Cross My Palm With Silver

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Making predictions is difficult. Particularly about the future.

Of course, it sort of is my stock in trade as a science fiction writer. Kind of. Almost. Sideways, if you look at it with an eye half closed, so it doesn’t bite you (which is what you should do to 2024, btw. After the last four years? I ain’t trust it an inch.)

I mean, unless you assume G-d or whatever it is you, personally, calls whoever keeps this thing cranking (no, please. Spare me. Logic has very little to do with this. Narrativium does. Roll with it) runs on whimsy. Heinlein might have thought so, so you’re in good company, though the truth is all believers see G-d in our image and semblance, only larger and more perfect, so writers tend to believe Himself is an author. Pratchett, Heinlein and myself might be biased.

If in fact that’s the truth, then the predictions we make might come true, because let’s face it, we don’t do them for accuracy, but for the rule of cool. Take the world of Darkships (please? I mean, I’ll borrow it back, hopefully, a couple of times this year for sequels, one which will bring Thena and Kit to their upright and locked position and leave them alone till we mess with their kids, and another to do Fuse’s story, because it must be done) when I was doing actual projections for that future history, it got dark. Very, very dark. And then I added in anti-grav brooms, and a USAian cult, and…. Because rule of cool and I aim to entertain, not predict exactly. (And at 500 plus years in the future, it allows for a couple of impossible breakthroughs based on the edges of what we don’t know yet.)

So while it is my job to do predictions and extrapolations, I’m not exactly in the business of near future, really close, or particularly accurate.

OTOH last night all the amateurs were out in force making their predictions, and more importantly, I got a very strong sense that the herd was being stampeded.

[As an aside, here: To the high and mighty “lords” in DC, pay heed: you’ve done many, many stupid things in your misbegotten official existence. But probably the stupidest of all was to bring to bear on America the techniques you used abroad to “shape opinion” and “create movements.” and whatever the heck else you thought you were doing. This is eating-rocks stupid for two reasons.

First, I don’t know what you thought you were doing abroad, precisely, but we all know your gathering of information and intelligence THERE was laughable enough that I’d think you’d still be in the lavatory washing that egg from your face when the USSR fell without your having any inkling this was even possible. You should at least have a vast cleansing top to bottom with a scouring brush and sworn off hiring bien pensants from the ivies who know the theory of everything and the reality of nothing. You didn’t. You’re morons studying to be incompetents. You never really shaped politics abroad, which you’d know if you were even sentient life forms. Your money did — to an extent — but it was all astro-turf. Leading to the debacles in every American war since WWII, when you had a say in it.

Second- You’re trying to do it in America, quite unaware of how different we are IN THE HEAD from every other nation on Earth. It ain’t gonna work. If shaping the politics and thoughts of the rest of the world evaded you, you ain’t gonna manage us. You delicate hot house flowers just don’t get us anyway. You’d have a better chance at the French, and you fail there too.

As grandma would say, there is not enough toilet paper for how bad you’re about to shit yourselves. You might as well wipe your hands to the wall.]

Not that I think they’re going to manage to stampede us (see parenthetical above, and excuse the ADD. Went to bed late.) BUT they do manage to depress those of you who are depressives. And no one needs that on top of whatever crazy shenanigans they’ll pull this year. (And they will.) More importantly, I don’t want you — or me — on edge, and miscalculating because of all the doom-panicking that has infested political not-left blogs. (A part of me really would like political not-left blogs to figure out how many of their contributors are operatives. Ah well, probably a lot, at the rates they pay. People need other income.)

First the general impression: you see that bridge above, shrouded in fog? (The photographer, btw, João Cabral, does magnificent pics of the city where I went to college. I can’t afford his work, of course, but I found that he had a bunch of the early ones in Pexels, including the one above.) It was built by Eiffel, of tower fame, and it is very pretty. One of the levels is for trains, the other for traffic, with pedestrian sidewalks on either side. And by the time I was going to college in town it had become unsafe. Heck, it had been unsafe for fifty years. But of course, it was still used. (I just tried to remember if it’s still being used. I can’t, because my last few visits were very brief, and the last one a whirlwind showing new DIL and her family around, so things escaped me. But I do know the bridge has been replaced, and I have a vague idea it is now only pedestrian. Maybe? And that maybe considerable shoring up work has been done?) The only way South from Porto, by train, was to cross that bridge.

Now I don’t know how much what we’d been told/drank with our mother’s milk was true, but I know all locals believed that one day the beautiful bridge, with all its intricate iron pieces and the train on it would go down into the shallow, rocky, turbulent river. And no one could survive that fall. And those who, by a miracle, did would surely drown because the Douro is an unforgiving river.

So when you were on a train crossing that bridge you could tell the locals from the tourists, because the minute you started in on the bridge every local shut up, held his breath, didn’t move, lest the vibration of his speech were the final cap on the bridge’s instability that made it collapse.

I feel the year ahead kind of like that moment. We’re entering it, and very bad things could happen. And we’re on this train, and each of us, individually, has very little control over what happens. And there’s fog ahead, to boot. But– 

But you must remember that bridge never fell and still stands.

Anyway, after that long and weird preamble, (again, I remind you, ladies, gentlemen and dragons, that I am ADD AF) sit down, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and let’s start the:

2024 in Preview

Elections

First of all, as we all know as, with a heavy heart, we put away the noisemakers and funny hats, and drain the bottles of the last champagne, it is now, for our sins (A second flood, a simple famine Plagues of locusts everywhere Or a cataclysmic earthquake I’d accept with some despair But, no, you sent us Congress. Election Season Good God, sir, was that fair?)

So, how does that turn out. 

Effed if I know! No, seriously. Effed if I know. Or anyone else knows.

I love the eternal optimists, or maybe fantasists argle bargling that neither Biden nor Trump will be candidates, or that at least one of them won’t be. Kind sirs, I remember 2016. Kindly take a powder. Trump was baked into the cake from the moment the election was blatantly stolen in 2020 (no? Bite me. You’re funny, you are.) Because the American people hate injustice. And also because he has unbeatable name recognition. Biden? Ah, that. Well, the puppet is being run by a powerful cartel of some sort, and my guess is between money paid, and money received and bodies (many) buried around the world everyone is afraid to replace the walking corpse. (Hopefully not literal, though I had thoughts about RBG. And we do know that young blood can keep the very old alive a long time…. And China…. Well, any big shipments from over there?)

So, it’s Trump and Biden, and if this were an election as such, I’d say Trump wins it walking away, or even standing still, mostly because of the evils the walking corpse is inflicting on us.

But this is not an election as such. This is a whole bunch of fraud, with nominal “votes” which are controlled, diluted and skewed by the madlads in DC who, on top of all are also looking for a way to keep those who’d rather not know for sure, from believing it’s fraud.

Normally I would say Trump had not a chance. If the measure of fraud I got by looking at the incoming numbers in 2020 and the — much smoother — 2022, there is not a hope on Earth or Heaven.

But then…. Hey, guys? What happens when the people you trust to fraud you into power are so disgusted with you that they either don’t do the thing, or do it in the other direction? And is that a possibility? Gut says yes. Gut says very yes. Because these clowns are …. well, special. And they’re managing to remove their masks so fast that even those with strong stomachs and corrupt hearts are vomiting. And this type of betrayal from within has happened before. (And I have suspicions about Argentina, because if you think they’re clean!)

So, I’d give it 50/50 chance, and at any rate think we should vote in numbers, if nothing else because they’ll know how much they have to fraud, and we want them scared.

Also a note, will Trump, if he wins, have learned his lesson, and borrow Javier Milei’s chainsaw? [Rubs hand down face.] Gods and little fishies, guys, I wish I could tell you he would. The problem is the man we’re dealing with is, in his own terms, a Paladin. And what he’s a Paladin to seems to be some idea of normalcy and order probably from his childhood. He should by now have a measure of the swamp and some idea of how to drain it. But…. Hey, we can hope, right. 

At any rate, the one thing I can tell you is that it will be nothing like what the left is predicting. Mostly because what they’re predicting is what they’ll try to do if they fraud the corpse in again. Only it won’t work, because they have the mierdas touch, and that’s when you have to hold on really tight, because this whole thing goes on a roller coaster.

All is lost

All is not lost. Because if all were lost they wouldn’t be spending so much time trying to black pill you. I’ll go into some topics I keep seeing as “abandon ship” below, but right now, up here: no one spends that much effort convincing others they’ve already lost, unless the others not only have a chance, but have a good chance.

The appropriate response to the horde of black-pillers is the one (apparently apocryphal) given the Russian Warship: Russian Warship, go fuck yourself. Or if you prefer the one Elon Musk (a man not our friend, but definitely an enemy of our enemies) gave “Fuck you.” Because that’s the only response free men and women should give to those attempting psy-ops on us.

Immigration

I am not happy about the erasure of our borders. I don’t think any sane American is.

But the important thing to realize is that what our enemies are trying to achieve with this is not only unlikely to come through, it’s bloody fracking impossible.

First I’d like to counter two pieces of nonsense, one from the doomist right, and one from the ignorant left, and then I’ll explain why what they want is impossible, and while it’s going to be difficult to right the ship it’s not a fatal wound.

So, starting with the ignorant left: Yesterday on FB I think someone tried to be sarcastic at me on the idea we could close the borders and bring in only those people who had money or a profession or something else the country NEEDS. I.e. immigration for the benefit of the country. I think we can ignore her knowledge of history because when I said Australia for instance does that, she seemed to think Australia was STILL a penal colony. But moving right along: every country in the world used to do that. Until Merkel opened the borders of the EU (and we’ve seen how that has gone, yes?) that was normal. Including in the US for legal immigration. You get a health report, and you show your education and that you’re likely to be able to make a living. AND more often than not, you have to deposit money to prove you have something for the lean times. Or have a sponsor.

This is not unobtanium of “racist” policies. It’s what immigration policies across the world have been FOREVER. And that’s for reasons. Like sanity.

The nonsense from the doomist right, I encountered yesterday at American Greatness, which other than their never Trumpist reflexes is normally better than that, so this is an odd kick in their gallop, and I expect will be all over today. And that is that we have taken more illegal immigrants in this year than we have had births.

Um… okay. That’s cute trivia, but I fail to see what in the bowels of hell that has to do with the price of codfish. Newborns aren’t men of military age (usually. I mean, have you seen any dragon’s teeth?) which are the bulk of the immigrants. And this bulk of immigrants does seem to be male, so you can’t even flop around like a fish and say they’re changing our demographics forever. If they were child-bearing age women, sure, but really? Unless you’re a leftist, you should be aware men don’t give birth. Worst case scenario, we have a large (kind of. The birth rate is in the crapper) number of males that create their own demographic in the US and probably raise our crime rate for a while. And that’s worst case scenario, and therefore not the most likely.

And this is what I mean by doomist and trying to stampede us. The same article added the helpful “terrifying” fact that half of young adult Americans have a parent born abroad. This is me holding my middle fingers aloft. BEHOLD, I have a matched set. If you think the children of say the Clintons or the Obamas are more patriotic than my kids or the about 2/3 of their circles with an immigrant parent, I invite you to admire my digiti medii impudici. (or also Russian Warship, go fuck yourself.)

But Sarah, the numbers. The left is trying to orchestrate an invasion. They are trying to destroy us via replacement.

Yes, they are. Racial replacement, but more importantly, replacement of those who are, want to be, or have become (by dint of great and concentrated effort) Americans. They might hate whites (it’s complicated, starting with “what is white” which you’ll find out for them is mostly German or Norse and continuing with the fact that they don’t so much hate them, they just believe “other races” are naturally more submissive (which is wrong on various counts, but then they ARE horribly racist, and mostly very white)) but there is nothing to the red-hot hatred they have for the free and the brave of this land.

However, the thing to remember about the left is that they have rats in their heads. BIG hairy rats, dropping shit everywhere. Which influences all their thinking.

So, number one, you don’t do population replacement by importing males. I’ve noticed here the same thing I noticed years ago in British entertainment, where every couple on TV is not bi-racial and usually the male is darker. I think the left has sort of realized their original plan won’t work and their new plan is to talk every American chick into marrying a darker-skinned male. Eh. That will be fun. Those poor men, by and large. There is a reason so many geeks in the nineties went to find women abroad. Anyway– Moving right along.

Most of the people coming in are male. And at this point most of them are not from South America, but from Asia and Africa. If you look up “Planes Trains and Automobiles” on this blog, you’ll see this is likely being financed by one of the many, many communist fronts around, not to mention likely by the CIA, (because they’re idiots.)

Their primary purpose if population replacement, and I wish they had paid more attention in sex ed. Or do they no longer teach mere reproduction? Because they’ve lost their bloody minds. Sure. Over time. “Family reunification.” If we were in the sixties or seventies. Which we ain’t, and they don’t have that kind of time.

Second, the reason they want population replacement is become of the Gramscian retconing of the gospel of Marx according to stupidity. Since the proletarian refused to rise up, and in fact, got jobs, saved money and started investing, Gramsci reeinvented Marx with the helpful idea that it was “minorities” however defined (and as some friends said last week, Latins are Schrodinger’s minority) that were naturally communist and would usher in the worker’s dark skinned paradise. All of which is crazy cakes, but flew really well over here, because most Americans, including (or particularly) those who have gone to the third world with various NGOs have no bloody idea how people abroad live, or why other countries are so poor and have been fed Marxist pap about how they’re poor because we stole their “resources” (look, dudes, we have all the nail pairings and metal filings we need. Thanks.) Most Europeans for that matter, shell shocked after WWII were willing to buy this version of history and believe they were the villains, because some of them don’t tan really well, but really because the American Eve had fed them the capitalist apple. Shrug.

