s face it I’ve been known to fat-finger my comments before, but in this case I’m blaming WP.

      1. Self Demeaning (kleptomaniac) Nuclear waste guru. How the everloving hell he got a Q clearance (or any clearance) is beyond me.

        1. Part of the clearance was because he was so open about being into alternative to alternatively alternative lifestyles. There’s nothing to blackmail or otherwise compromise him with, since everyone knew. The felony theft stuff was different. (His actual competence in his field I know absolutely nothing about.)

          1. Granted he made it clear he was atypical in his sexuality (say the least), but that’s only part of a TS/Q level investigation. Also included would be a polygraph, and detailed investigation (including looking at financials). The guy is what would have been called a clothes horse. I doubt the rest of his lifestyle was any less profligate. Did he have lots of debts? How many other times has he “picked up the wrong bag” at an airport? Committing grand larceny is not something most folks do at the drop of a hat. My understanding from the clearance process is the more “red flags” you show the deeper they’re going to look because where there smoke, even acknowledged smoke there is often fire. Admittedly he wasn’t caught until recently. The second case was brought about by folks realizing a case they had showed him in the video and was actually quite a bit older. This all is clearly the sign of a unserious nomination for token purposes just like our Surgeon General. But of course I don’t have to tell anyone here that 🙂 .

  16. Personally, this whole war has mostly served to illuminated why the US took so long to get involved in both world wars.

    As near as I can sort it out, Russia invaded Ukraine to secure their gas monopoly, after being green lit by the US administration, which the current Ukrainian govt actively and covertly campaigned for in order to keep their own corruption in getting those gas resources exploited hidden. And every major NGO is up to their necks in it because “never let a crisis go to waste!”

    It’s like an n-dimentional turducken of corruption, venality, and god-play with a light dusting of jingoism and race war thrown in for good measure. And so many people are dying because of the event horizon of stupid corruption in all of this. The shame is not that they can’t all lose. All the major nations involved most certainly will lose is varying degrees, and certainly their rank and file people will. No, the shame is that the leaders that cooked up this witches brew will pretty much entirely win from it, and will probably keep stirring pots just like this until we get a truly massive blowout that brings them down along with the rest of us.

    It is such a European war.

    1. Right? As an ex-European, my reaction is “A POX ON ALL YOUR HOUSES.”
      I came here for a reason.
      It’s time for us to tend our own garden.
      …. you know what makes flowers grow? Right.

      1. Y’know, America is the absolute worst empire the world has ever seen. If we actually WANTED an empire right now, Lord knows after the 20th century we’d have one that would make Queen Elizabeth I sit up and take notice. But we kept helping liberate countries and then giving them money, patting them on the head, and saying “OK, go forth and be like us.” Now they all hate us for it.

        We’re just not very good at being everybody’s oppressive overlords. We’d rather that they go home to their own house down the street after we put a band-aid on their boo-boo and leave us the frak alone.

    2. Me? I’m pissed at the Russians with the fire of a thousand suns for them financing the Greens and their Goreball Warming bullshit. For that alone, and the people who’ll die of cold this winter, they deserve to glow like the sun.
      Am I saying we should do it? No. Because they have managed to get us in enough trouble, we need to survive. A war would only allow the Junta to consolidate power. We should however not protect them, * either, when the gods of the copybook headings eat them.
      And by them I MEAN BOTH the Junta AND Russia.

      1. Perhaps unfounded optimism here, but were we to Tend To Our Knitting, as outlined in The Declaration, oust our internal globalists, and Just. Stay. Focused. on what’s important, I suspect a fair amount of the disorder we witness would either shrink to semi-reasonable proportions or vanish altogether.

        Which does not remain ignorant; one benefits from “knowledge about what’s going on in the neighborhood” but until they begin throwing their empties on the unmown lawn, kicking the dog and smacking the kids about, involvement in the neighbors’ affairs is usually unproductive, almost always impolite, and prone to severe compllications.

        Which doesn’t mean “necessary and impolite” doesn’t occur sometimes, but prudence dictates paying mind to the proper threshold for involvement, and care exercised on exactly to what degree “involvement” is necessary. In the meantime, doing one’s best in one’s own domain – which we most certainly have not been doing, read The Declaration for assistance – and Leading By Example, often serves, if not a warning, at least a strong curative suggestion, as to the proper course; rising tides and boats, etc., to some degree. Success, and the narrow path to it, is often misperceived, but rare it is that success be disdained entirely.

        One cannot cure all ills, and oh, so rarely can one make even the shallowest of dents in the ills of others, not to mention the restorative power of achieving it oneself; gentle remonstration and very carefully doled assistance can be worthwhile, direct involvement quite often a bit less so.

      2. Does anyone have a good calculation on how many homes could be provided power for how many years by repurposing the fissile material of one of our nukes into a small power plant?

        1. A small neighborhood for a couple of years. There’s really not that much in a bomb; a few pounds. Nuclear power reactor cores contain tons of enriched uranium, which has to be refreshed every few years as the U-235 gets used up.

          We used to re-enrich the spent fuel and put it back in the reactor, but Jimmeh Carter ended nuclear fuel reprocessing by executive order in 1977. Now ‘nuclear waste’ just piles up at reactor sites and gives our modern Luddites a handy club to beat on nuclear power with.
          ———————————
          “Like most cases of unfathomable stupidity, this one begins and ends with the government.”

          1. Iirc it is not so much that the U235 gets used up as that the byproducts of fission poison the reaction.

            1. Some of both. If you take the fuel assemblies apart, dump out the uranium, extract the fission products, add a little U-235 and put it all back together, something like 98% of the ‘nuclear waste’ can go right back in the reactor to generate more energy.

              Some of those fission products have industrial or medical uses. The rest can be concentrated in a few fuel pellets and stuck in the end of the fuel assembly. Neutron radiation inside the reactor will ‘burn up’ the unwanted isotopes much faster than just dunking them in a pool of water.

              Well, nobody ever claimed Jimmeh was the sharpest nail in the bucket. Now all our resources are wasted on climate vanity projects that don’t generate enough energy to be worth the effort.
              ———————————
              People can make stupid mistakes, but only the government can force everybody to make the SAME stupid mistakes.

              1. The CANDU reactor design, for example, can consume multiple fuel types, and can also be used for “burn up” of waste.

              2. Ehh, Carter was a nuclear engineer himself. Which does take plenty of brainpower, certainly more than being a lawyer and “community organizer.” It’s been my experience that 80% or more of nuke folks used wisdom as a dump stat, however. It’s endemic to the community.

                1. ‘Sharp’ takes both intelligence and wisdom. Knowing how to apply intelligence.

                  Jimmeh had the common failing of lawyers and politicians, of believing that knowing one thing meant he knew everything. Knowing the operation procedures for a nuclear reactor does NOT mean you’re competent to set national nuclear energy policy.
                  ———————————
                  They’re the Experts! They only sound stupid to you because you’re not as Educated as they are.

                    1. Jimmeh was apparently a nuclear engineering officer in the Navy. There are four divisions of personnel on board a ship: Operations, Weapons, Engineering and Supply. Engineering officers are those concerned generally with the ship’s mechanical and propulsion systems.

                      Nuclear engineering officers are trained to supervise the enlisted folks operating the ship’s nuclear reactor(s). They know a lot about the operating characteristics and failure modes of Navy nuclear reactors, emergency procedures and so on, they’re familiar with how the reactors are designed, but are not in any way involved in designing them. They are taught just enough theory to understand the job of operating the one specific type of pressurized-water nuclear reactors used in the U.S. Navy.
                      ———————————
                      Susan Ivanova: “You’re saying just because I’m holding this right now, I’m Green Leader? But I’m human!”