None of which disguises the fact that Gramsci was a genius at stupidity, with more ability in that area than even Marx. Because none of that bunch of idiocy is true. Traditional third world countries are dysfunctional because of their culture, but their culture has bloody nothing to do with the angry inkblot’s theories. And more important, and of great interest to us at this point: the “minorities” are not natural allies in the fight against “whiteness.”

The left has had a few glimpses of this already, but they keep covering their ears and going lalalalala.

Asians are possibly the most racist people in the world (in aggregate. I’m not insulting any of you who happen to be Asian, particularly if you’re American. I mean, Asian CULTURES are incredibly racist) and against everyone, including other Asians. Africans…. Oh, dear Lord. Africa’s tragedy is being a land of tribes. (Don’t say anything about “African culture” when I’m drinking, please. Because shooting liquid out of my nose with force hurts.) And every tribe is racist against every other tribe, and a good number of European nationalities. (Those nationalities vary depending on the tribe, location and colonial past. And no, they don’t hate all colonizers. That’s crazy cakes Marxist bullshit. Real humans are more complicated. Some tribes think well of Germans, some of English, some of French and some of Portuguese. There’s a good chance no one thinks well of the Belgians, a lesson that the EU should have heeded.) They will tend to look down on every other nationality and race other than the select one. Latins/Hispanics…. Ah, Madre de Dios. We’re not only the Schrodinger minority, we are most of us fairly nuts culturally, and the culture isn’t even by country, but by region, and it kind of depends when and where the colonies were colonized, same as with Africa for what resonates with what.

(Before you dispute the “we”– last night again with a cute video on how Latins celebrate New Year, it was brought to me that yes, Portugal is a Latin culture. Which makes perfect sense, since in the US it’s mostly attributed by surname, and if you think Marquez is Latin/Hispanic and Marques isn’t we need to have a talk about cultures not being JUST spelling — Latin/Hispanic, as your census form explains is not a race, but a culture. And Portugal as a CULTURE is — I’m sorry, and I know my parents will be calling as soon as someone translates this for them — part of the whole mess. Brazil is slightly less so, due to a lot of German and Italian immigrants, but yeah, it still is.)

Look, just growing up? The people from the next village over were foreigners, and also probably heathens. This is somewhat mitigated by TV now, which creates a sense of unified culture, and highways which facilitate the mixing of genes, but still, the North of Portugal is … um…. a little quieter, due to British influence from way back. And we didn’t trust them Southerners. (If you imagine the US flipped culturally, it will all make sense. Yes, yes, the Northerners are rednecks. Guilty as charged.) The rest… Portuguese look broadly down on Spaniards (no, really, trust me) and the rest of the Portuguese/Spanish speaking world. Broadly they like Africans better than they like South Americans, though perhaps they think Brazil is a little more tolerable than the rest. Crazy, but tolerable. And that goes for every single nationality flying under “Latin.” Argentinians and Brazilians tolerate each other a little better than the rest of the Latin world. I’m not sure of the other finer divisions, but I know the Mexicans look down on practically everyone else. And no, they don’t like those with darker skin than theirs, and are more likely to identify with blond, blue-eyed Caucasians.

So, so much for the left’s hope of creating a coalition of everyone against the “whites” and being the only “whites” left and therefore the master race. In their racist dreams, this works. In reality, if by importing all those military aged males, they expect a cohesive force who will fight for them…. Well. It’s going to go in interesting ways but not, in fact, as they expect.

“But Sarah, Welfare! They’ll keep each minority isolated and one against all.” Um… some of them might think of that, though it ignores two things: Males don’t give birth. And, oh yeah, the cupboard is bare, so the poor dog gets none.

I.e. what they’re doing is going to crash the already unsustainable welfare system. They don’t understand this because they think money is a construct and worth what they say it is, instead of a symbolic unit of value worth what you can buy with it. (Still a construct, yes, but different.) Which just means they crash the system even faster with their clever fool tricks.

The other thing they’re ignoring: These are not your grandfather’s immigrants, legal or otherwise. Oh, I don’t mean they’re not refugees. You know that. And yeah, some of the earlier waves, even under Obama came here to work and prosper (the problem being we can’t “normalize” their situation, without inviting further invasion. So I’d advise them to go back, wait for sanity, and try again.) The current wave is being enticed and transported over mostly for either illegal purposes (a lot of them) or to receive free education, health, and welfare, which to them, in their country’s terms, is …. a fortune. BUT and more importantly, they are not your grandfather’s immigrants in the sense that the world got so rich, more or less all over, in the last 40 years, that these people certainly didn’t come here to endure hardships. Their standard for “good living” is lower than most Americans (but so was it here and in Europe in the seventies.) But it is not low enough that they want to be living on the street, or in tents in the middle of nowhere forever, which seems to be what this whole mess is defaulting to. In fact I’ve already read more than one interview with Venezuelans (of all people) saying that if they’re going to be accommodated here at the same level or below that of Venezuela, they’ll go back where they have family and connections. (My guess is that’s the impetus for more Africans. Harder for the poor buggers to go back. But this is a thing I’m willing to pay taxes for.)

You guys don’t know, because you’re not immigrants, but the vision of America in most foreign heads is of a land of ease and plenty, where you don’t have to lift a finger to be well fed, and have money to send home too.

This is true to an extent, by comparison, but not true in absolute. I knew this because I’d been an exchange student here. Most people don’t. And add in that you have to work d*mn hard to acculturate to even understand the direction of “getting ahead” and you’ll find that as the spigots of welfare dry up (all the faster the wider they’re opened) people will very much want to go home. Or back. Or something. Because they’re not constructs of perfect proletariat who tans, but human beings, with hopes, dreams and ambitions.

While on that, Obrador, you piece of communist shit, you are a prize idiot by opening your country to the hordes coming through, and you’re about to get what’s coming to you with interest. Because when the flow reverses, the people who can’t get to their countries any other way, unless America is in a shape to fly them back, are going to head to Mexico first. I hope you and the cartels enjoy eating the mess you created.

But yeah, my prediction is mostly that probably sometime this year the flow starts heading the other way — if it hasn’t started already, and I suspect it has — devastating everything in its way. Sucks, hard, for the border towns, but well… It was bound to happen.

The Economy

Well, now we’re on firmer ground. The economy is F*CKED with a capital F which starts with failure and rhymes with “with a cactus dipped in ghost pepper sauce.”

But part of what you have to understand is what parts are dying, and why.

To an extent the current economy is part of the FDR patch on the American system. Yeah, the patch was political, but all the agencies, and “worker protections” (Okay, some go back to Wilson) and general government interference created …. um…. a top-down economy of government-abetted quasi-monopolies.

It never reached full fascist collaboration between government and industry, malgre Obama’s attempts. But the innovation, etc. got pushed to the edges and the places the important people thought were unimportant.

Fortunately the great minds of their respective generations are idiots, who don’t understand what is likely to upend the economy, which is how we got the internet, and innovation that’s upending everything.

So, what is failing is the “blue model” institutions, the top down, centralized, controlled economy. The rest…. well, is scrappy and ready to go. Which means, ladies, gentlemen and small flightless birds, that what we’re seeing is not a death, but a birth.

The problem with births is that they are a complete change in state, which involve pain and a lot of blood. The full birth of the industrial revolution caused (among others) the French revolution. We’re in the early pangs of this one, and as always I hope it will be as close to bloodless as possible, but don’t hold your breath and wait with sandwiches by the phone. Not only is the chance for very, very bad, but it’s the overwhelming chance.

However, remember, as always, it will be bad in patches. For other people there will be opportunity and a lot of new things will be made, created, invented. And thus is the future birthed.

If you’re one of the Huns, or even one of the more distant “Odds” chances are you’re, yes, weird and never fit in very well. But you’re also — the virtues of those vices — innovative, different, and do not so much think out of the box as you don’t know what or where that famed box is. So. Straighten your shoulders and get creative. Work smarter and harder.

And if you’re a younger man, or raising one, concentrate on different, innovative, creative ways of making money, and multiple streams of income. This country — but really the world — isn’t geared for males right now, particularly young ones. They are in many ways making war on them. (Which is why it’s stupid to import so many of them, among other reasons it’s dumb.) So it’s difficult, but man was made to strive. And again, I trust you and your kids to create the future.

BUT it’s going to get difficult. No argument on that. And 2024 will get very difficult.

ABROAD

Abroad is not going to save us. It is unlikely to kill us either. It might cause us problems, but they are doing their worst by sending over their military-age males, to be honest. That’s the greatest weapon they can deploy right now. (And it won’t work.)

Reason being that when America sneezes the rest of the world catches pneumonia.

It takes generations for communist “economics” for China to be dumb enough to try to tank us without understanding they also tank without our consuming a lot of what they produce. They’re already paying for it. And the rest of the world… Well. In detail I can’t tell you who’ll do better, but I can tell you everyone in the developed world is going through the same crash of the “FDR model” that we are. Because they imported it. And it’s failing there. Harder and faster. The countries that ditch it fast might survive. BUT it’s going to be very difficult.

We’re in a mess, but we’re relatively better off than all of them. And some of us with family abroad are praying very very hard.

The Unknown Unknowns

So, 2024…. 

I couldn’t have told you the shape that 2020 would take, but I knew they were going to do something utterly stupid, because they were afraid of not having enough fraud to win the elections.

Even I couldn’t have predicted the insanity that was 2020, much less the fact that so many people panic-obeyed, including some of you.

So, I can’t predict the insanity they’ll try now when they’re in worse shape than in 2020 public opinion wise.

What I can say is that I will not underestimate them this time.

One thing in our favor is that they have trouble realizing when a tactic is no longer working. So I predict a lot of failed “scary illness! Lock down now”. This has been going on for about a year, and keeps eliciting more and more yawns.

BUT at some point they’ll realize it’s not working. I expect some clever fool trick around April. I think they’ve been trying to get a nuclear war going for a while, and I’ll be honest, I just don’t think the resources are there, period. Feel free to imagine there’s too much sanity for that, but I suspect it’s mostly that other nations’ nukes are largely non-functional. I don’t actually put past them nuking one of our own cities, but if they do that, they won’t like what comes next.

Honestly, having sat at the back of a lot of their meetings and discussions, I expect them to try 10/7 type sh*t over here, largely in big cities, and largely unsuccessful.

To the extent it succeeds, (and let me say I think they’re already trying) it will be the end of them. But I don’t expect they can see that.

I am nonetheless sure they are going to try next level insanity, and I’m not crazy enough to predict it, so I’m not going to try. Just be prepared for emergencies, and keep your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

In Summation

If any of you have stayed with me this long: I expect it will be a lot like those train rides. Those in the know are coming into 2024, in the ominous fog and holding our breath.

My gut, weirdly and bizarrely, tells me it will be better than we expect, and there are some miracles in store for us. BUT at the same time those ol’ Earthquake* bells which don’t exist, are ringing up a storm and there’s a sense of mourning and horror ahead.

So, stay ready. And be aware that yes, we’re going to loose some people (including perhaps the one writing this, and some reading this), and we’re going to lose institutions and … conveniences we can ill spare. And that will probably accelerate in 2024.

And they’re going to throw everything but the kitchen sink at us. It’s just their aim sucks, because of the rat feces in their heads.

So be not afraid. In the end we win, they lose. I think 2024 won’t be as terrible as we expect, but it’s only the beginning of the bridge. And there’s the fog.

Hold your breath. Don’t talk. But chances are good we get to the other side unscathed. 

*I feel bad about the Earthquake metaphor. But it’s baked into the blog. So: Japan is in my mind and prayers this morning, and for those of you — I know at least two — who have family there, I hope your family and friends are okay.

363 thoughts on “Cross My Palm With Silver”

  1. Cross your palm with silver? So we can assume you are neither vampire nor were. Keep the cold iron away?

    Asking for a friend.

    As for predictions about the coming year, I predict most predictions will prove inaccurate, including this one.
    ~
    Rgrds,
    RES

    1. “Cross a gypsy’s hand with silver” is the typical, not to say cliched, line of a fortune-telling gypsy.

      1. Sure, that’s what Maria Ouspenskaya used to say … and William Jennings Bryan, too.
        ~
        Rgrds,
        RES

        1. Yep, frauds the lot of them. “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” Nope, we’re going to bury mankind under a flood of paper and send their sons to die for entries on a ledger.

          1. I wonder if Senator Morgan (from the Lensman series) is supposed to be a Bryant clone.

            2. There was no shortage of wannabe demagogues, much like today. Bryan had a broader power base is all. Mencken put the boot in:

              “Bryan was a vulgar and common man, a cad undiluted. He was ignorant, bigoted, self-seeking, blatant and dishonest. His career brought him into contact with the first men of his time; he preferred the company of rustic ignoramuses.”

              This was after the Scopes trial when Bryan was past his best, bunt Bryan was a Progressive like Wilson and probably deserved a lot more.

              1. I’m not sure I want to accept Mencken’s evaluation of any politician, and the more I learn about H.L. the more leery of him I am.

                But I don’t need to rely on Mencken to dismiss Bryan’s economics, and I don’t need any better cause for rejecting Bryan. He could have been the saintliest politician ever, good intentions do not redeem bad policies.

                I suspect that a generation of Democrat politicians aped Bryan’s speech mannerisms in the same way a generation of post-war British politicians unconsciously fell into Winston’s cadences.
                ~
                Rgrds,
                RES

  2. Predicting the future is hard when you’re just trying to keep things together day by day (if not week by week.) Though worry not, it’s not a crisis for me, just the net effect of having to be the executive function for four out of five people in this house. Which I’m not particularly good at, just better than the alternative.

    1. The last few years have even made it hard predicting the past. Here I thought America’s real Founding occurred in 1776 (Declarationalists) or arguably 1789 (Constitutionalists) but nooooooo …

      I thought our Founders were exceptional but imperfect visionaries, but it turns out that like every other living human in their era they were racist.

      I thought the Story of America was our work toward a more perfect union but it turns out that’s unattainable.

      We’re becoming ever more like what was said of the Soviet Union: the Future is Known, it’s the Past that keeps changing.
      ~
      Rgrds,
      RES

  3. So while it is my job to do predictions and extrapolations, I’m not exactly in the business of near future, really close, or particularly accurate.

    And you don’t want to be. If you were, you would have the problem of William Gibson. I mean, apart from being a socialist asshole. He had one idea, fairly near future, and kept rewriting it and rewriting it, until it became the present, more or less, and… well, the only people who even pretend to read him any more are the people still sold on him being a visionary genius, rather than a one-idea, one-hit wonder.

  4. …at the rates they pay. People need other income.

    Wait, they pay to generate Trollish text on blog comments? I can’t tell you how many times I have looked at something and exclaimed “That is the best you could come up with? I could do better than that!”

    Heck, I am pretty sure I could write a script to generate better Trollish than what I typically see.

    Where does one find these sources of renumeration?

      1. I’m pretty sure they agitprop blog comments, too. Not as much as they do at X-Twitter (Does that mean Elon is Professor X?) and of course its baked into the Tiktok pie.
        ~
        Rgrds,
        RES

        1. Consider the quality of the comments, they must be paying peanuts.

          I particularly remember one handle (not here) where at a predictable time in the afternoon, the quality of both the grammar and the sense would plunge. Shift change at the comment-generating place, apparently.

            1. “like those assigned to poke at the Horde over at Ace’s place”

              Not sure even they can hold a candle to Insty’s infamous “Johnny” and “Jimmy Crack Corn”.

      1. The “Ghost of Kiev” fighter pilot thing from the same period turned out to be a myth.

        As far as I can tell the RWGFY thing happened, though the Ukrainian border guard guys got captured rather than all dying gloriously as initially reported. And the particular RW in question which sent the surrender demand, the Moskva, subsequently joined the Black Sea Unintentional Submarine Fleet, now residing on the bottom of said sea.

        1. There are pro-Russian trolls in a lot of blog comments sections. It’s likely that some were reporting the entire thing as made up.

          2. They also don’t like to admit that it was the Ukrainian government that stepped on the Ghost of Kiev story.

            Doesn’t fit the “UA is just as bad” narrative very well.

      2. It was originally reported as the guy who said “Russian Warship. Go Fuck Yourself.” then died a heroic death. So that part is myth, but even without the heroic valiant death of the myth, the defiance against all odds is still quite admirable, eh?

        3. Given that Russian artillery doctrine, including Naval gunfire, follows the “wrath of angry deity deluge” model, and given that Snake Island had no heavy bunkers, death of all upraised finger hands was fairly reasonable assumption.

          That the inhabitants survived speaks volumes as to the current state of Russian naval gunnery. Mr. Tallman and comrades should have fit in tomato paste cans after that event, and much resembled that emulsified product.

      3. “Go to d##k” I believe is a more literal rendition. Implies someone else driving. More like the Philadelphia “Get f###ed!”

        Also important that the “Russian Warship” (Moskva) of the tale is now a fish reef.

        So “Go to fish!” sounds weird. “GFY” will have to do….

        And, of course, there is a stamp:

  6. Ah well, probably a lot, at the rates they pay. People need other income.

    Ever notice how the “right wing trolls are only saying that because they’re paid by the Koch Brothers” trope disappeared? They haven’t replaced it with Elon Musk (weirdly), perhaps because it’s so blindingly obvious that all they payola is on the left.

    1. In fairness, on Teh Right they only pay for results – and there aren’t generally enough results to buy beer (except BudLite).
      ~
      Rgrds,
      RES

  7. Personal suspicions about next year, in no particular order-
    *Watch as a lot of Internet and “legacy” media companies just fall apart like dominos. There might be a stockholder revolt at Disney, and no matter what happens there it’s a threat to people like Blackrock and their ilk.
    Most news and non-streaming media producers are hemorrhaging jobs like mad. I wouldn’t be surprised if the New York Times and at least one other “national” paper went bankrupt or closed.
    *AI is going to do things that people never thought it was going to do. The biggest scandal right now is that several Japanese publishers are going to AI translation of manga and simultaneous release in the US. This has gotten the “localization” community up in arms, and people are digging up Twitter posts and videos of them crowing over how because they have a vagina they get to change things how they want…which makes them look worse.
    (It doesn’t help that I’ve heard of several other scandals…almost entirely by “feminists” that include deliberately altering dialog to incorporate Reddit memes, misgendering characters to include making a straight male crossdresser into a gay transvestite, despite what the creator of the manga said, etc, etc, etc…)
    I think a lot of “creatives” will discover that they weren’t creative at all…and they don’t have a job anymore.
    *The election is going to be a dumpster fire of all dumpster fires. Too many masks have been torn off and unless there’s a miracle, it’ll be a Trump/Biden election.
    And I agree with your opinion on Trump-he’s not a nice man, but he’s a good man in ways. Unfortunately, what we need right now is an absolute bastard with a lot of ethics but very few morals.
    *Watch as the economy has major issues, especially as I think we’ll see serious China divestment in the next few months. Too much chaos going on over there.

    Still…we’re still here and breathing. So that’s a win, Great Aunt.

    1. What you need politically is ME. Someone very hard-nosed, accustomed to being hated, and with no qualms about applying force to maintain public order.

      Trump is a chump.

      1. Not really. Trump likes to cut deals. The problem for him is that the left has such a bad case of TDS that they’d refuse to work with him even if he offered to save them while they were going over a waterfall.

          1. Trump did try to work with the Democrats. One of the first things he did was to propose a “Wall for Dreamers” deal with the Democrats. The response from the Democrats made it clear that they would refuse to voluntarily give an inch no matter what incentives he offered. In short, there was no point in Trump even trying to work with the other party.

    4. *The election is going to be a dumpster fire of all dumpster fires. Too many masks have been torn off and unless there’s a miracle, it’ll be a Trump/Biden election.”

      Agreed – the election will be a dumpster fire, no matter who is running. People are angry, angry over everything – look at all the news stories about violent meltdowns at airports, on airplanes, at fast-food places, and on the highways and byways. It won’t take much to push people beyond reason.

      1. I suspect the big push on the Conservative side will be anything happening to Trump that looks at all hinky.

        Not being put on the ballot for something he hasn’t been convicted of, for example.
        If there are any signs that Trump is coerced into not running sometime later this year.
        If there’s some kind of “revolt of the ‘adults'” at the RNC convention.
        If he falls down a flight of stairs or trips in front of a bullet or has any medical issue that could be at all suspicious.

        There’s going to be a lot of people that will go “f(YAY!)k it, it’s on like Donkey Kong” and things go nuts.

    5. Videos about the localizer mess have been turning up on YouTube. I haven’t watched any of them, but the titles have given me enough info on them. And, of course, as always, the fans are to blame.

      /rolleyes

      I’m reminded of the complaints about ADV adding cussing and profanity to it’s anime dubs to make the dubs edgier. But at least ADV tried to stick relatively close to the original script with its creativity. What these people have done is far worse.

      1. Even ADV was careful to make sure the subs were as close to the original dialog as possible, if I recall. Sometimes so much that they had a second subtitle track on DVD for the dub.

        1. Yes, ADV’s subtitles were generally good, iirc. It was only the dub that was “edgy”.

          And again, even when they changed things – case in point the pop-ups in Martian Successor Nadesico – they generally did so with an eye toward improving the experience for the viewer while at the same time staying relatively close to the source material. And when they caught flack over it (which they did over the pop-ups in Nadesico, though I think in that case it might have been fan overreaction), they usually incorporated the advice on their future localizations.

          The “edgy” nonsense being the big exception.

          The stuff that got ADV in trouble is insignificant compared to what these localizers are doing.

          1. It seems like the worst of the problems started around what I’m calling the Geek Culture Collapse period, which is about 2015-16, when a lot of geek/nerd cultural events started to really suffer from the problems of capture by the Tumblr crowd and the people that had just recently graduated from most university programs.
            Many of them had reached a level of authority that allowed them to do what they wanted and Hilarity Did Ensue.

    6. FWIW, the companies aren’t going to AI translation.

      They are moving to using AI to do the basic translation, and then having in-house translators that they already have finish the job. Same translators who were noticing the “localizers” screwing with stuff.

      I kinda suspect that the “localizers” were already doing this…..

      2. They’re also finding out that, like the humans who programmed them, when their knowledge fails, AI will just Make Shit Up…. plausibly, quickly, and relatively smoothly.

        Now testers and fact-checkers have to verify…. against AI maintained “libraries”.

        “What are the facts? Again and again and again-what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”–what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”

        Sure thing, Lazarus. How?

          1. The problem isn’t the narrative; the problem is the absolutely correct appearing citations of legal cases, research papers, etc. that someone has to go through.

                  1. The trouble with that is, people’s idea of ‘authoritative’ is bound up strongly with ‘expensive’ and ‘I couldn’t do that’. When it becomes dirt cheap and dead easy to fake authoritative-looking reports, they will lose all authority.

                    There was a time when anything typeset and printed without obvious errors looked authoritative. Desktop publishing chucked that out the window.

                    2. Remember the Rathergate “false but accurate” document scandal? The one where the “absolutely no-fooling 1960s document typed on a typewriter” turned out to be replicable with the modern Microsoft Word?

                      And remember how many people tried to claim that you could have a variable-width typewriter at the time, so the document was accurate?

                      People are going to believe what they believe in spite of a mountain of evidence to the contrary, if that’s what they want to do.

                    3. Remember it? I was in on it. I pulled the exact specs of the IBM proportional-spacing typewriters available back in the day, and the complete list of fonts, none of which bore any resemblance to Times New Roman. If you wanted to set something in Times, the price of entry was a phototypesetter, which cost (if memory serves) $10,000 and up, and required a specially trained operator, a darkroom, and at minimum an offset press to produce hard copy. It was never used to prepare single copies of anything.

                      As it turned out, people didn’t wind up believing the forgery despite the mountain of evidence. The scam went down in flames, and Dan Rather’s career went down with it.

                      But the main credit for that goes to the fellow who produced the two-frame GIF, blinking back and forth between the alleged memo and a printout of the same document done with the default settings for MS Word. Anybody who saw that knew the memo had been faked, and exactly how it was done. I wish I’d thought of that; I already knew of the technique. They call it a ‘blink comparator’; it’s what they used to discover Pluto, because it was the only moving object (over a span of days between exposures) against a background of stationary stars. I coulda been a contender, etc., etc.

                1. I once had a smidgen of respect for Fox News – not the TV channel (which I have never seen live) but the website. They linked to sources in a sidebar, unlike any other major media site I know of.

                  Then they stopped doing that, and I stopped respecting them.

              3. https://daniel.haxx.se/blog/2024/01/02/the-i-in-llm-stands-for-intelligence/

                “Sometimes reporters use AIs or other tools to help them phrase themselves or translate what they want to say. As an aid to communicate better in a foreign language. I can’t find anything wrong with that. Even reporters who don’t master English can find and report security problems.

                So: just the mere existence of a few give-away signs that parts of the text were generated by an AI or a similar tool is not an immediate red flag. It can still contain truths and be a valid issue. This is part of the reason why a well-formed crap report is harder and takes longer to discard.”

                So you’re going to have to spend more time trying to spot the crap.

                But worse is you’re almost guaranteed to have someone (Claudine Gay, forex) claim that your prejudices are the reason you flagged something as AI generated and reject it.

        2. If they’re still having in-house translators make a second pass over the translation, that should catch the usual AI shenanigans.

          Though, actually, proper translations are one thing that AI should be able to do pretty well. The AI isn’t being asked to write a report on a topic, or generate citations. It’s merely being asked, “Tell me what this says in a way that makes grammatical sense.” That should limit the amount of creativity from the AI applications being used. And if anything does crop up, the human editors should spot it.

              1. This. Machine translation with human post-editing is faster and cheaper than having humans translate from scratch. Plus you’re not going to get the wild hallucinations models like ChatGPT are known for. The task is much more constrained (“Translate this sentence.” vs. “Generate plausible text spanning the breadth of human knowledge.”) and much easier for humans to check (“Is this a good translation?” vs. “Is this fact true?”).

                  1. I’ve texted with people who live in a foreign country, and don’t read/write English (or at least not well). The apps being used translate almost immediately. Android phones (and probably iPhones, as well) come with a translator that can translate text, speech, or the blob of stuff that you just pointed your camera at. And the results usually don’t have the old “literal translation” problems.

                    Usually.

                    It might be cumbersome to carry on a voice conversation that way, but it’s still very doable.

              2. I rented an apartment using an online translator service in Japan. It was a group that wanted to work with the base and all, and they probably did speak English enough to see if the result was bad, but that was nearly 20 years ago, too.

            2. Yes. That’s because I work with computers, and know that anytime you guarantee something, it absolutely positively WILL NOT HAPPEN!

              😛

              But seriously, the “shoulds” that I’m using are referring to things that a half-way competent overseer human will catch.