                      Former Drazi Green Leader: “Rules of combat older than contact with other races. Did not mention aliens. Rules change…caught up in committee. Not come through yet.”

                      Susan: “Bureaucracy. Ya gotta love it.”

                    2. Weird thing is, Jimmah came up through Hyman Rickover’s nuclear submarine force. Rickover was legendary in his inability to suffer fools. So I don’t know how Carter slipped through unless he was a late-onset fool.

                    3. An old friend (lost contact with him, and I doubt he’s still alive) worked at Lawrence Livermore back in the 40s or ’50s. He had unkind things to say about Jimmy’s reputation in the Navy as an engineer. He had really unkind things to say about Jimmeh’s unilateral declaration that bridges could have their load capacity increased by a large percentage.

                      Said friend knew concrete and bridges, and admitted to being part of the team that designed the two-layer causeway that failed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. “We didn’t know enough when we did the design”. “Fun” fact. Oregon’s interstate bridges were among the first completed in the nation. They were designed to the original spec, and have required serious upgrading since then.

          2. The numbers I can find for U-235 critical mass is ~47 kg. PU-239 is ~10 kg. I don’t think any of our weapons (other than perhaps experimental ones) ever used straight up U-235 but used oralloy (Oak Ridge ALLOY) a highly enriched uranium. How enriched surprisingly ( 🙂 ) no one says but I’d bet 75-90%. I think most of the modern pits were PU based and I don’t think any of the existing commercial reactors can do much with PU. But ~100 lbs of high grade U235 could be diluted down to make fuel, And there are LOTS of disassembled pits of various generations sitting in Pantex from weapons taken apart for SALT and START compliance. Of course the best thing to do would be to start building some later 3.5 /4th generation plants that can use mixed fuel and produce far less aggressive waste, but the Green Nude Eel types want none of that. There’s a half dozen ways we could be less dependent on foreign energy sources (I’ll exclude Canada ) and not one of them has a paper dogs chance in Hell with the Democrats in charge. Last time someone built a new nuke plant (Seabrook) in the US I was graduating from college. I think my Alma Mater graduated 10-15 Nuclear Engineers that year. Now that department is gone has been since late 90’s I think.

            1. When we moved to Longview, Trojan was something to be toured. Just before we sold the house, 9 years later, Trojan was being decommissioned. (We finally turned it over to renting management after trying to manage it our self for little over a year. They cleaned it up. Rented 6 month stints to visiting engineers on rotations for the Trojan clean up.)

      3. There’s two sets of people, and only two sets of people, that I give a flying bleep about in this entire situation. One is the Ukranians on both sides that are in the middle of flying ordnance losing their houses and jobs and lives. The other is the Russian conscripts that are being given a sixty-year-old rusted-out AK-47 or a pre-war Mosin and sent to blow the snot out of the first set of people.

        I have no use for either government, Ukraine or Russia, don’t trust a single word either of them say, and generally wish that the Author would find a way that both Zelensky and Putin wind up ruined, powerless, and preferably in prison, while the grunt-level people of both Ukraine and Russia try to fix this useless mess.

    3. I can’t help but notice it was the same diplomatic failure that got us into Kuwait/Iraq.
      But this time, coming directly from the Resident.

      I’ve come to distrust coincidence.
      Especially ones requiring an idiot ball.

      Biden baited Putin to invade Ukraine.
      I think he was as shocked as anyone when Ukraine didn’t fall.
      Much of our political class was actively laundering themselves money through Ukraine.
      Ukraine has the receipts to this, and knows they have our “leadership’s” nuts in a vice.
      So they’re successfully extorting us.
      Our “leadership” is still getting kickbacks from the extorted monies. (Albeit at reduced rates.) So they’re in MacBeth’s pool of blood, and every bit of aid just gets them deeper.

      Meanwhile, Putin remains a murderous dictator.

      Too bad our respective countries can’t toss them all into a scorpion tank. They deserve it, and we deserve better.

      2. I honestly don’t think Biden expected Putin to try for the whole country. I suspect he expected Putin to do a repeat of the Crimea, where he just took a quick bite, let the US grandstand a bit, and then everyone could settle into the new normal.

        Which, in retrospect, was an incredibly stupid thing to expect; neither of them is getting any younger, and there’s always the possibility that the US wouldn’t be so favorable to a big grab in a couple of years.

        Of course almost noone expected the Russian army to turn out to be a wet paper bag.

      4. The White House (whoever is running it) appears to have expected Zelensky to flee the country. The idea that Zelensky would stay and fight seems to have caught our administration off-guard.

        Due to that little bit of information, I still feel that a piece of the puzzle is missing.

        1. In fairness, we’re talking about a guy who si freaking LARPing that movie about a movie actor who got elected.

          Zelensky is a TV COMEDIAN who RAN FOR OFFICE in a party LITERALLY NAMED FOR HIS COMEDY SHOW where he played a politician.

          It’s totally reasonable to think “oh, actor guy is gonna ditch.”

          3. You mean Ronald Reagan?

            😛

            While off the top of my head I can only think of two actors besides Zelensky who became leaders of their respective countries, both of them turned out to be tough as nails. One was Reagan. The other was Empress Theodora, wife of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

            1. Pretty sure Reagan didn’t have a Daily Show style series. 😀

              It’s not the actor part that matters, it’s the living-his-show part that makes me go “yeah, that’s reasonable to expect.”

              1. He wasn’t a comedian (though he did have a talent for telling jokes), so no. On the other hand, he had spent over a decade on the talk circuit (originally with the financial backing of GE; how times have changed…) giving speeches laying out the arguments against communism.

                1. WHO-1040 is very proud he entered the Radio market on them. 😀 (Iowa radio station)

                  The guy managed to charm my grandmother, who was Not Charmable. Clearly, he was amazing!

        1. WW1 Wilson waited until both sides were exhausted. WW2 FDR waited until the US was attacked, although the US was extensively supporting the USSR and England. Here we have ignored avoiding war, doing actual economic harm to Putin via oil extraction (arguably more to us and allies), and gone straight to sending men and weapons to fight.

  17. Why just today I left the room for an…extended bathroom break… and, the wife being away for several days, the world of the temporarily unattended four and six-year-old fell to pieces. Really? You guys have been playing nice all day and now you don’t want to be siblings anymore??

    Frantically searches for where I left my patience

    This post sums up my feelings on the Russo-Ukraine War almost to the letter. I’ve only recently started cracking open the Ukraine threads over at The Bar again. They were just a shitstorm for the longest time.

  18. Pretty much every bit of aid that we’ve given to Ukraine, and most of the aid Europe has given to them was in the form of weapons that we were probably going to have to spend money to destroy because we had no use for them. Stuff that’s been moldering in the storehouse for 3 decades because it wasn’t fit for the current mission. They did us a favor by taking our trash and actually putting it to good use. You’re absolutely right that the current folks here are basically lining pockets with the money they’re claiming to give to Ukraine. They’re paying our companies for stuff that would have been written off, and thus redistributing our money to contractors.

    I think we should transfer all of our A10’s to friendly countries, nato or otherwise as well. It’s another thing that the air force doesn’t want and that those countries would get way more use out of than we would. Along with any other planes we’re phasing out. Just send them to Poland, Romania, and Taiwan. Make Russia think twice before going further than Ukraine in the event he does succeed there, and make China think twice about the invasion they keep talking about.

    1. If we don’t replace, and rapidly, all those javelins, we may very much regret any near future conflict with an opponent with decent tanks.