              1. .you guarantee something, it absolutely positively WILL NOT HAPPEN!
                ………………………………

                Especially if the guarantee is something that can’t happen. Every freaking time. Always say “shouldn’t” (translation “done everything to keep from happening, and yet let the program actually do something. Which means, not every failure point caught.) Never say “won’t”.

                1. If I had a buck for every time “not every failure point caught” bit some complacent programmer who confidently claimed otherwise square on the butt… 😆

              3. “that a half-way competent overseer human will catch.”

                I’m thinking I’ve identified the problem. 😎
                The Pointy-Haired-Boss is a cliche for a reason. So is my reputation for being a cynical old misanthrope.

                1. What pointy-haired bosses? There aren’t any directly involved in what we’re talking about here. The only things involved are the translator AI apps, and the human translators assigned to double-check the results of those apps.

                  1. I’m afraid the pointy-haired boss will be the one hiring the human translators, and failing to check whether they are actually competent.

                  2. Because humans, translators or their supervisors, are always 100% honest and accurate.

                    You know, for people babbling about the “crisis of competence”, people sure do assume competence a lot.

                    1. Yes, if you go up the chain, you get the pointy-haired boss. That’s normal. But they’re not involved in the actual work. Given that, why the resistance to AI translators with human translators double-checking the work? How is that somehow worse than the current situation?

                    2. In programming there was the concern (or should be) of solving one problem but causing a Bigger Problem.

                    3. “But they’re not involved in the actual work.”

                      Oh? There was a thread here on how we are importing a South Indian work culture into tech: hierarchical, top down, reeking strongly of “caste”. The net effect of that is that the manager is going to decide who’s working on problems, and how they’re allowed to work on them. And who does that boss blame when that approach breaks? The Odds, first and foremost.

                      People are already reluctant to step outside the lines; AI is simply going to put an “authoritative” gloss on the turd.

              1. That’s why you need to put so much effort into trying to get the facts. There’s a lot of stuff that purports to be divine revelation out there and it’s incumbent on each of us to figure out what to trust and what not. And, once again, the facts are our guide and then make the best guess we can after that, always being willing to reassess as new facts become available.

      3. A LOT of people knew about this, and it was an open secret that Funmation, one or two manga translators, and I think one other video company were doing…unique edits to the original material. Off the top of my head, I can recall one manga getting some strange TDS-related content.

        Nobody cared because people were making money and it wasn’t blatant. Now they aren’t and now it is.

  8. I predict at least one ‘Climate Catastrope!!’ that won’t happen. Maybe two or three.

    With the connection we’ve found between carbon dioxide and plant growth, even if rising carbon dioxide levels cause warming, the result won’t be Dune, or Tattooine. We’ll get jungles, not deserts.
    ———————————
    “The Science Is Settled!!” we are told, again and again — but then ‘The Science!’ changes every week, and somehow it’s always exactly what the politicians need it to be.

    1. A little while back – shortly before COVID, IIRC – someone shared an article with me talking about the rising CO2, and the plant growth it might cause.

      And it”s BAD!. You see, all of that CO2 is like junk food for plants! It’s not good CO2! Do not believe those those climate deniers who claim that more CO2 in the atmosphere is a good thing!

      Expect to hear more silliness like that.

      2. “Plants eat CO2! The plants are going to eat us next! Reeeeeeeeeee” Just watch.
        ………………………..
        JIC sarcasm off.

        Hmmmm. OTOH maybe all the CO2 will offset my black thumb? Time to plant Azaleas in the front strip, again 🙂 🙂 🙂 Son says “poor plants”.

        1. If you are thinking azaleas, consider hardy hibiscus instead. Lots of mid-Summer to Fall flowers, varieties hardy to zone 5, perennial.
          John in Indy

            1. Hardy hibiscus mature a about 4′ round, and flower until first frost. Once dry, cut the stems back to 5″, and mulch well.
              They are nearly the last to leaf out in spring, but put out lots of large flowers.

      3. Oh, oh! Waves paw You see, the wrong kinds of plants do well in a higher CO2 atmosphere. It’s not most grasses but brush and shrubs and maize (C4 vs C3 plants) that really like higher CO2. So most grains and soybeans will vanish, mesquite will stalk the land, and we’ll all starve. (Ignore the super-high CO2 greenhouses in Iceland that produce a gazillion wonderful tomatoes every month. Seriously. Pay no attention to the plants behind the curtain.)

              1. BTW, why do I have to re-login to WP (which, DE) for EVERY SINGLE POST, even if they’re less than 5 minutes apart?!? 👿

      4. Might? The plant is growing greener. As in, satellite shows more green areas. (It’s anti-desertification! Don’t you know that deserts are natural?)

          1. I think it would depend on what autocorrect looked like and the condition of it’s/her morals….

            1. I suspect his/her/its morals and intelligence are slightly below those of WP (which, DE).

        2. I’d rather not thank you. That does present many physical (as well a philosophical) issues. Although I have to say I do understand the sentiment. Stupid autocorrupt (or autocucumber as one coworker I had called it)

    3. The Science™ is settled. Because that isn’t actual science, it’s religious doctrine as delivered from the pontiff through the clerisy.

      Any resemblance between it and actual science is purely coincidental. Contents may vary from depiction on label.
      ~
      Rgrds,
      RES

      1. Until revealed doctrine changes – see “Global Warming” replaced by the less specific “Climate Change”, because saying “This freezing ice storm is the result of Global Warming” sounds too stupid.

        1. Science is a word often swiped by undisciplines to cloak their notions in a veneer of credibility.

          Past abuses include Eugenics, Phrenology, Sociology, Cultural Anthropology … Climatology is merely the most recent demonstration of the gullibility of the journalistic crass. They’ve blinded us with Science.
          ~
          Rgrds,
          RES

          1. Some of those things do have a smidgen of actual science buried in them. The problem is the amount of “if A is true, I will be sad, therefore A is false” philosophizing and insistence on fitting a certain political mold, producing a certain desired outcome that the science gets lost in the BS.

              2. Now, Sarah, everyone know government grants are Pure Altruism; only those Evul Corporate Grants By Companies We Don’t Like are tainted…… /do I need the tag?

                1. I don’t care if they are pure altruism or impure altruism or whatever, it’s my money, I want it back, and no one needs to know the sexual proclivities of the purple spotted sand humping jelly fish.

  9. I’ll play…let me update my Visualization of the Cosmic All…

    Elections: The 2024 election will be a replay of 2016, with both parties on track to nominate a candidate that half their base and all the independent voters despise. The Dems are waging full-bore lawfare against Trump. The GOP might find enough backbone to impeach Biden, but it’s going to take serious pressure to get them to do it. On the other hand, there are actual felonies involved with CHICOM Joe.

    Fraud will continue to be an issue, but we’re seeing more information on the 2020 fraud coming out by the day. An aggressive anti-fraud effort (See Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 campaign) would stop most of it. Counter-fraud would stop it cold, if the GOP had the guts for it.

    The election? Frankly, I’m betting on a Black Swan event. Trump gets assassinated, Biden goes undeniably nuts, iron-bound evidence of Dem corruption…there are too many potential openings. SOMETHING is likely to blow up. The good news is that most of them work to the GOP’s advantage.

    Immigration: This is rapidly becoming the #1 issue in the election. The problem being that neither party understands it. Or are willfully blind to it.

    Dig into American history, and you’ll find that from the earliest Colonial times, there was a fairly steady 60-year cycle. 30 years of high immigration, followed by 30 years of low immigration. Wave 5 (~1890-1924) stressed the ability to assimilate to the limit, and demanded extremely aggressive measures to teach the newcomers American ways.

    Wave 6 (~1965-present) is MUCH worse. The immigration valve SHOULD have been shut around 1990, but was left wide open. And we’re importing unskilled labor, not Payers. Add to that the hordes of Criminal Invaders entering illegally. Then not only shut off the Melting Pot assimilation system, but actively encourage ethnic division.

    The political leadership is playing…with weapons-grade fissiles. Whichever party has the wits to adopt a “Throw them ALL out” policy will obliterate the other.

    Foreign Affairs/National Security: This one worries me the most. The Ukraine War has stalled. The idea of running Putin out of his stocks of Cold War surplus arms has worked…at the cost of running US out of OUR war reserve stocks. And we’re discovering that replenishing is going to be very, very hard.

    Add to this the bubbling Middle East. Since 1979 and the Iran Hostage Crisis, the United States has had unfinished business with Iran. But resources are scarce…and America is sea-blind.

    Throw in Chinese expansionism. Nobody else may have paid it attention, but they just appointed an Admiral to be their equivalent of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That doesn’t guarantee a war to take Taiwan, but it’s an indicator that the Chinese have been reading their Mahan and Corbett…and are intent on taking advantage of American sea-blindness to snatch naval superiority and all that goes with it. (As John Adams said, “The Trident of Neptune is the Scepter of the World.”)

    Black Swan Events: I’m betting that these will dominate. There are just too MANY potential surprises. A major political assassination (I marvel that someone hasn’t taken a shot at Trump). One of our superannuated political class dying, or becoming so incapable they HAVE to be removed. Domestic terrorism. Imported terrorism.

    Overall: Keep your weapons handy. Keep a reserve of money handy. Be ready to seize opportunity when it arises.

    1. China? Naval superiority?

      Ahh-haah-haa-hee-heee-hee-ho-hooo-hooo-hoo-hwaa-ahak-ak-gasp! Good one!

      Wait, what? You’re serious?

      Have you ever seen an American aircraft carrier, or a submarine? Along with China’s lame attempts to copy them? Can you imagine the disasters in store for ships in which the enlisted crew is considered unskilled labor to be micromanaged by officers without a clue what they’re doing? ‘Tis a nightmare I would only wish on my worst enemy — oh, wait, it’s China; never mind.

      Operating a modern naval ship is hard even when you’ve got a highly trained, experienced crew. The Chinese have little training and no experience. They can’t even get their newest aircraft carrier unmoored from the pier. Their latest submarine got tangled in their own submarine net and sunk with all hands. They’d be hard put to assert naval superiority over their own sea ports.
      ———————————
      There are forms of stupidity that businesses can’t indulge in. There are no such limitations on the stupidity of government.

      1. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are showing the future – and it ain’t aircraft carriers! A $10 billion aircraft carrier cannot defend against a swarm of cheap drones, each with a small explosive. $10k drones are taking out $10 million tanks. How would a carrier defend against 500 or 1000 drones? Wouldn’t sink the ship but would do enough damage to disable it for months. Things change – just ask the battleship navy!

        1. Keep in mind that there are no aircraft carriers – there are aircraft carrier strike groups, a flotilla of multiple vessels providing support and screening for the flight deck.

          I could not find a reliable tally of ships in the task force but our aircraft carriers are less vulnerable than you suppose. If the USN has truly developed ship-based laser defense screens you can be sure that’s where they’re deployed.

          I expect that in time the aircraft carrier will become obsolete, just as combat airships will likely be supplanted by drones (indeed, if the F-35 ever achieves operational status its weapons systems will reportedly* include a fleet of drones.

          But that time is not now.

          *all reports of weapons systems capabilities and deficiencies should be taken with amounts of salt far above USDA recommended dosage.
          ~
          Rgrds,
          RES

          1. :points up:

            What he said.

            The tactic of “hit them with a bunch of tiny boats” was started.
            For a little.

            …it doesn’t work unless all the counter measures are deliberately removed.

            :glares at the USS Cole:

            2. [shrug] What I know is what I have learned from listening to USN veterans who, while they might never have seen the elephant, have certainly smelled it.
              ~
              Rgrds,
              RES

            3. And then there were the guys who had the bright idea to attack Battleships with small torpedo boats.

              Worked for a short time until the Big Navies developed the “torpedo destroyers”. 😉

              1. Torpedo Boat Destroyers, soon shortened to just “destroyers.”

                And on that note, let me recommend to anyone who hasn’t read it “The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.” Mad, mad respect.

                1. Their mission changed over time but my stepfather’s Bluejacket’s Manual was very clear was the origin as torpedo boat destroyers. The first destroyers predate the Holland submarine by nearly a decade, let alone the U boats of WWI and WWII.

                3. No, that came afterwards. Early submarines weren’t as big of a threat. They were much more vulnerable when launching an attack, and before WWI it was questioned whether a submarine could even sink a surface ship. Additionally, the only way to detect a submarine was to spot it with your eyes (not as difficult as one might think, though, given the way that subs had to operate at the time). The first working sonar prototypes weren’t ready for testing until 1918, by which point the war was nearly over. So there was no real way to make a dedicated anti-submarine vessel until the inter-War period. Destroyers had been around for a long time by that point.

          2. You are on the right track – but “In time” has a funny way of sneaking up on you. Sailing ships were the ultimate Naval vessel right up until March 8, 1862; ditto battleships on December 7, 1941. The Soviet Union was mighty until November 9, 1989. I also worry that we overestimate the capability of our armed forces. They have been neglected and degraded for years. There has been regular news of crashes and accidents the past few years. If you listen you can hear the wind blowing through the branches of a tree right before the lightening strikes.

            1. Yup – I also have fears about our military as it currently stands. There are quite unsettling things being talked about in the mil-meme and veteran community that my daughter is tapped into. The Covid vax and the push for DIE have demoralized and hollowed out the military, not to mention the debacle in Afghanistan. Something dreadful slouches this way – and I fear that our military as it currently stands, will not come well out of it all.

              1. I agree about the fears, but I still think our sailors are the best in the world – mainly because I think doctrine, training, and morale in all competing navies are probably far worse.
                ~
                Rgrds,
                RES

              3. This is my worry, too. The military has been rode hard and put up wet for thirty years, the troops treated like dirt by the political class. It won’t end well.

            2. And the elites openly went to war with conservatives, the historic source of most of the troops. Huge manpower shortage coming.

              1. It’s already here. From what I’ve heard, none of the services met their recruitment goals in 2022 or 2023. Factor in those discharged for refusing the COVID injections, and the ones disciplined for pointing out inconvenient truths, we’re looking at a seriously underweight military. Like scrawny Steve Rogers, before the super-soldier serum.

                1. And now they seem to be begging the troops discharged for not getting the vax to “come back, all is forgiven!”. If there’s any justice the response will involve literally flocks of birds.

            3. I’d dispute a few of those.

              The Soviet navy was a hollow shell long before 1989, it just wasn’t generally known.

              The U.S. Navy commissioned a whole new class of fast battleships (USS Iowa et al.) after December 7 1941 and they were quite successful as part of a new naval doctrine that placed more emphasis aircraft carriers.

              The Virginia and Monitor didn’t accomplish a whole lot; they shot at each other all day long to little effect and broke off the battle when it got dark. The Virginia never really got out of the harbor at Hampton Roads, and the Monitor later sunk in a storm while being towed to port for repairs. Most of the rest of the war was still fought by wooden sailing ships.

              Neither the Turtle, nor the Hunley, ushered in a great age of submarine warfare.

              Rarely do the first crude models of new, unproven weapons instantly render everything that came before them obsolete.
              ———————————
              Cast Away: Only Tom Hanks could make two hours of talking to a volleyball great.

              1. Rarely do the first crude models of new, unproven weapons instantly render everything that came before them obsolete.

                Hmm, I think one must be careful about that statement. Little Boy and Fat Man are two noteworthy counterexamples. (And yes, I did see the “rarely”. And “everything” would have been a stretch, so yeah.)

                1. It is rare that a new weapon alters the nature of combat, and those that do are sometimes so extremely simple that they don’t appear significant in hindsight. The horse, perhaps, maybe the chariot or the stirrup.

                  Far more numerous are the examples of “new” weapons systems that do NOT result in rapid doctrinal change. The tank, for example, or mustard gas, was barely a hiccough when first deployed. Same with aircraft, which needed another two decades to truly affect strategy and tactics (and even now is too often deemed “revolutionary” when it appears ground is still taken and held by infantry.

                  Partly this may be because the new weapons often entail new burdens and new MOS. Aircraft and tanks entail mechanics to service them, after all. We’ve seen demonstrated by tanks in Ukraine what Russian design, Russian manufacturing and Russian maintenance can mean.

                  Then there is logistics. Supposedly Custer’s troops at Little Big Horn were using single shot rifle rather than the semi-automatic rifles in Amerindian hands, because the Quartermasters decided troops issued magazine loads would waste ammo. Tanks won’t roll without gas. Even machine guns demand bullets. Field conditions greatly vary from labs.

                  Fat Man & Little Boy were one off devices, supposedly we were holding our national breath in fear they wouldn’t cow Japan because we’d be weeks producing another one.

                  War is difficult and game-changers less common than their promoters proclaim. Those game changers might more commonly occur in the realm of doctrine and tactics, such as the OODA Loop. In the hall outside my Fifth Grade classroom were a series of military prints. One depicted the Charge Up San Juan Hill, with a caption crediting a junior office with abandoning the view of belt-fed machine guns as essentially defensive by deploying them forward to provide supporting fire for the charge. (Yeah, sixty years ago elementary schools had such décor – it helped keep the testosterone privileged from getting into mischief in the halls.)
                  ~
                  Rgrds,
                  RES

                    1. I’m not sure … the bow would have already been a hunting weapon and thus mostly known. OTOH, using the bow from a moving platform? Perhaps the compound bow with its increased range?

                      Similarly, was the spear or javelin initially a hunting weapon or a war weapon? Would the mounted lancer constitute a new weapon platform? Was the atlatl developed as a weapon or for hunting? How do we classify the shield?

                      Mists of time and definitional arguments, so perhaps the discussion best be restricted to relatively modern weapons, say the gunpowder era?

                      That puts us back on the matter of tactics – the development of massed infantry musket fire was a strategic development making musketry far more effective without fundamentally changing the weapon.

                      I can envision a sketch based on antediluvian arms manufacturers trying to interest militaries in procuring their latest developments …

                      Arms Maker: This is our latest, most advanced technology, the obsidian spear tip.

                      Og: Me no know, what good is a glass spear? It not have the weight and balance of stone, how it punch through hides?
                      ~
                      Rgrds,
                      RES

                    3. A good archer needed years of training to build the upper body strength required to fire arrows at battlefield tempos for the time entailed. It’s not just the drawing of the bow but the repetitive drawing for however long it lasted.

                      Bernard Cornwall had a good historical fiction about Agincourt. Assuming accuracy in describing the battle deployment of archers required combined arms tactics, with knights and men-at-arms providing a screen to protect the archers’ formation.

                      Then again, battlefield archers would be using different tips on their arrows than for hunting, and the development of a hardened steel arrowhead was necessary to pierce chainmail or (especially) plate.

                      I don’t know about Hastings – according to this short article there is some question of English Anglo-Saxon archers being at Hastings although there’s no question that the Normans brought range weapons to a knife fight. But the author describes the bows as tapered yew, elm or ash – not compound.

                      The Medieval Bow and Arrow
                      [SNIP]
                      The Anglo-Saxons primarily used the bow for hunting. It is less frequently mentioned as being employed during battle, though according to one source, the Anglo-Saxons used bows at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. It seems odd, however, that the Anglo-Saxons would use bows at Stamford Bridge but not at Hastings only two weeks later. There are no literary accounts that mention the Anglo-Saxons using bows at Hastings, but we cannot state absolutely that they did not use them, for there is one solitary Anglo-Saxon archer depicted at Hastings on the Bayeux Tapestry. We know for a fact that the Norman army did use the bow heavily at Hastings. After all, it was an arrow that struck King Harold Godwinson in the eye.
                      ~
                      Rgrds,
                      RES

                    4. “It seems odd, however, that the Anglo-Saxons would use bows at Stamford Bridge but not at Hastings only two weeks later. ”

                      I suspect someone forgot about logistics. Producing arrows is not a simple effort’ it requires straight wood, intact feathers, and shaped / forged heads. All of these take time to gather and assemble.

                      Basically, I suspect Harold’s army “shot themselves dry” at Stamford, and couldn’t resupply fast enough, especially after a forced march down the length of Britain.

                  2. Yup.

                    A technology is introduced. Usually what happens is certain people say, “Oh, neat!” And then they try and figure out what exactly they can do with it. We all know about tanks now. But in the inter-War period, everyone had their own ideas. The French saw them as slow-moving mobile pill-boxes. The British saw them as basically the navy, but on land (the ultimate example of this was probably the Soviet T-35, which had five turrets; there’s a very good reason why no one builds multi-turreted tanks today). The Germans developed their strategy of rapid breakthroughs by armor, followed by infantry consolidating the gains and reducing the surrounded enemy forces.

                    One of those strategies worked. The other two didn’t. People remember the German example. They forget that the French and the British both invested a lot of time and effort into developing their own doctrines, which ultimately failed.

                    It takes a while for people to figure out what will work. And even then, not everyone agrees. I suspect that the Soviets and the Americans would have had different ideas about armored tactics even in 1985.

                    1. And Rommel and Guderian got a lot of opposition from the German High Command before Hitler took an interest and gave them some support. (The fact that their tank doctrine worked apparently helped convince Hitler he was a military genius).

                    2. Reputedly, Eisenhower and Patton spent the inter-war period developing Tank Armored Cavalry Doctrine upon cavalry tactics developed in the American Southwest fighting Amerindians in the prior century.
                      ~
                      Rgrds,
                      RES

                    3. And both they and the Germans were working from Liddell-Hart and Fuller in Great Britain.

                  3. Grand Avenue school lacked such inspirational posters in the early 60s, though the origins of the town (founded by Quakers in the late 1800s) meant such would have been awkward. That and the demographics tended to the managerial class. (Great school, but a bit snooty. And me the class Odd.) The previous school near Detroit would have likely had such posters; it felt like every Dad was a veteran, usually Enlisted. Lots of automotive line workers.

                    FWIW, the Indians at Little Big Horn would have been using Repeaters (bolt action), since the semi-auto rifle wasn’t patented until 7 years after the battle. (Unless Hiram Maxim was doing some Evil Genius research.) [Removes pedantic hat.]

                    1. “(bolt action)”

                      Bolt? Or lever? I seem to recall that the first repeaters (Winchester? Henry?) were lever action.

                    2. Uh, let me check Wiki…

                      Looks like the bolt action predated the lever action (1824 vs 1826) and both were used in the ACW, though the lever seems to have been produced in much larger numbers.

                      The standard repeaters of the era were levers.

                      Wiki says the 200 or so repeating rifles used by the Lakota and Cheyenne were lever actions. OTOH, there were also many single shots, both muzzle loaders and breach loaders. The “Weapons” section of the article on the LBH gives a bit more detail.
                      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_BighornI

                    3. I think there’s a strong argument for lever action.

                      I’m not saying you can rely on movies to get details right, but John Ford had served his film apprenticeship on sets where the advisers were guys with names like Earp and Masterson and he knew his audience in ’39 had plenty of people who’d been around in that post Civil War period.

                      Go ahead, click on the link – it’s only 12 seconds and is one of the greatest entrances that ever shone on the silver screen.
                      ~
                      Rgrds,
                      RES

                    4. Or see the opening for the TV show ‘The Rifleman’ — Chuck Connors fires off something like 12 rounds in 3 seconds with a .30-30 lever-action.

                    5. Technically, “lever action” versus “bolt action”: Henry Rifles, Winchester 1866 Rifles, and the Spencer Repeating Rifle, and at least one Winchester 1873 Rifle. Of course the Indians had many more single-shots, bows, and spears. It was also the only time the Indians truly got their act together and used Mass. Even if the 7th Cav had been issued repeaters, it was likely going to be a very bad day for them. The Indians out general-ed and out-fought them.

                    6. The Indians out general-ed and out-fought them.
                      ………………..

                      Custer was an arrogant ass. First he split his forces, not once, but at least twice (been two years since been at Little Big Horn monument, would have to look up to remember exactly how many times). Then he lost the high ground. Seriously. Where Custer and those with him fell (based off the headstone placements), was just off (barely) the high ground. They were attacking a village on the river valley flat. Standing there, driving the route out, is relatively flat up on top. But the slopes the braves had to ride up to engage, from the village, is not only wide open, but steep (not western mountain, Rockies or Cascade slopes, or cliff, steep, but I sure wouldn’t want to have to walk or ride a horse straight up it). The topography maps I’ve seen of the battle field don’t give numbers of the lines. Feeling of “not flat” VS river valley, but being there shows how “now flat” the differences were.

                    8. I freely acknowledge that gun terminology is not among my strong points. Regrettably, principles and methods of accounting rarely seem germane to discussions in this venue.

                      While I can perceive some opportunities to employ accounting concepts here I doubt it would interest many but me (which in past has been sufficient reason for developing a line of commentary but I’m trying to be restrained now I no longer have Beloved Spouse to give me a head shake and whisper, “Not appropriate, Dear. Don’t go there.”)
                      ~
                      Rgrds,
                      RES

                  4. “…Quartermasters decided troops issued magazine loads would waste ammo.”

                    A common thought even later – see the magazine cutoff included on the British Lee-Enfield, and their doctrine right up into The Great War to have troops single-load rounds unless specifically ordered otherwise, because Tommy would just waste that expensive ammunition unless restrained by his upper class twit officers.

        2. You really want to know? Range. Cheap drones don’t have the performance. A serious operation will take place out of cheap-shot range.

          1. Not disagreeing, as the general opinion on specialty knowledge things is usually wrong, but note the Ukrainians have already deployed larger carrier-drones (which the Russian troops named Baba Yaga) which carry several FPV quadcopter drones and drop them when close, as well as acting as jam-resistant comm relay.

            Think of the long range conventionally powered large payload UAVs, especially the stealth ones, acting in this carrier/control relay role, and you begin to scope the issue.

            1. Sounds like someone on the Ukrainian side has been reading David Weber and picked up on Apollo.

        3. Maybe, maybe not. Keep in mind that Russia’s military is a corrupt mess of incompetence. The stories about the Admiral Kuznetsov are mind-boggling (and they are exclusively RUSSIAN issues; her Chinese sisters don’t have these same issues).. I’ve heard that one of the reasons why the Ukrainians were able to sink Moscva is because only one of the four point-defense turrets was operational due to poor maintenance. This sort of thing is common throughout the entire Russian military. The US military is likely developing systems to stop drone swarms… and unlike in Ukraine, some of those systems might actually work.

        4. Random observation…

          Around late October or early November, I suddenly started to see a lot of ads asking for money to support refugees in war-torn countries. Some of those ads appear to be affiliated with UN organizations.

          Did something happen shortly before then?

          /looksinnocent

          1. Funny how that money is going to the terrorists that caused the ‘Refugee Crisis!’ in the first place. Almost like the UNos don’t care what happens to the money so long as they get their cut.

          2. I skip those ads as fast as possible. Now if they started a campaign, give us money to keep refugees out of the US they’d actually make money.

        5. The Battleship still works to deliver massive cannon fire on point targets within a ballistic envelope.

          The obscelescence occurred when it became much easier and cheaper to use aircraft to massively kaboom things.