      Takes time to ramp up production of existing
      Takes time to train up and build up on newtoys.

      Our way is to expend ammo, versus men. Burning down the stockpile has consequences if not restocked. That is exploitable.

      Flip side is all that lovely graft on the restock. Might ultimately be why we have so much ammo.

      1. I’m not sure they think there will be an opponent with decent tanks in the future. After all, the super advanced new tanks from Russia proved very deficient, and low in quantity. China’s tanks don’t look any better. Hopefully they already have some improvements in the pipeline, like the shaped charges from the NLAW combined with the more advanced optics of the Javelin could be quite useful.

        1. A T-55 is a decent tank if you are holding a rifle. Dictators of the world give proof through their regimes.

          The tanks are all targets if you are holding a Javelin. It can darn near kill anything, properly employed.

          Javelin beats hell out of the Dragon/TOW mix of my Era. Beats them like seal pups.

          So please consider it is folks like my younger self who clean up the bloody wasteful mess when we deliberately underestimate our future opponents.

          If the Branch Davidians had a pair of working Javelin and a good bluff, they could have held off the outcome we observed. After the second tank burned, the amateurs wouldnt have had heart to try the remsining quaker guns (opinion, yup). Someone would have eventually escalated to an airstrike, but that is another thread.

          1. Crap a T-34, PZKW III, Lee or Sherman is a good tank if all you’ve got is a rifle. Although tanks without infantry support get in trouble real fast. Even an M1-A3 Abrams doesn’t really want to end up over run with infantry if they have explosives or pyro devices.

            And yes not sure what production rates are on Javelins etc, but they aren’t fast. And we’d already burned down a lot of our reserves of materiel in Iraq and Afghanistan and never brought it back up (Thanks Obama!!!).

        2. Because socialism destroys everything, including — I don’t know why our people thought it was an exception — a nations military capacity.
          For our current likely opponents we have John Deere aplenty.

      2. We didn’t really have much ‘ammo’ (in this case modern smart weapons for ground combat) before Ukraine. The production lines for them were kept running at the lowest possible level. The Great Big Defense Contractors’ plans for surge capacity read somewhere between a bad joke and really bad science fiction. Don’t ask the Reader how he knows. It is going to take quite a while, and money the Feds won’t want to spend to remedy that. Of course since our military appears to be headed to a point where the troops won’t know which end of a Javelin to point downrange anyway, it may not matter.

        1. This has been the case in every instance of peace time in pretty much every part of the world. Building and maintaining ammo stockpiles takes money that could be used for other purposes. And it’s not as if you’re going to be attacked right now…

          You can start working on the stockpile in the next budget…

          1. And modern smart weapons are 10 times worse. They’re more expensive and far easier to screw up in manufacture and take much longer to make. The WWII model of produce weapons for the ongoing war is not possible to any great extent. Modern wars are come as you are affairs, and if all you have is dribs and drabs you’re like Cinderella needing to go to the ball, and there ain’t no fairy godmother to save your sorry ass.

        1. Funny thing about aircraft: They’re not everywhere… unlike the troops with Javelins issued two to a squad.

          1. Actually, when the US fights, air power pretty much is everywhere. Usually the troops don’t even meet opposing armor in the first place. Not infrequently American armor doesn’t meet opposing armor.

            I’m not saying this is an ideal situation. But too many idiots are acting like the only weapon the US has against tanks in the Javelin.

            1. The Javelin is the weapon to use against tanks when you don’t have air superiority. That’s why it wasn’t really used much by the US, but why it’s so useful in Ukraine. If you have air superiority, you can use the A10, Heavy Switchblade, or any other aircraft instead of the Javelin. Even if you don’t yet have air superiority we have aircraft we can use to sneak in and take out armor, or take it out from long distances with the improved battlefield sensors and long range missiles.

    2. Almost forgot…

      What replaces the A10 capacity for close air support? Everything the Air Force wants has the wrong wing shape for the mission.

      The Warthog is so insanely good at CAS because it was designed to be a bad ass CAS bird. Airforce seems to not want CAS, except to keep the budget. Else transfer the role and roll back to Army.

      Again, wing shape physics at work here. No supersonic stealth wing is going to do well low, slow, and obvious.

      1. There is something to say for that, the airforce wants to use the f35 to replace it, but that’s not the most ideal in uncontested airspace.

        There’s a lot of other options for the Army as well in UAVs. They could carry a bunch of Switchblade drones and do the CAS themselves for example, and the heavier switchblade that they were trialing in Ukraine.

        Mainly just think that if the Air Force doesn’t want them, at least we can put them somewhere where they’ll be appreciated by the pilots flying them, rather than just the ground troops they’re aiding.

        1. Take away Army’s handcuffs and allow fixed wing.

          The Stuka was used like flying artillery. A glorified crop duster can do CAS.

          F35 is fragile. A-10 is decidedly not. Impacts how used. Has to.

          1. Using the correct tool for the job at hand hasn’t exactly been a strong suit of the military. Ever since the 60s, and Kennedy’s Whiz Kids, they’ve Ben pushing for multipurpose platforms that will do everything. Unfortunately they don’t do anything exceptionally

            1. Military procurement is a hard problem, and reasonable people can disagree about the right answer with regard to a new system being expensive junk or just undergoing teething pains, or an old system being past its time or still having what it takes.

              Then when you throw in the unreasonable and the grifters…

            2. The interesting thing about the F35 vs the 4 aircraft it’s meant to replace… It actually has better performance characteristics than 3 of them. It has worse characteristics than a custom built airframe for each role using modern technology though, but compared to the outdated technology the old planes use? So really, you could say that it’s holding us back from our potential, but it is still an improvement.

              1. The old planes exceeded the capabilities of the pilot.
                Spending billions on new airframes with notional improvements is clearly inferior to simply upgrading the avionics in the old platforms.

          2. The F35 relies on not being seen, rather than surviving getting hit. It’s way up and out where you can’t see it dropping missiles on tanks. There’s arguments both ways on the value of super survivable vs not being in the position to be hit though. Not being seen means you have to rely on sensors and other information more rather than optics and relying on expensive missiles rather than cheaper vulcan cannon ammo, but also means that planes aren’t out for weeks being rebuilt because they took a shell and taking up space at the air field. The A10 approach is cheaper if you have enough space at your air fields for their repair. The F35 approach is probably less risky for the pilots.

            1. The F-35 is also a drone management platform (its big advantage over the F-22, which otherwise appears to be a superior plane). So not only can it stay out of sight, but it can also coordinate with a group of drones to go to handle more risky tasks.

              Of course, all of this depends on the EW environment. So far we haven’t had to deal with an opponent that’s even remotely capable of scrambling our signals.

          3. Strangely enough, there was a time (pre-1947) in which the groundpounders owned their own fixed wing aircraft, and lots of them – the U.S. Army Air Corps. For “reasons” it was decided all fixed wing stuff was to be the bailiwick of a brand new U.S. Air Force.

            As for the A-10 vs F35 argument, page back to the very early 1950s; in Korea the fabulously effective P-51 – which dominated air-to-air combat in the European sky against anything the Germans could throw at it – fizzled, badly, as a ground attack aircraft. The underwing radiator was genius engineering for air-to-air combat but exposed to ground fire it proved quite fragile.

            A great many people understand a hammer does a poor job of turning screws and screwdrivers do just as poorly at driving nails; applying that same level of understanding to selecting aircraft for a particular combat job seems far beyond anyone above a butterbar lieutenant.

            RE: crop dusters as Ground Bomb Trucks. It seems that is exactly what is happening, most recently with L3’s Air Tractor, manufactured in Texas. There’s also a similar Italian aircraft (whose name escapes me at the moment) that has been “armored and bomb racked” to serve in a ground support role. Neither is quite a “1:1 A-10 equivalent” but almost certainly a better choice than the F35.

            I’m also pretty sure even if there’s no one around who remembers how to build Douglas Skyraiders there’s probably a few sets of the plans in a file cabinet somewhere.

            1. My dad was offered a commission in the Air Force when he demoralized, butnhe turned it down. I guess the 45 bombing missions over Germany were enough.

                1. Oops. Although with Dad you never knew. (Imagine an authoritarian Odd and you have my father).

              1. I don’t think the F-47 ( Nee P-47 in WWII) was used in Korea. It was in service in the ANG including the N models until 1955. The F-47 was used by ANG east of the Missisippi, the F-51 west of it so maybe availability to get hardware to Korea mattered? Corsairs and F-51(D) were used but like the B-29s if they got up against a MiG-15 they were in deep trouble. The F-47N would have probably held up better against ground fire, but the MiGs are still faster and their 2x30mm cannon would have made effective holes in the Jug. Even the F-80 and F-84 and their straight winged naval counterparts (Panther, Banshee, even the swept wing Cougar) had problems with the MiGs, the MiG-15’s were just a darn good fighter for their time. Until the F-86 showed up there really wasn’t a match for the MiGs and even then the F-86 pilots had to NOT get into low altitude turning fights with the MiGs or they’d likely lose.

      2. Actually, the A10 was designed as a tank killer that could loiter to be at hand when needed. It just turns out that the requirements for CAS are essentially the same. I was, back in the day, the quality engineer for the Warthog fire control system.

      3. Who needs an a10 when a reaper drone can launch a hellfire at the uppity proles. It’s not like the usg will be fighting against a real military, just a bunch of ragtag irregulars.

        1. Afghan, Iran and now Ukraine have made it clear that “ragtag irregulars” can REALLY ruin your whole day, particularly if they are provided with Manpads, drones and anti armor hardware and you are sloppy with your logistics and training. That said the A-10’s ability to loiter with a fairly heavy load of munitions unlike the fast movers make it the friend of the infantry. And the 30mm GAU-8 isn’t to be sneezed at as 60 1″+ rounds/second is kind of the definition of a bad day.

    3. Ukraine will be the most heavily armored army in Europe soon, if it isn’t already, with all the stuff sent there along with what they’ve captured. Armor is great against other armor and lightly armed infantry. But it’s vulnerable to aircraft and rockets like the Javelin that come down from above.
      .
      CAS is vulnerable to anti-air as well as other aircraft. The beauty of the A-10 for CAS is that it’s so heavily armored around the cockpit. It’s basically just a flying gun with an armored tub for the pilot and hard points to drop small bombs or launch rockets. It can take Bella lot of damage and still fly. The downside of the A-10 is that it’s slow and not at all stealthy.

      1. Corruption in Ukraine means a significant amount of weapons and supplies meant for the front ends up elsewhere in the world, not on the front lines. Trucks disappear out of convoys and some bright gangsters made off with most of a supply train.

        But this is not a big problem since Uncle Sam has infinite money for foreign borders. Even threw a big party for the Ukraine Military sponsored by US defense contractors.

        1. I’m not sure why this administration thinks the American people should care about anyone else’s borders when they refuse to take ours seriously.

  20. A story from my Dad: After FDR was elected the first time, our family had a serious discussion about taking him out. My Dad was a little un, rolling a toy car behind the couch. And my G-Aunt was a gorgeous bombshell of a young woman. She knew could get to him. She would die, but she would be able to take him out first. They evidently decided that it wouldn’t work, but Dad had fallen asleep behind the couch by that time, clutching his toy car.

    There were lots of people in America who hated the vile FDR. They had his number. They could see down the long tunnel of the future and where his policies would lead. But I understand the family, looking at their brave girl, and telling her no. Not this sacrifice. Not this girl.

  21. I really do believe, “in my dotage”, that much of my air-sickness while flying in B-52s was a reaction to the idea that I was training to go kill a lot of people (justified or not). The rest was having about 30 seconds of ammo and seeing that at least one “Brungarian” (see Tom Swift and the Visitor from Planet X) airbase we were to over-fly was reported t be home to over 1,000 fighter aircraft…

    I do think I’m more of a physical and less of a moral coward now; but I hope never to find out.

        1. And yes I too lived on those things in 3rd and 4th grade. It looks like only 2 of the Tom Swift Junior books (By Victor Appleton II) are on Gutenberg and I think they’re later ones.Someone must have screwed the pooch and let the copyrights lapse. Most of the Tom Swift books there are the originals by Victor Appleton. Of course both of those authors are Nom de plume like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys had. Ah for the Sky Queen (a nuclear powered jet that served as Tom Swift Jr’s mobile lab) which looked suspiciously like a modified b-52 in the dust jacket illustrations 🙂 . The middle school library had none and so I when I got to 5th grade I asked my reading teacher if there was related to Sci Fi in its library and he pointed me at Bradbury’s “R is for Rocket” and “S is for Space” and Asimov’s “I Robot” and I was off and running.

          1. I loved them too. My uncle got me one when I was in fifth grade or thereabouts. Over the years, I read most of them.

  22. Drowning Drums:
    Beat the drums to drown the sky.
    Beat the drums don’t think of why.
    Drown the truth so none can see.
    Drown it in simplicity.

    Beat the drums so none can hear
    The drowning screams that come so near.
    The drums beat down from on high,
    And drown the truth ever nigh.

    When tyrant claims a bitter wrong
    And the drum beats out his lying song,
    And voices raise to chant along,
    The truth drowns beneath the gong.

    So listen well beneath the din,
    To voices soft of warry kin.
    The truth will show its bitter tear
    And desperate pride be laid bare.

    (Sidenote: book is done, ebook live (link sent), the paperback is taking a little wrangling with amazon over cover things.)

      1. Hi,
        Thanks for the info. Will it be up later today or Monday? I have a last few books I want to order before Christmas and was waiting for the promo to give you the click.

        Hope you have a good trip.

        2. Order through the link on the side. That also gives her a click. You don’t have to buy the thing you click on, just open Amazon and go shopping.

      2. Is that dongle something reasonable to keychain or purse-clip?

        I have one for some professional items, and blessedly it is flat enough to live in a wallet. Phone authentication apps are handy, assuming I don’t forget the dang thing.

      1. There must be a Leslie Fish version on the Tube of You. I had the tape and wish to goodness Imhad it in CD.

  23. Got tires to mount and balance, then put on the truck . . . my Summer purchases SUCK in icy conditions. Work fine in snow and all, but not a lick of traction on ice.
    (i.e. got better things to do than go slap someone who should damned well know better)
    Things are clear as mud in some ways, clear as Lake Superior at Pictured Rocks in others.

    1. The vehicle that has to be up and ready has the studded snows on since the season started. The backup has studded tires waiting, but the truck’s snow tires aren’t studded, so they seldom get installed. (Such weren’t available in the right size.) The studless wonders are good for deep snow, but are also useless on ice. Which has been the situation since some time in November.

      If I get the urge, and the garage gets above freakin’ cold, I’ll do the backup. The weather-guessers think we’ll go above freezing some days this week. Maybe.