          Drones are neat, but still “aircraft”. Just cheaper and different. Like heavy cruisers are lighter and cheaper than battleships.

          Drones are not a phase change in conflict. They are an evolution of “aircraft”, much as the disposable antitank rocket launcher is an evolution of “cannon”.

          The aircraft carrier is obsolete when we no longer get much significant use of local airfields in combat. Else they remain useful.

          See example “escort carrier” (CVE type). They were essentially throw aways. And we used hordes of them to do support work, freeing the “Fleet Carriers” to do their thing. We built light and escort carriers because we ran out of fleet carrier capable yards.

          So the big modern CVNs remain the decisive platforms until a different decider is invented. Battleships were not obsoleted by being sinkable but by being insufficiently lethal in comparison.

          Aircraft carriers can carry enough sensors and drones to counter drone threats. Highly maneuverable (especially MIRV) ballistic missiles are a greater threat. And we already have the countermeasures deployed.

        6. Drones at the 10K level are limited in things like range and speed. In Naval battle that means you need a launch platform to come within their operational radius. And they’re, thus well within the CBG’s weapons range. Your drones aren’t terribly useful if the launch platform carrying them is debris sinking to the abyssal plain. For land targets, the CBG can stay outside drone range while still being able to make their own attacks.

          That’s just one part of the equation that the folk who think drones are magic tend to forget. There are others.

          1. We could build the equivalent of improved F-22s and F-35s as “drones”, including limited AI on board and remote pilot support. We could also do this for the new B-21 or such.

            Initial AI in fighters is likely to be a helper for when the pilot blacks-out from G-LOC, keeping the plane in the engagement. Arguably, the auto-pilot is a functional AI, just a very simple one.

            1. That’s not at the “10K level” though. The argument was cheap drones attacking an aircraft carrier. That might be the case in the future, but we’re not there yet. Much like early in the jet age the idea that missiles would make guns on fighters obsolete was not wrong exactly, just premature.

              1. An F-22 equivalent drone is going to be a bunch cheaper than a manned one. We expend a great deal of weight on controls and life support and redundancy to keep the pilot survivable. Remove that, and just how cheap could Mach 2.5+ stealthy 10G fighter-drone be?

                And what sort of bugswarm might be sent out as a cloud of opposition?

                US carriers take a crap-ton of killing. We sunk the Oriskany as a reef. it took a crap-ton of shaped charges, no watertight integrity, no efforts to save it, etc.

                Our WW2 rush-job Essex class were a bitch to sink.

                1. Cheaper than a manned F-22? Sure. But not cheap enough to send hordes to overwhelm the defenses of a CVN, let alone a CBG, which, I reiterate, was the original argument to which I was responding.

            2. The F-35 isn’t going that way. IIRC, the F-35 is supposed to have the ability to manage drone groups of it’s own.

          2. The main thing is small cheap quad drones can only carry the equivalent of an RPG round, and that’s going to do nada to a CVN, or even the America baby carriers. Yes, it’d make a mess of a Hornet on deck, but so would a rock at the wrong time in the wrong opening, thus FOD walks.

            The USN just needs cheaper rounds to take care of drones. The economics of using Standard Missiles to kill quadcopters is not sustainable, especially when VLS cells can’t be reloaded at sea, and guns don’t have the range. They need something stinger-class.

            1. Combination of CWIS concept and cannister rounds. Need a 3000 r/min gun that delivers shotgun patterns at range. A proximity fuse or timed frag round does that. Perhaps a 30mm for more boomstuff per round.

              Drone-skeet.

              Also, raptor-drone swarms could patrol for inbounds. Spotters relay to killers.

          1. That’s what satellites are for. Unless someone has a cloaking device tucked away. The carrier has to be within range of ITS’ targets, after all.

            1. Mistaking “know it is somewhere over there” for “targeting grade lock” is the most elementary of beginner mistakes.

              Try again?

              1. Look up localization, rookie. It may take a while, but those eyes in orbit will narrow it down, and Keyholes were reading license plates in the 80s. The question isn’t finding or targeting, it’s putting enough ordnance on it for a mission kill.

                1. Which, incidentally, is why those swarms might be effective even with RPG warheads; I don’t have to sink it if I can blind it. Same goes for escorts.

      2. I suspect that China’s navy will be like the Russian Navy. It looks very pretty, but the moment it starts to perform missions, it’ll just fall apart one way or another.

        Unfortunately, the US Navy is having big issues of its own and repairing them (and most of the other military arms) is going to be a major project and hopefully will be mostly done when the balloon goes up.

      3. Considering that I’m a Naval War College graduate with 40 years in flight test, I dare say I can speak to the matter intelligently.

        In 1890, Germany had no navy to speak of. 25 years later, they were able to challenge the Royal Navy at the very peak of its power. China is about 20 years down that same path.

        2. With great love and respect for your service Mike – graduates of the Naval War College with years of experience are probably the last people who will see the future! Naval War College Graduates did everything they could to stop aviation in the 20’s and 30’s! The “experts” in the Japanese navy – who pioneered the first real integrated carrier weapon systems – wasted vast sums on the two biggest battleships ever built (and neither one of them was ever used in a battle). Some young radical will plot the future and old guys (like us) will probably hate it!

          1. Not used in battle? Battle off Samar. (Phillipines Campaign) Read “Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors” by Hornfisher.

            1. Thanks! I forgot about Yamato at Samar. So the math works out 2 massive battleships = helping to sink 3 Destroyers and 1 baby carrier…

              1. Yeah. Kinda sad when put that way. But there were any number of gun-versus-gun fights in the Pacific War that were rather important. Some of the engagements immediately prior to the Taffy-3 “Last Stand” for example.

        3. It’s true that the High Seas Fleet challenged the Royal Navy. But it still never actually did all that much. It was a threat in potential only. It was a threat by virtue of the fact that it existed, and spent nearly the entire war safe in its anchorages where the Royal Navy couldn’t reach it. Everyone talks about the big battle of Jutland. But not much happened during the battle. The High Seas Fleet came out, made a show, and then ran back to its anchorages because it couldn’t risk an actual confrontation with the Royal Navy. At the end of the day, the German admirals were fully aware that if they fought the Home Fleet, they were going to lose the High Seas Fleet. And strategically, exchanging the Home Fleet for the High Seas Fleet would have been an advantage for the British. Further, given the ship numbers on each side, chances are that the High Seas Fleet would not have managed to take out the Home Fleet before it was wiped out, leaving the British with a partially intact fleet against a now non-existent High Seas Fleet.

          Thus, the entire threat of the High Seas Fleet amount to the fact that it might be used en masse. But if it ever were used en masse, it would probably be lost in an unequal exchange.

          1. David Weber made the point in “”Through Firey Trials,” that the German fleet was mostly meant as a bluff/threat, without much hope of actually defeating the British Navy.

      4. The problem is, just because we know it won’t work, doesn’t mean China doesn’t know not won’t work, and most of their internal systems are run on internal fraud.

        1. And China is occasionally rather clever. They have six times our population from which to draw Odds and their wild ideas. Fortunately for us, the CCP culture is rather … harsh on Odds and their wild ideas.

          They have a rather large merchant fleet. Any number of folks have proposed what one can do by emplacing militarized containers on merchantmen. And they have a bunch of time to try all sorts of surprises. “Shit! They are doing -what-?” has a value all its own.

          Note our own use of militarized merchant designs in WW2 (Escort Carrier CVE, Destroyer Escort DDE, etc.)

          1. However, their culture does not allow effective teamwork. Yes, you can expect one-off geniuses, but anything that requires a large crew working to a high level in tight coordination, you can expect them to be extremely poor at. Fundamentally, in a zero sum society, you cannot stick your neck out for someone else without it getting chopped off, yet to work as an effective team, one absolutely must trust that your team won’t cut you off at the knees. The anime concept of nakama is sort of like that, but instead of five or six people, it needs to extend to pretty much the entire crew, including the people you do not personally know, and may have never even seen before that very moment.

            And anything that either explodes or burns on a ship demands that level of trust. Compare the damage control operations in the USS Franklin vs pretty much any of the IJN carriers during WWII to understand what I mean.

            2. Mao managed pretty effective teamwork to toss out the prior regime.

              They had fairly effective teamwork in Korea. Had they possessed similar levels of firepower, support, and supply, we would likely have lost that fracas.

              1. Tossing out the prior regime wasn’t to Mao’s credit. That was to the discredit of the Chiang regime, which had no teamwork at all.

                Here’s a telling bit from Paul Johnson’s Modern Times:

                ‘KMT troops were paid in paper which, increasingly, did not buy enough food to feed them. So they sold their personal weapons and any other army equipment they could obtain. The officers were worse than the men and the generals worst of all. By June 1948 the KMT was down to 2.1 million; the CCP army had risen to 1.5 million, equipped with a million rifles and 22,800 pieces of artillery, more than the KMT (21,000); virtually all these weapons had been bought from government troops. The Americans, who had supplied Chiang with $1 billion worth of Pacific War surplus, thus equipped both sides in the conflict.’

            3. My grandfather died on the Franklin (April 1945.) By reports, he was trying to either do something about the fires or trying to rescue somebody.

              1. I can believe it. And I bet he had not just waited for orders first.

                By all rights that ship should have sunk. That it did not is a testament to the men who jumped into action to save it, without needing some higher up to authorize it first.

            4. Look at the battle of Midway. The Japanese thought we had 5 aircraft carriers because they assumed they’d sunk the Yorktown — twice. Instead, within 2 hours of the first ‘sinking’ she was under way and launching dive bombers. Then survived the second ‘sinking’ and was finally finished off by a submarine while being towed back to Pearl Harbor for repairs.

              American farm boys, who built hot rods for fun.

      5. Heck, even US teams can have training issues. I reference my Navy friend who got called in to “fix” the USS McCain after it had a collision—he wasn’t in charge of the physical repairs, he was in charge of getting the crew to work the way they were supposed to, since that collision should never have happened with proper training.

    2. On the plus side, a whole bunch of Western ammunition plants are ramping up production of artillery shells and other useful stuff. Bigly.

      Prior to the Ukraine fiasco, we barely could replace annual qualification expenditures. We gained a little slack exiting Ashcanistan, but not much. Z and P gave new life to ammo plants throughout the West, and the ramp-up was -big-.

      Which is -very- poorly timed for X looking to go island hopping.

      LOL

      1. Take a look at the timeline for replacing the Stingers we shipped to Ukraine. Or the production rate for SM-2s. People tend to think in terms of the Second World War, with stuff being made by the tens of thousands, or even millions, of units. Except for small arms ammo and some artillery shells, it’s more like the number of Rolls-Royce cars made in a year.

        1. I am looking at that. We are starting the ramp-up -before- China hits Taiwan. Or before we get interested in something elsewhere. Xi has to be unhappy about this.

          Also note we shipped a bunch of stuff at or near its use-by date. And got a bunch of practical data on what to expect from it.

          A net plus, I think, assuming we do ramp up. Just getting the surge orders started is to the positive.

          The bottleneck in small-arms ammunition is primers. The compounds used have serious regulatory and handling issues. But once you overcome that, the rest follows fairly fast. if we break the constraint on key systems -now-, the ramp-up is greatly shortened.

          The biggest constraint of all is our fat-dumb-and-happy “this is all we need every year” “we got this” thinking. Now, we are not FDH. Oopsie.

          Ever study “Theory of Constraints” as such? Lots of military crossover. (Normandy => landing craft.)

          1. And I do understand that an SM-2 or other complex system is more of a challenge than a 155mm shell, even with those lovely proximity fuses.

            Oddly, I used to work in the circuit board and chip industries. Every Patriot upgrade that shot down (or at) a Scud had a circuit board I helped make. (Yes, while waiting for my Desert Shield/Storm reserve callup that never came, I played Rosie the Riviter in a fast-turn board shop.

            1. Yup younger daughter works on quality for a variety various Raytheon/U Tech (they merged) products. The patriot missiles are pretty complex to crank out simple compared to SM-2/SM-6 or THAAD. And the radars? Take out a TPY-2 (the radar for a THAAD) and it’ll be AT least a year to replace it. With the phase array systems the level of manufacturing required is mind boggling. The ship based stuff is probably better, There are enough of those and enough spares in the pipeline that short the destruction of the whole DDG/CG you’re probably OK. The patriot radar is less of an issue it’s far earlier so less dependent on high level manufacturing, but there are issuse (older ones use some pretty obsolete electronics, there are upgrades, but its a ship it back to Raytheon and remanufacture it level change not a field swap). This isn’t new soviet invasion scenarios in the 80’s were quite clear that this was a come as you are affair. And the Iraq wars and resent Russian invasion of Ukraine have made it clear that levels of materiel usage were underestimated by almost an order of magnitude.

          2. The bottleneck in small-arms ammunition is primers. The compounds used have serious regulatory and handling issues. But once you overcome that, the rest follows fairly fast. if we break the constraint on key systems -now-, the ramp-up is greatly shortened.

            Civilian primers are getting an enormous boost in production capacity, courtesy of Palmetto State Armory.

            (Normandy => landing craft.)

            Something which China does not have in anything like the numbers needed to take Taiwan and has no way to build up without everybody seeing it.

    3. Throw in Chinese expansionism. Nobody else may have paid it attention

      Everyone noticed. The people who think China is a rising power pointed and reeeed. The people who know China is utterly and irredeemably fscked don’t care about moving titles around.

      1. Nobody is a rising power until they kick in some big fella’s teeth. Then everyone wants to know why the runt that roared was ignored.