      1. When looking at tires, someone mentioned they loved these no-names in snow, but it was deep snow they were talking about. I decided to wait and see, but really should have just gotten some winter tires and rims right then. Now I get to play with my tire mounting tools in snow and freezing temps,

        1. We had non-studded tires on a 2WD Ranger after we moved to snow country. They were not successful, and the Ranger was idle all winter. (I had a 4WD Chevy with studded tires for the usual rural tasks.) When the Ranger was replaced by a Subie Forester, we bought tires and rims from Tire Rack, and for two subsequent vehicles. Both Subarus have steel winter rims, and neither have TPMS. The Honda has alloy winter rims with TPMS (bought through the dealer, but sourced from Tire Rack–got a very good deal and somebody got in trouble for not marking the price upwards).

          The Honda automagically links the monitors with different tires. That function wasn’t available for the others; I didn’t want to pay nor get the bits to DIY. So, I get the nag light all winter, but the flats I’ve had always were on the summer tires. Nails or staples. Arggh.

          I have inner tubes in the utility tractor front wheels (more nails), and have remounted them more times than I’d like. I probably should spring for a tire stand, but (clutches rabbit’s foot), haven’t needed to fix a flat in a few years. If a back tire ever goes flat, it’ll get a ride to the shop. Not gonna mess.

          1. Before i moved up here, I bought from Walmart OG Goodyear Wranglers, and they worked well around here and this summer I had to replace them due to dry rot, more than wear. The one that was on the spare rim, was never used as the rim was a wagon wheel just to get a full size spare (truck was delivered with alloys and a full size, but somewhere got steels and a space saver before I acquired it). So for this, I bought 6 “refurbed” factory steel rims (they look unmounted new) to eventually replace the spare rim and a full 5 set for winter tires, and these :
            https://www.ebay.com/itm/175514812992
            (and a single for 5) for tires. Tires are made in Japan, “Directional” (they have an inside and outside, so not rotationaly directional), look to be decent All terrain depth Work far better on the packed ice and snow streets we got here, even without the studs.
            I have an old manual tire machine with a pneumatic bead breaker (not needed for today, but I missed its handle for holding the cone that holds the rim to the machine), and bubble balancer, and am now damned sore from the work today. My left arm has been hurting anyhow, (and I’m left hand dominant), so now the right is chiming in (the rest of my joints have a chorus going), and I. R. tired (in more ways than one)

            1. Both the the studded snow tire sets are Goodyears, and locally, it’s a zoo when it’s time for people to swap tires and wheels. From when we first moved here, snow tires had dedicated wheels (loads of fun for the Ranger; 2WD rims have a larger central hole than the same year’s 4WD version. The tire shop tried boring out the rims to no avail, but I finally broke down and ordered rims from the (widely despised and now long gone) Ford dealership).

              I have a similar Tshirt for arms. I’m right handed, but over 20 years ago, I managed to fray the tendons around the left shoulder/bicep. Given the wrong circumstances, I can hear the lumpy bits move, and doing things like that (or even easier) can trigger a hell of a pain. There might (maybe) be a surgical solution, but I’m not eager to investigate. My repaired knee isn’t going to hit showroom condition, and it took a few months of rehab to get it to where it is now.

              If I got the round tuit, I’d consider a simple stand for the tractor tires; a clamp to hold the rim down and something to keep the wheel from rotating without permission. I’ve used a Workmate in the past, and it’s been more interesting than fun. At least I have a couple of the tire bead “spoons”. Should have three… (Wonders if it would be worthwhile to break a lifetime tradition and actually buy their rig from Horror Freight & Chinesium Junk Emporium. We have one in Flyover Falls, and I could inspect the build “quality”, for values of the word.)

              1. I had to break a bead a few months ago. The valve on one of my van tires separated — when I figured out where the air was going, and fiddled with it, the valve innards blew out leaving nothing but a little rubber tube the air rushed out of.

                Valves are cheap; I got two for 3 bucks at NAPA. I already had a valve tool. I just had to get the old valve out and the new valve in.

                I tried a number of ways: using a pair of flat pry bars, even beating on the sidewall with a 10-pound sledge hammer (being VERY careful not to hit the rim) but, no dice. Finally, lightbulb! Slid the wheel under the hub, laid a chunk of 2 x 4 on the tire, and lowered the van onto it. Broke that bead right loose. After that, chasing it around the rim was easy.
                ———————————
                “Zathras warn Zathras, but, nobody listen to Zathras.”

              2. The Fright is moving more and more away from the CCP. Old ChiCom stuff is often on closeout, now, and the new is from elsewhere. So far, I’ve seen India on something recently, tools are often Taiwan, seen some Korea, etc. They recently changed the tire rig for both cars and motorcycles, and the old bubble balancer is not on close-out, so I guess an update is coming there, as well. Whether it is still CCP or not is to be seen. Not everything is leaving there, but they really had issues the last few years on having stock on hand.

              3. Here’s the amazing part. Just ran to Green Bay to feel it out as I hadn’t gone much over 30 locally, but I used zero balance weights on any of the 5 snow/ice tires. Now the spare wasn’t rotating, but once onto smooth pavement there is no vibration at all.
                Once studded, we will see if that holds.

              4. I went into the store, and they have a combination stand/bead breaker for $50. Made in Viet Nam. My limited experience with VN goods has been positive, but I’m not sure I want to find a place in the shop to bolt the stand to the floor.

                It’s only two tires out of the fleet that I’d consider, but it’s a royal pain when I have to do it freestanding. I’m considering stealing the concept and making a low profile stand that can be clamped to the big work table (heavy enough to be stable). I’d do some kind of screw press for bead breaking; I’ve done it with Wonder Bars (or the like) in the past. The hard part is to get everything back together without pinching the inner tube, but baby powder FTW.

                Doing a big screw and nut for the hold down would make for some interesting Quality Shop Time. Or some other approaches; not needing a production tool means I can channel Rube Goldberg. 🙂

      1. The Reader thinks it is time for your daily carp ration – delivered ballistically.

  25. In a nutshell , my summation of the cold war and how both sides handled the results.
    Russia drove its economy into the dirt trying to keep pace with the US in the space race, their own MIC and deployment in adventurism in locals like Afghanistan. They decided to back off , by ceding control of the satellite states and putting resources more inward. Realizing later that it should not have included the warm water port in Crimea and the Ukrainian breadbasket. Their philosophy didn’t really change , it just adapted to their pocketbook. Growth in their GDP changed that .
    The USA also was broke after the space race, Vietnam , and the MIC. Nixon made the deal with OPEC , dropped the gold standard and backed the dollar with oil. Skies the limit then for deficit spending . And we spent both socially and the MIC went full speed ahead. Having fun adventures in the ME.
    The cold war never really ended , the propaganda did.

    1. The space race was the least of it, honestly. Every segment of the economy that starts to get going, gets mafia/government sucking the life out of it. Anything that the government should do, like the post office, is done either lazily or haphazrdly, or is taken over by thieves. And almost everyone with skills that are world class finds it healthier to move away and take the whole family, because mafiya.

      There’s crooked, and then there’s inability to stop stealing when it is counterproductive even to crookedness.

      Russia could turn it around, but it will require a lot of hard work by the fairly small younger population. Which is getting smaller by way of Ukraine War deaths, of course.

      But they have smart people and huge resources. Just also a huge boat anchor of corruption.

    2. The propaganda hasn’t. See the Russians financing the Greens and the democrats, therefore.
      You forgot though that to survive — SURVIVE — the USSR despoiled Africa and South America. And the US implicitly let them. Because they were a “superpower” and we couldn’t provoke them.
      The other thing you forgot is that we had real weapons. For much of the time (all the time?) they had long tubes they drove around in trucks to convince the CIA they had nukes.
      SPITS.
      Yeah, done indulging Russia. (And there was no USSR, there was always Russia. There was no international Communism. There was RUSSIAN NATIONALISM in an international communist mask. I know. I had a front row seat IN Europe. Even Portuguese “international communists” doffed their hat and spoke reverently of Russia. Screw Russia. Stop proping up its illusions of grandeur. The sick man of Europe has leprosy. Wall it off and let it rot.