        I would rather over-estimate their capacity and plan accordingly to exploit and crush it, versus assuming they would not / could not dare to Pearl Harbor us.

        They are -huge-. Mass has its own quality. As we learned in the early 50s, the CCP takes a whole bunch of killing, on a scale we have never fought anywhere else before or since. Make the MG barrels a good bit thicker and more heat resistant, pile the belts higher and deeper, because sure as duck we are going to need it.

        2. In 1950, Mao had a huge victorious army who had believed him when he promised them Utopia. Neither he, nor anyone else on earth, could possibly have delivered on those promises. Shipping them to Korea en masse was the quickest way to get rid of them, with the added advantage of making them the Americans’ problem instead of his own. Taking heavy casualties was not a bug, but a feature.

          Not much changed between then and the PLA’s last big foreign campaign in 1979. Deng Xiaoping, having just won firm control of the Party, decided that something had to be done about the army, which he called ‘thick-skinned, disunited, arrogant, lazy and soft’. He sent them into Vietnam partly, as Paul Johnson puts it, ‘to teach the PLA that life was a serious business’, and ensured that the least disciplined units suffered the worst casualties. He had no more trouble from them; but neither did China’s foreign enemies.

          The days are gone when the rulers of China could afford to throw away hundreds of thousands of their own men simply to keep the rest under control. Demography is a cruel quartermaster.

    5. Honestly, given the ages and health profiles of the participants, I wouldn’t be surprised if a candidate were to die from age-related/health-related causes. (More likely Biden, but still.)

      I mean, seriously, I’m tired of having Presidents born in the 1940s. That’s been true for over 30 years now, with the single exception of BO.

  10. I don’t think the Civil War starts in 2024, but it’s dependent on what happens in 2024. I think if the left “wins” the election they will foment WWIII in 2025, and with the low enlistment rates, they will try to draft the red state boys that stopped enlisting, and those boys will en masse decide to go to war with the leftist overlords rather than for them. So what I’m saying is WWIII is Civil War 2. But only if we lose the election, if the GOP flag bearer that picks up the banner after they assassinate Trump is the right man to wave that flag (I’d like Rand Paul, but that’s highly unlikely) he will stomp the leftist candidate, whoever it is. But the fraud will be massive, possibly too massive to stop, but we’ll have to try. We won’t survive the left winning the election.

      2. Not reported. Although I think those that stopped the assassinations should report it to the moon and back.

        1. Crazy Thoughts

          The Pros looked at Trump’s security and looked at the people trying to hire them then decided that they weren’t going to risk going up against Trump’s security and that their “pay-masters” would throw them to the wolves no matter if they killed Trump or not.

          The Amateurs got quickly taken down without getting close. (The Amateurs attempts didn’t get reported.”

          Then there may be some Pros who decided that the “pay-masters” were FBI trying to trap them.

          Finally, they may be people who took money to kill Trump and changed their addresses without attempting to kill Trump. 😈

          1. Arguably, every successful assassination of a US President has been done by a lunatic.

            “Lone Crazy” has a huge historical body count of national leaders, second only to “bodyguards”.

            Those two categories are why USSS folks burn out so quickly.

            1. This. The “Big Secret Conspiracy” assassination plot is fiction. The lone lunatic…that’s the real threat. It’s just that when the Propaganda Press is constantly whining about (GOP candidate du jour) = Hitler, it’s likely to encourage that lone nutjob.

                1. Yes, and that plot only got as far as an actual attempt because it included enough senior Wehrmacht officers to have a decent shot at taking over the state once Hitler was gone. Once his own officer corps started grumbling about the stupidity of ‘Gröfaz’, Hitler’s days were numbered. It was probably a 50-50 proposition whether he lived long enough to lose the war.

                  Hitler was probably the leader least likely to be taken out by a lone nutjob, because he was a nutjob himself and seldom showed up anywhere on schedule. The only place you could absolutely rely on him to show up was the conference room at Wolfsschanze, the most heavily guarded place in the Third Reich. So you had to have a ‘Big Secret Conspiracy’ containing at least one person with the required clearance to get into Wolfsschanze and plant a bomb.

                  Such circumstances are virtually impossible to duplicate.

                2. Filter for “successful” and see what you get. (grin)

                  Not an absolute rule, but a pretty strong trend: Lone Crazy or Bodyguard

                3. 8 November 1939 Bürgerbräukeller Bombing. Schedule change intervention by the Temporal Police was the only thing that saved him.

            2. IIRC, Booth led a small conspiracy. They didn’t spend months preparing, and the group was very small. But Booth wasn’t completely on his own.

          2. It doesn’t take much intelligence to figure any assassin who tries to get Trump will be “killed trying to escape.” Sort of puts a damper on the employment market.

        2. I’ve seen video clips of a few attempts and have read about others, courtesy Vast Right Wing (and “Conspiracy Theory is just 6 [weeks|months] ahead of the morning news”) media. There were a couple of attempts via motor vehicles (not necessarily under the driver’s control; hacking a modern vehicle’s steering and brakes has been demonstrated).

          OTOH, one wonders if Joe is going to get a special flavor of ice cream. (Probably not until/unless they get rid of VFICUS.)

      3. Just so long as they don’t get brazen enough to make the attempt blatantly government.

        It goes without saying that something like that would be very, very foolish and reckless.

    2. I’m waiting to see who suggests recruiting as many military-age “migrants,” into all the services as possible in order to overcome recruiting shortages. After all, they get gainful employment, the left gets obedient troops (yeah. Right) and Americans are deprived of military training as the first step in “weaning,” us off our, “dangerous addiction to guns.” What’s not to like?
      I mean, aside from the fact it won’t work.

      2. Sen. Duckworth ran that one up the flagpole but nobody saluted.

        According to Stars and Stripes, the proposed legislation, labeled the Enlist Act, is intended to bolster the military’s ability to meet it’s manpower requirements by increasing the number of eligible recruits in the United States.

        I have a vague sense of Dick Durbin or Jamie Raskin pushing something of that sort but I’ve reached an age where the idiotic proposals from those two officials is too excessive to bother remembering. Any time those clowns drop bait you can be reasonably confident of a hook’s barb in it.
        ~
        Rgrds,
        RES

          1. Hmmph. I recalled it being more recent so I only searched the last six months. Well, in my defense I was somewhat preoccupied for a couple, three months in the second quarter of the year.

            As that’s AP the article, even at the Right Post doesn’t finger the politicians picking up that ball and trying to run it downfield. One thing of which we can be sure is that the old-style military training as portrayed by John “Sands of Iwo Jima” Wayne, R. Lee “Full Metal Jacket” Ermey, and Louis “An Officer and a Gentleman” Gossett Jr. has been supplanted by the equivalent of Dylan Mulvaney.
            ~
            Rgrds,
            RES

          2. If I’m understanding the article correctly, they’re talking about a program that isn’t particularly new. The military has offered a path to citizenship for legal immigrants for a long time now. And from what I understand, in the past those that have used the program have been motivated and patriotic.

            Not what we’re worried about yet.

          3. The thing is, when the illegals are getting all the welfare benefits and handouts and more, than a legal citizen would, what incentive do they have to sign up to die to become a citizen?

            At that point, they’d just be enlisting for the privilege of getting taxed. It’s a dumb deal to take, so I don’t see many taking it.

            1. Please put down all beverages before proceeding beyond this point.

              when the illegals are getting all the welfare benefits and handouts and more, than a legal citizen would, what incentive do they have …

              Gratitude?

              Okay, I admit that most Progressives don’t know the meaning of that word (although they’ve great familiarity with “ingratitude” – which the recipients of Progressive consideration often demonstrate.
              ~
              Rgrds,
              RES

      3. “Draft/Enlist the illegals” is already being discussed by the Donks.

        Done in the manner of Roman Legions, it is quite workable. (“Legions of Rome” Stephen Dando-Collins)

        Done by LG Brandon? Disaster assured.

          1. Hey, I know! Station them in the countries they came from! They’d already know the language and the culture so that’s where they’d be most effective.

            Whaddya mean, that’s effectively the same as deporting them? Really? 😛

            1. Rome stationed the draftees -elsewhere-, so that loyalty to Rome/Legion was the key to survival. Hard to desert when you are an alien invader surrounded by hostiles.

              They also mass-discharged them elsewhere, giving them land and payouts, and a reserve callup commitment, in effect setting up little Romanized colonies.

              Those legionaries mostly were more fanatically Roman than the folks back in Rome.

        3. Urrr not liking that at all. The history of the Roman Empire using barbarians as well as Seleucid empire’s use of jannisaries are strong historical arguments against it (as well as a plethora of other issues). Of course our brahmandarins seems to think history goes back no further than somewhere between Vietnam and WWII (and they are rather vague on both). Given that you can be assured the Brahamandarins will try it if they get into sufficient control again.

          1. Don’t misread the “how”. The core Legions were almost entirely “foreign” recruited for most of the late republic and subsequent empire. There was huge effort to separate them form their homeland and acculturate them to Roman Legion standards of culture and belief. They were kept to the colors for 16 years, later 20, then offered discharge, citizenship, substantial coin payouts, and land grants. Those discharges were -elsewhere- than their origins.

            Those “foreigners” were more fanatically Romain-patriotic, in the ways that count, than most folks raised within 100 miles of Rome. They Romanized most of Europe, for example.

            The “barbarians” were auxiliary troops, attached to the Legions. These were often Cavalry, Slingers, archers, etc, specialist troops that were not shock/heavy Infantry. They earned folks back home coin/loot and favor of Rome.

            It was only when the overall Legion system broke down that “barbarian” troops became a liability. But by that point, not even the folks recruited from Rome were much better. At one point, Rome had 50 thousand centurions (unit leaders from company to legion sized units). These men could read and write (in an era of high illiteracy), perform and train -all- the skills and duties of a Legionary soldier, and a whole bunch more. They are professional soldier-leaders of a caliber not often seen in five millennia. When Rome fell apart, that type of Centurion was all but extinct.

            The Legions were far more “Rome” than those folks clustered around the Seven Hills.

            1. Also note the Eastern Roman Empire (the Constantinople Emperor’s side, who also referred to themselves as “Roman”) maintained functioning military in their half for another 800 years after the western half fell.

      4. Hard to believe they can actually be that fucking stupid, though — wanting to pack our armed forces with illegal aliens from places where military coups are a way of life, AFTER replacing the competent officers with soyboys and drag queens. It’s like they want to be first up against the wall.

        Because we won’t be leaping to their defense when their feral pets turn on them. We’ll be defending our own, and saying “We told you so.”
        ———————————
        Most days, I suspect that we could get a better government by picking 535 people at random. On bad days, I’m certain we’d get a better government by picking 535 people at random from lunatic asylums.

        1. Since “we” would be next, we would exterminate the rabid as quickly as possible, if we have any brains about us.

          The tribunals can come later.

  11. [blockquote]Gods and little fishies, guys, I wish I could tell you he would.[/blockquote]
    Offering the FBI a nice, shiny new DC headquarters building should he be elected does not speak well for that possibility. 😦 Best case is it’s intended as a bribe to get them to be a bit less likely to cover up Democrat fraud.

      1. Being sent to police DC (notice he seemed to be talking about street level crime like carjacking) gives a strong “being sent to the Russian Front!!” vibe.

    2. Stalin built rather decent apartment buildings for engineers.

      There were stairwells dedicated to KGB/etc use, and the doors from same into the apartments were unlockable. The metal stairs boomed ominously from the lightest footsteps.

      Yeah. A big beautiful new FBI headquarters, from the guy they so entusiasticly fucked without grease.

      Bet it has a rail line adjacent. Or smokestacks…

  12. More likely scathed, but alive, and ready to go on.

    Our family mantra for the past year or so has been, “We will survive, we will thrive.” We haven’t reached the thrive part yet.

  13. On the impeachorama, my prediction is the GOP is actually going to be running the House investigation to do discovery and generate more (and more, and more) evidence, but in order to use them as election fodder rather than report an actual bill of impeachment over to the Senate. If they do report one out, it’ll be so late it would only be as an “October ‘Surprise’” rather than hoping to actually get him out.

    1. Impeachment only works if the UniParty decides that they aren’t going to live outside the compound.

    2. This. Although I think they will pass a Bill of Impeachment, the Senate won’t vote to remove. This is about getting the facts nailed down and out in public.

      1. Exactly. Joe Biden could be caught with receipts from China describing the quid for the pro quo and there wouldn’t be five Democrats in the Senate who’d vote to impeach. And, may the dear Lord above forgive us, there’re probably at least that many Republicans in the Senate who would vote to acquit.

        “There’s an election coming up, let The People decide.”
        “Russian disinformation.”
        “He was just trying to help his drug-addicted son. You can’t impeach a man for being a loving father!”

        Pfui.
        ~
        Rgrds,
        RES

      2. Yup they want to air the dirty laundry in hopes that it will matter. Senate will not convict , I think only one democrat Senator (the Fettermonster) might defect and the independents all tend to caucus with the D so 50 – 50 (best case), 54-46 (if Fetterman and the Independents bolt) , its 2/3 to convict so not even a paper dogs chance in hell.

  14. We won’t survive the left winning the election.
    ………………………………

    This is being black pilled. We will survive the left winning the election. Won’t be fun. Rest of the world will have it worse. A lot worse. The usual suspect coastal and large cities will be worse cesspools. But we will survive.