      1. Just keep thinking of an acquaintance talking about going to Russia to pick up their adopted daughter, who was 5 or 6 (and the daughter of two alcoholics, of course, so I hope they trained her to keep away from the sauce). What got him was the Russian “social worker,” screaming, “You shouldn’t be leaving! You should stay here and suffer like the rest of us!” at a group of small children.

      2. Not all of the weapons were junk. The T-54/55 really was all that, as the British learned when they were able to inspect one up close (it was delivered to the British embassy in Budapest during the 1956 Hungarian Uprising; the British gave it back to the Soviets after conducting a very thorough inspection). The tank they inspected was superior to its American and British counterparts at the time. There was actually substance there.

        But that’s always what the problem boils down to. When you see something, is it another T-54 that really is what it appears to be? Or is it a MiG-25, where you overestimate its capabilities? Or is it giant tubes being trucked around the country as part of a massive deception?

    4. Ukraine/Crimea is a spat over natural gas, both extraction and delivery.

      We could very, very much change the war calculus by going back to frack-producing gas like bean-fed cattle.

      2. Yes. Biden stopping that is one of the reasons I wonder if they’re all buddies behind the scenes. Having Russia negotiate with Iran for us, is another. That despicable “trade of prisoners” is another. Etc. etc. etc. The evidence doesn’t fit “the left hates Putin”. It fits “we’ve always been at war with Eastasia” == jolly wars to keep the population at home quiet.

        1. The thing about Russia helping with Iran isn’t necessarily the crazy that it looks like.

          There is a lot of stuff done in the nuclear game that looks absolutely batshit insane under normal rules, but is necessary. For example no matter what screaming might be happening on the public stage, whenever a new country joins the nuclear club they are quietly handed the technology behind Permissive Action Locks, because no one wants a country to not have control of its weapons.

        2. Actually Biden wasn’t the major reason the fracking stopped. More so the economic ponzi scam it was played out and proved to be feasible only with low interest rates and high oil price. Once the oil price dropped the money dried up too.

          1. Maybe, but Biden was determined to ensure that the market didn’t decide and threw the full weight of the Federal government behind that determination.

          3. Bull. We had SIXTY YEARS of drilling locations with more in the works, but the industry was regulated almost to death. Profitable locations, until permits went POOF the EPA was turned into an even bigger weapon, and leases were canceled.

  26. Heh. I like the comment I read recently that a Russian news person admitted that they were extremely surprised and dismayed by how good American military weapons systems worked. Don’t know if that person still has their job or not. But it does lend support to the notion that the Russian military was basically a paper tiger.

    1. Culturally they can’t MAINTAIN anything. Trust me, Portugal is “halfway” there and it’s bad enough. “Russian technology” (kick, kick, kick) is an accurate description. Portugal got used Russian tractors, and cameras and… crap in the seventies.
      They might ONCE have had nukes. I doubt they still work.

      1. Same with China. Mao got rid of Chinese Culture and replaced it with a little red book.

        Notice the differences between Beijing, the Hong Kong that was, and the Taiwan that still is

        3. I beg of y’all say “The Republic of China” rather than “Taiwan”. the country is The Republic of China in exile on the island of Taiwan. The Reds love it when we adopt their Newspeak.

      2. I saw one of the early MiG 15 private planes once. I was in A&P school at the time (airframe and powerplant as it was then called), and was appalled. No two rivets holding the skin on were the same size. the amount of play in the control surfaces wouldn’t pass muster for a J-3, let alone something with a turbine engine. It leaked (although that might have been designed in to increase the speed.) Granted, they didn’t sell the good stuff to American collectors, but . . . The MiG 21 wasn’t much better.

        1. Wasn’t there an Israeli firm gutting migs and rebuilding them with western powerplants and avionics?

    2. Space probes

      The Mars rovers should be sponsored by Energizer, the way they keep going and going….

      Voyagers 1 and 2 say in unison. ” ahem…. “

      1. > “The Mars rovers should be sponsored by Energizer, the way they keep going and going….”

    3. The claimed pinnacle of Russian tank engineering right now is the T-14 Armata. But no one knows just how good the Armata is. The Russians can’t afford to build more than a handful without a foreign client to buy them. But no foreign country is willing to buy them when they’re still an unproven technology – especially since the M1 Abrams is a known quantity, and afaik there’s still a glut of Leopard 2s on the world market right now (and now the Poles are buying South Korean K2s… the world is truly becoming strange). So instead of finding a way to properly demonstrate the capabilities of the tank… the Russians sit on them.

      Now I’m not saying that the Russians should send them to Ukraine. There simply aren’t enough, and a single catastrophic mistake could wipe out the whole batch in one go and give it a bad name at the same time (even if it is really that good). But if the tank really was as good as claimed, you would expect the Russians to be able to come up with something that would demonstrate the quality of their product.

      So far, they haven’t done so.

  27. The aid to the Ukraine has a simple explanation. May well be a wrong one, but it seems to explain things more effectively than the Democrats trying to funnel money to someone else, who may not be in a position to give any sort of return to the Democrats.

    That being, the Dems raped the future of the defense contracting industry, and left it for dead with Afghanistan.

    Dem cronies in defense management get money, they funnel money back to Dem pols, and maybe the cronies bust out the entire industry before ‘retiring’.

    Which would suck for everyone employed by that industry, and for America’s technical ability to produce those systems.

    Biden may have zero clue what is happening, and many of his original backers may have zero influence over the Ukraine funding stuff. This may have originally been Lloyd Austin talking to his friends in Raytheon, before Dems in congress got in on the graft.

    1. That sounds rather plausible. After all, the Dems don’t care about the unions anymore, as their Boomer demographic retires. And it may be that they are using this to cover up all sorts of money disappearance.

      Someday, it might be possible to compare US aid budget items with what actually got to other countries, these last few years. And I bet there would be lots of discrepancies. In-kind grants are easier to fudge than money grants.

      1. There’s a basic problem for a lot of people in that the university business is inherently tied to public trust, and there are some university graduates who hate everyone who is not a graduate.

        There’s apparently been a deliberate effort to pack the management of companies with certain sorts of university graduates. If the new management hates the employees for not going to university, and for not being the correct sort of university graduate, they might have zero reservations about destroying the employer.

      2. Eh, they care about the government unions. Teachers, bureaucrats, etc. Otherwise, they would risk losing their jackpots in the three letter agencies. Those dummies in private unions, pfft. The leadership will continue to dump all the monies to the dems so why should they care about the pipe fitters or roughnecks.

    2. Actually, the stuff needed for that sorry debacle was pocket-change graft, and got in the way of the big-time graft of trillion dollar airplanes and similar “Strategic threat” programs.

      “Afghanistan” or “Iraq” are very limited in size and scope of plausable boogiemen. “Russia” was once a much better crop of spending-worthy gremlins, but have committed reputational seppuku by failing to live up to past reputation.

      Oooops.

      “China” however, is a virtual cornucopia of endless hobgoblins to inspire endless multi-trillion dollar budget items, and seem most sensibly disposed to protect that reputation from tarnish.

      Usually, anyway. Oh, hi, Phung.

  28. Well – Ukraine, Russia as well as Europe overall I am just at the ‘don’t care’ phase.
    So:
    Biggest issue in our household is when the kids stop by on Christmas day, what restaurant will be open so there is not cooking involved?? We found one and have our plans in place.
    In a more serious note – local, local, etc. is more important for me than all the goings on way over there as there is no, I mean zero impact on me and there is not a thing I can really do to influence it. We went to the store and got some eggs (wife’s preferred brand was in stock) along with a few other items. I have checked over other supplies and we have found that there isn’t a “good” flashlight for the Mrs. that she likes and can easily use. My next major effort will be a flashlight hunt to secure a couple of them for her use that she likes. There – take that Russia!

    1. Ukraine, Russia as well as Europe overall I am just at the ‘don’t care’ phase.

      ….
      This. 100%

      Regarding Eggs. Costco has been limiting how many can get. Only max of 2, as packaged. Last week? Costco had NONE in stock. I didn’t ask. Someone else did. Costco employees do not know when or if they will get more in stock. Haven’t checked Fred Meyer’s yet. Hubby & I don’t eat eggs often. Son does.

      1. Interesting. In the Reader’s neck of the woods Costco had a supply of eggs this week although there was a limit of 2 here as well.

      2. So now, after the price has more than doubled, we’ve got egg rationing. I take it you mean 2 dozen, not 2 eggs per customer? That would be serious.

        I’m sure the Leftroids are thrilled; now we’ve got stores full of empty shelves, just like a real communist country.
        ———————————
        Governments can’t create prosperity; at best, they can refrain from destroying it.

        1. Two packages. Which at (local) Costco is either 4 dozen (2 dozen package) or 16 dozen (8 dozen package, I think. Don’t buy the larger pack so not sure.) Fred Meyers, which hasn’t had “rationing”, largest pack they have is 1.5 dozen. Don’t know if Costco problem is really a lack of eggs problem or what happens when “new” packaging is in progress (same price but fewer in package).

      1. Well then, tell him some rando off the interwebs really liked Neither Here Nor There and needs a sequel. As an old guy, I hope he can fit it in in the next few years.

        Thanks!!

    2. I’ve read the “April” series (1-13), and enjoyed them. Quite a few typos and grammar/punctuation issues, but I can deal with them.

  30. Regarding the Soviets as a Potemkin (Village, not the auto dealership!) State, I did get to once met the man (through a friend who knew him better over the years), a colonel in the East German Army in change of planning the Red Army’s movements through the Fulda Gap–or at least the rail portions of its support. His superiors would NOT let him or his staff have any info on the layout of West Germany–too much risk of flight. So he and his staff had resource to the thriving East German 2nd hand bookstores for pre-war maps and travel guides and that way they were able to find out what they needed. But my friend pointed out the Red Army was going to be relying on supply over a single-track with passing sidings railroad line–the sort of line ripe for becoming a bottleneck by fair means or foul. “Do the best you can.” they were told.
    Oddly enough, back in 2007 I read the precis of a soon-to-be-published Russian book that argued it was the Saudis who deliberately caused the collapse of the Soviet Union which they saw as a threat to their own existence. September 13, 1985 is the day the Saudis started crashing the price of oil to cut down the oil revenue of the Soviet Union. The Soviets were surviving buying Western grain using their oil and other resource revenues to pay for food; cut that income down and the Soviet state is in BIG trouble.

    2. There is some suspicion that what the Saudis did was coordinated with us and the UK and that our willingness to engage Iran directly in what was known as the ‘tanker war’ in 87 and 88 was us paying the Saudis back the favor.

    3. It was the collapse of the Soviet oil industry (by Muslim terrorists destroying their largest refinery and oil field in this case) that sparked WWIII in Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising. And IIRC (I’m about halfway through re-“reading” the book on Audible) it was [SPOILER ALERT!] [SPOLER ALERT]
      .
      .
      .
      .
      .
      [ONE LAST SPOILER ALERT!]

      General Alekseyev’s knowledge and exploiting of that weakness of the railroad infrastructure to pull off the coup that toppled the Politburo and ended the war.

      I wonder of Clancy knew more than he ever let on….

  31. I saw in a recent story that with the latest “aid” we’ve committed 90% of what Russia’s entire defense budget is.

    The sheer level of ordinance that would be able to buy should have rendered all of Russia’s forces into smoking holes in the ground.

    That they are not smoking holes in the ground says something.

    The global left wasn’t mad Ukraine was invaded, they were worried their never ending grift ATM would be hampered. So instead of that, they’ve increased the grift by orders of magnitude.

    I’d be shocked if even 5% of the “aid” has actually gone into military supplies and ordinance….

    1. Not in any position to verify; but I don’t believe any of it has left the USA exceptbto numbered accounts in Swiss banks or the Caimans.

    3. I saw a similar meme, the catch is that Russia accounts for their military budget differently than we would expect. Ignoring the lying part, of course. (I have no idea which direction that would even go in!)

    1. True. The one dumpster fire I saw in person ignited without my presence. (A elderly neighbor decided to burn documents in the dumpster. He said he’d put it out. It was glowing and smoking when I went out with my garbage. Looking back, that was the first sign of his growing dementia.)

  33. We’re not going that low, but they’re predicting a high temp of 18 here on the lovely Alabama-Tennesee border by Friday. (For Kamas, WPDE).

      1. High 25/low 12 being predicted for Friday and high 28/low 17 being predicted for Saturday in NW Butt Fruit Land. Then again I suppose I’ll have to get used to similar temperatures for when I escape here!

      1. Christmas Eve of ’78 was when I, lowly enlisted dude, having just arrived at my pernanent base after they had about 1.5 meter snow the night before. My luggage was lost. I travelled in civilian clothes as instructed. The only accomodations open was the Visiting Officers’ Quarters. The only restaurant the Officers’ Club. I spent the Christmas weekend in my room or the hallway, where the snack machines had only Diet RC Cola and Peanut M&Ms.

        Took a week for my uniforms to arrive. Took another week to be assigned to a bomber crew and a mentor.

        Smiley Carter was as great a moral booster buster as Sniffy McLeghairs.

    3. Supposed to hit 9 here in Plano by Thursday and stay below freezing at night through Christmas.

      When that reaches the border it will thin the herd significantly.

  34. I have sympathy for the Ukrainians. At the same time this whole business has smelled funny. I’m afraid that, like a lot of, “good ideas,” (for some folks’ crooked values of good), it has taken on a life of its own.
    Re Russian nukes, regardless of the warheads I wonder if they have any missiles worth the name. We should be thankful that, “sticking a nuke on a missile is the only cool way to go,” became the standard for delivery systems.
    I used to be glad Castro never pulled the trick of announcing he’d release a bunch of famous dissidents to the US, ostentatiously put them on a rickety Aeroflot jet to Washington…and place a 20 MT warhead in the luggage compartment.

    1. Geez, I’d hate having to be grateful to Castro… 😛

      Wasn’t it ‘The Sum Of All Fears’ where Moslem terrorists stuck a nuke in a shipping container?
      ———————————
      Statistically, the Democrats should elect at least a dozen dead Congresscritters to represent all their dead voters!

      1. Got the S-per B-wl (since we can’t say the name anymore due to tr-demark claims . . .) IIRC, but yes, same idea. Red Storm Rising was the Soviets. Started with the fire at the refinery and almost ended with WWIII. The Politburo staged the terror attack to kill school children and [it was hoped] a junior member, who was caught in traffic or had a car problem and arrived too late for the bomb.

  35. Is it not true that we made a deal with the Ukrainians to defend them if they got rid of the nukes that were left on their territory after the fall of the USSR? That aside I do believe the best end result would be for both sides to kill each other off. Russia has not really changed in a hundred years. The peasants are still treated like shit while the elites make all the money. Nor has China, or Europe, note in China the Generals are their elite now. The point being they are still what they have always been, only now they are committing slow suicide by socialism/communism.

    1. Oh, Russia was part of that deal too. So technically Russia giving Ukraine so much equipment is them helping to fulfill their treaty obligations. [evil grin]

    2. “The point being they are still what they have always been, only now they are committing slow suicide by socialism/communism.”

      The US is committing fast suicide by socialism/communism with this current administration.

      😛

    4. Yes, and no on the treaty with Ukraine. The Clinton Administration agreed. The Senate never ratified it. So…

      In any case, the nukes were largely useless to the Ukrainians. They were still under Russian control. And if the Ukrainians had seized the nukes, they still would have had to break the security codes first. Such a seizure would have provoked a strong Russian military response, and – unlike the current war – the West would likely have sided with the Russians.

  36. I agree with much of what you say, Sarah. Also, I think there’s something to be said for ‘great powers’ having buffer states. You could call them ‘Friendly’ neighbor states that, while not perfect, share your values to an extent. States like say, Canada and Mexico (with all the states south of it). Canada and Mexico have always been under our sway. And we had the Monroe Doctrine. That seems to have been chucked out the window. And now, a rising state, China, seems to have more influence in Canada and Mexico… in a way. China doesn’t have to militarily occupy Canada or Mexico, but only has to turn them into client states or dependent states. In Canada we have Trudeau who seems to have completely sold out his countrymen to… someone. He has turned his country into Cuba with snow. In Mexico, we have savage primitives with AK-47s chopping heads and taking names, the cartels. They’re making big money along with their paymasters in the CCP, and who’s to say that the cartels (and their Chinese paymasters) are not the real government down there.
    My point with all this… If China succeeds in flanking us, and making our ‘buffer states’ their client states, that could be existential. And at that point we might see things like Putin evidently does at present. I think he and the Russians see the meddling monster, the U$A/CIA/NSA/FBI/military/industrial/hollywood-entertainment-propaganda-sexphreaks… edging ever closer. I think they see that as existential.

    (And here is where I’ll raise some hackles (whatever they are) and get angry fingers punching keyboards. I… cannot prove with argument what I believe is happening geopolitically across the globe. And I have to say, that it’s hard to find a truth about all of this in the noisy contentious state we’re in. This is JUST MY OPINION. )

    Russia and Putin saw Ukraine as their ‘buffer’ state,. Then they watched Obama and Bye-done run a color revolution in Ukraine in 2014, turning their buffer state, Ukraine, into ‘an American client state’ (re Hunger Biden, oil and banking expert). Yeah, I feel bad for the Ukrainians who are in the middle of all of this. Despite saying that, I hope I won’t be accused of Treason and Russia/Putin loving. There are two sides (maybe more) to the whole Ukraine story and the big Hollywood production that our Rulers put on, with half the country flying Ukrainian flags as if it were the 51st state… makes me suspect that their side is bullshit, that they’re hiding something over there, lots of somethings.

    By the way, your question: “Would the USSR have collapsed earlier, if we’d pushed harder?” I think you and Nikita Khrushchev are correct in your answers 😉. The follow on question, ‘why didn’t we?’ intrigues. I think the answer to that can be found in Eisenhower’s famous ‘military industrial complex’ speech. Obviously, people got rich on wars that the lessors and their offspring fought and died in. And they still are… bigly. We had the Afghanistan ‘forever war’ end suddenly, up popped another ‘forever war,’ Ukraine. Who woulda thunk it?

    Another side point. There are two Americas, and I’m not talking about Left vs Right, or dem vs rep. I’m talking about America and it’s people, good people for the most part… versus… whoever the hell is running our military and government and has been for decades. I push forward as evidence, the new found proof via Musk and Twitter of three letter agencies colluding with mostly the democrat party (but I’m sure there were republicans involved as well), major media, social media, Hollywood, foreign powers et al, fixing elections, hiding evidence of same, infiltrating protest movements, holding Americans in jails without charges, false flags…

    And despite all of this new evidence, the CIA/FBI/DNC/IRS/ETC remain behind their walls, laughing at his and flipping us the bird. Didn’t the ‘Gubmint’ just release 87% of the intel they had on the Kennedy assassination, but withhold the rest? And weren’t they MANDATED by congress to release ALL OF IT? They were and they did not. I was astounded to see Robert Kennedy state openly that ‘The CIA killed his uncle and we have been living under a coup d’etat since then.

    With so many questions unanswered (Kennedy assassination, Epstein’s ‘Johns,’ Sam Bankman Fraud jailed before he could testify under oath in Congress… I don’t how any thinking person could believe we have a government ‘of, by and for the people.’
    Anyway, Sarah, I hope you don’t mind me sharing my thoughts.

    1. Funny how they used election fraud in Chicago and Texas to put Kennedy into office, then decided they had to get rid of him. Or was Johnson their goal all along? Johnson certainly did more damage to America than anybody since FDR. At least FDR let our military win a war.

      Also funny how Hunger Biden (I like that!) took a big pay cut right after Trump was elected, then got sacked after Trump took office. “Looks like we don’t need this dickhead any more.”

      If the laws were enforced, at least half of Congress would be in jail.

      Hey, I can dream…
      ———————————
      Harris-und-Biden were never elected — they were installed, like a toilet and a bidet. Unlike them, a couple of plumbing fixtures would actually be useful.

      1. “Johnson certainly did more damage to America than anybody since FDR. ”

        Johnson also got in with election fraud. Ask any knowledgeable Texan.

        “If the laws were enforced, at least half of Congress would be in jail.”

        It’s lot easier to think of the elite and powerful as members of a “mafia”.

        When the mafia rules you, they decide which laws are enforced, how the votes are counted, and how many replacement “New Americans” are allowed in. Silly Constitution-Swanstitution has no articles discussing election fraud…

    2. You don’t have to worry about the “china takes our buffers” scenario.

      First, because the “buffers” have zero military capacity.

      And second because even if China had any military capacity (they don’t; the people telling you they do are either gullible fools or liars), they would have to get it to Canada, and then they get the impossible task of invading the US. Something so difficult that even the US Army is not capable of pulling it off.

        2. Buffers like Warsaw Pact, no. And there are a lot of potential 5th Column Chinese in the USA; but we may have Americanized many of them.

          2. Have Americanized many all of them. FIFY.

            Seriously. Even the most rabid police types that come over to keep citizenship in line won’t go back short of being dragged back. Might be a few brain damaged ones to willingly go back. But dang.

      2. I strongly suspect China is aiding as much as possible the flood of northbound illegals.

        “Sow discord in the enemy camp.”

    3. War is the health of the State

      Kinda sums up much behavior, eh?

      Although I would mangle it to

      War is the Opiate of the State.

  38. With respect to the EU, I don’t think the impetus was as recent as FDR.

    The Prussians used a biased trade agreement to consolidate Germany under their rule.
    The EU is just Germany trying to run the same play on the rest of Europe. (That the rest of Europeans don’t react like Germans means the effort will end in tears. But they hope to get to tyranny first.)

      1. Whine!

        I want Book Promos and Writing Prompts.

        Does anybody know when they’ll be out? [Very Big Crazy Grin]

      2. The EU is essentially the Fourth Reich including its very own Vichy France and other such vassal states.

  40. No. Chinese came over when the communists took over, but it wasn’t an empty island. There were Taiwanese people, not originally Chinese from the mainland.

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