    I find encouraging to see the usual suspect corporations eliminating DEI protocols. Appears they recognizing the original DIE order applies. Go figure. First casualties are those hired to administer DIE programs. Second casualties are those hired under DIE programs that were never qualified for the positions they were hired into. All to prevent the third and 4 casualties, losing the people who actually are qualified and the company itself.

  16. China…. Well, any big shipments from over there?

    You mean other than large numbers of military-aged males crossing our Southern “Border”?

    Anyone else noting the incompatibility of denunciations of settler colonialism” and open borders? That’s like seating matter and anti-matter next to each other at Thanksgiving Dinner.
    ~
    Rgrds,
    RES

    1. Yep. The left is screaming to the horde of immigrants, “all these American white people have what you deserve”. If they take the lefts advice and carry out massive violence the left will be burned to the ground as a result. I don’t know what they are thinking but they are waving that particular flame thrower around.

    2. The illegal immigrant horde -is- decolonization in action.

      Not a trace of irony or contradiction once you understand who they mean by “colonizer”. It is narrowly and specifically defined.

      You get decolonized, never them.

  17. At any rate, the one thing I can tell you is that it will be nothing like what the left is predicting.

    Well, what is, eh? What is ever like the Left predicts?

    The only confidence one can reasonably hold in their predictions is a) whatever they predict the results will be drastically contrary and b) their MSM arm will report it otherwise. They’ll not only be wrong, they’ll lie about being wrong (either by denying the resulting facts or claiming the results were what they’d predicted from the start. See “Global Winter” “Global Warming” “Climate Change”).
    ~
    Rgrds,
    RES

    1. In other news Jim Cramer is predicting a strong economy in 2024.

      So…. massive fucking crash coming. He’s almost Erlich level always totally wrong.

  18. “You guys don’t know, because you’re not immigrants, but the vision of America in most foreign heads is of a land of ease and plenty, where you don’t have to lift a finger to be well fed, and have money to send home too.”

    QFT.

    I think a significant part of his family STILL thinks we’re just mean, twenty-plus years on.

  19. Tomorrow my husband goes in for his heart procedure. That’ll be one item off my list of concerns.

    The next is whether there’ll be a show season this year. Even if they don’t try to do something like the 2020 lockdowns, I have this weird feeling that something is going to happen such that conventions don’t happen, or at least a lot of our scheduled conventions don’t happen.

    Which leads to figuring out how to stay productive in the face of crazy, so I don’t spend most of my time spinning my wheels like I did in 2020. I could’ve gotten a lot of those partially written stories and novels finished and up, if I hadn’t lost my focus so completely.

    1. Good luck on the procedure. May his recovery be uncomplicated.

      As for the show season … I don’t think they’ll try widespread lockdowns because they can’t afford widespread flouting of their edicts.
      ~
      Rgrds,
      RES

        1. I’m thinking more on the order of some kind of crisis such that they can shut down “frivolous” travel and gathering because we have more pressing needs for the resources. I’ve read several commentators bruiting about the idea that our obligations to Taiwan could be used as an excuse to put in place restrictive “wartime measures” that would shut down the parts of the economy that they don’t like, and make it easier to silence dissent, etc.

          OTOH, if they can’t get buy-in on their war, it might be our side that’s objecting this time. And this go-round, it won’t be protests and sit-ins.

          Where that goes, I really don’t want to think.

        2. Sounds like they’re trying in LA and Marin County in Cali-f’n-ornia. I’m hoping that our current guv (Tina the unfortunate surnamed, D-OR) doesn’t take that as a challenge, like Despicable Kate Brown did.

      2. Thanks. Everything went well and he’s now recovering. He’ll stay overnight and should be discharged tomorrow. Two weeks and then he starts cardiac rehab. We should be good to start the new show season in March.

        1. Good to hear; been there, done that (back in ’17); surgeon cut a myxoma about the size of a Greyhound bus out of my right atrium and I was out of IC in 3 days. Recovery ain’t fun, but I was back to almost normal in about 6 months and I’m still here. 🙂

    2. CNN is already screaming about a deadly respiratory disease going around (didn’t read the article, came up browsing the news feed).

  20. [T]his bulk of immigrants does seem to be male, so you can’t even flop around like a fish and say they’re changing our demographics forever.

    Okay, I’m not saying I believe this, just saying it’s not unbelievable.

    Those incoming males are not soyboys, they probably don’t believe women are “powerful” and able to do anything a man can do. More probably, their presentation of masculinity triggers the hormonal consequences of millions of years’ evolution and American women fall over begging to be knocked up.

    Remember, it is the Left that proclaims Evolution Is Real (as if more than 1 in a million could actually explain the theory) while we on the Right say G-D designed us to a pattern (and yes, that pattern was encoded by a process over millions of years …) – either way, the pattern is not rewritten by a generation or two of insane doctrine.

    The next generation of Americans is being fathered by those most willing to sire. Those probably are not the ones deferring to women.

    I used to believe in the days I was pure
    And I was pure like you used to be
    My wonderful someone will come to me someday and then it will all depend on me
    If he’s a fine man, if he’s a rich man,
    Wears a fine cravat, smokes a cigar
    And if he’s gallant and treats me like a lady then I shall tell him
    Sorry

    Chin up high keep your powder dry
    Don’t relax or go too far.
    Look, the moon is gonna shine till dawn
    Keep the little rowboat crusing on and on
    You stay perpendicular
    Oh, you can’t just let a man walk over you
    Cold and dignified is what you are
    Such a whole lot of things can happen
    So firmly say but sweetly
    Sorry

    One day comes a man
    But what kind of a man
    Do you know why he does what he does
    He walked into my room and he hung up his hat
    And I just didn’t know where I was
    He was a lean man, he was a mean man
    He didn’t own a cravat, smoked no cigar
    And God knows he never made me feel a lady.
    Just wasn’t time for sorry
    Chin up high my chin was down
    My shoes and I relaxed, but far too far
    Oh, the way the moon kept shining on
    The night was nice for rowing and this girl was gone
    Not so perpendicular
    So you let a man just walk right over you
    Who said dignified is what you are
    Such a wonderful lot of terrible things did happen
    And now it’s you can tell me
    Sorry

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAR3MPdbZ3Y
    It’s Bertolt Brecht’s world and were just dancing in it.~
    Rgrds,
    RES

      2. Brecht did base Threepenny Opera (whence came Barbara Song) on English playwright John Gay’s 1728 work The Beggar’s Opera. There’s little telling from where Gay swiped it.

        Although a familiarity with the Childe Ballads certainly indicates the attitudes were not uncommon.
        ~
        Rgrds,
        RES

  21. You guys don’t know, because you’re not immigrants, but the vision of America in most foreign heads is of a land of ease and plenty, where you don’t have to lift a finger to be well fed, and have money to send home too.

    What most Americans don’t realize is that the customer “service” at the DMV and the Veteran’s Administration is a Best Case Scenario in most of the rest of the world.
    ~
    Rgrds
    RES

    2. Because at least the DMV does not openly solicit bribes for their ‘services’.

      Most of the world, that’s business as usual. Everybody’s on the take. Here it’s only the politicians, and they try to hide it.

      1. Usually.

        And the FBI still generally nails the more blatantly corrupt ones, though the suspect might be able to get away with a resignation and a wrist slap afterwards (coupled with a promise not to run for office again). That’s what happened to Leland Yee here in California, after the FBI accused him of running weapons to Filipino terrorists.

        1. The FBI has to do that, lest the corruption become embarrassingly blatant and cast suspicion upon those members who understand there are rules for corruption. That’s one of the reasons they’re going after Menendez but ignoring the Biden and Pelosi Families.

          The ethical loopholes should be sufficient and the sheep are likely to become alarmed if the shearers get too obviously greedy.
          ~
          Rgrds,
          RES

  22. [T]he innovation, etc. got pushed to the edges and the places the important people thought were unimportant.

    That’s the only way to defend investment value. Taxi Medallions in New York dropped from $1M in 2014 to $80K in 2021.

    Why? Innovation. Uber, Lyft, unlicensed livery. Rideshare

    Hotel revenues similarly collapsed as a result of Airbnb.

    Centralized Control of the Economy cannot respond to the speed of innovation, and the creative destruction at the root of Free Market Entrepreneurship, like water, will always find a way in, even if only through Black Markets.

    If They can’t control the economy They can’t control us … and they can only control the economy by impoverishing everyone outside the nomenklatura.
    ~
    Rgrds
    RES

  23. What I can say is that I will not underestimate them this time.

    The dynamic I see in the Left (and some of the Right) is more commonly observed in contentious divorces (or family inheritance battles, which are essentially the same thing) in which the party of the first part would rather see the China destroyed than going to the party of the second part (and vice-versa).

    This is because the primary goal is not gathering value to oneself but denying value to the other.

    TL/DR: Things will be ugly.

    We’re already seeing the Left engaging in destroying Democracy in order to save it. (Some would say destroying Democracy under the guise of preventing Trump’s destruction of it. Po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to.)
    ~
    Rgrds,
    REDS

      1. What value is there to being Gentry/Nomenclatura if you have no Peons/Proles to abuse or exploit? Where is the fun in that?

  24. Or do they no longer teach mere reproduction?

    That would be breeder kink. And fertile reproduction is the one sexual inclination it’s perfectly safe to shame.

          2. It used to be that bad behavior was considered a sign of a Changeling. Looking around, I’m thinking you’ve overhunted the resource….. 😎

  26. The economy concerns me the most.

    The 2024 election will be a dumpster fire in my opinion – but so was every election after 2016 and I suspect well into the future. But the economy…

    The economy – or at least the ability to generate a functional economy – ultimately lies outside the ability of government to create or control. They can only mess it up. And even now, in the midst of what sure looks like a declining economy from where I sit – mind you, I sit at the ground floor, not in the upper levels of the ivory tower – I do not see an easy end. A government cannot will an economy into being, it can only destroy it.

    1. Yeah, I’ve got a few .sig’s along those lines:

      Governments can only print money; they can’t make it worth anything. They can make it worth nothing.

      Governments can’t create prosperity; at best, they can refrain from destroying it.

      Government can’t turn failure into success, but it sure can turn success into failure.

      It is not within the power of any government to increase the value of unskilled labor, only to raise its cost.

  27. Fox is re-running the DeSantis-Gruesom debate from a month ago. I could only stand to watch about 5 minutes.

    Gruesom was a greasy, slippery bastard, evading every question by reciting a bunch of unrelated left-wing talking points. When hammered about the economy, crime, and the drug-addicted ‘homeless’ taking over California cities, Gruesom claimed that Republicans are going to outlaw abortion, contraceptives and sex education — lies that were debunked years ago. Every time DeSantis and moderator Sean Hannity tried to bring the debate back on point, Gruesom launched into more left-wing rants.

    It made my brain hurt, so I turned it off.
    ———————————
    ‘Progressives’ believe everybody else is even stupider than they are. This explains a lot.

  29. “There is a reason so many geeks in the nineties went to find women abroad.”

    Still happening, as I’ve noted here from time to time. Only it’s not just geeks anymore.

  30. So, number one, you don’t do population replacement by importing males
    Ask your friendly neighborhood racist about Battle Axe, Funnelbeaker, and Corded Ware culture.

    Importing males for ‘population replacement’ is a primordial part of Western history.

    1. Sure it is. When they kill every male. Is that part of the plan? HOW?
      Are you out of your bloody mind, or that ignorant of history? Leftists think they’re invading, but this is a very odd invasion, where if they try to kill the men, it’s on like donkey kong.
      Stop babbling and do the thinking.

  31. I can vouch (having lived there 14 years in my youth and among them in El Norte ever since) that Mexicans love pale skin, blue eyes and blond hair. I mean, LOVE it. They have some cultural problems but a willingness to work hard is not one of them. And there are enough of their former compatriots already here to show them the ropes.

    China is fucked with caca sprinkles on top. Xi is making it all worse; he may ultimately outperform Mao as he has more to work with. They publicly deplore America but would sell their entire family in a heartbeat in exchange for a chance to come. Those that do come, I’ve met them, are surprised that the gold that Americans are too lazy to pick up is actually hard to find and requires actual work. They too will work, but will be harder to integrate.

    The Chaos Army being imported may find itself unexpectedly outclassed, outmaneuvered and out logisiticed. And if the Blue Helmets show up, Katie bar the door. Interesting times are not always a bad thing.

    1. just a glance at their TV shows tells you the Mexicans (and other Central American countries, if the El Salvadoran shows my neighbor liked are typical) lurv the blondes. “If there isn’t one blonde hottie crying, it ain’t a Mexican soap opera” – Doug (former co-worker in Lousyana)

  32. Thread title: You mean this isn’t a fundraiser? (grin)

    Thread picture: Wyle E. Coyote just got “Beep! Beep! whistle POW!”ed off the bridge and crashed.

  33. Well, I may as well join the fun with Predictions Posted Elsewhere:

    – Dumb things will happen

    – Despite having lived through the century to date, we will be nonetheless shocked by just how dumb those things are

    – They will be responded to in the dumbest possible ways, which will not actually shock us, so yay us?

    – The world will spin on, with or without us

      1. LOL. I doubt I could make a living writing for Spartans, let alone the demanding readers whose habits you feed. Can you imagine the 11B-Mailclerk guest posts:

        …

        Don’t be or tolerate an asshole.

        …

        Do or do not. There is no Whine.

        ….

        Have a mastered gun handy.

        ….

        (grin)

  35. Two words that ironically give me hope. Javier Mileil. If I have spelled him correctly. If Argentina! can come to her senses so can we.

    1. Can we make Argentina a state and grant full residence to Millei? That’s the ONLY way we can legally have him run for president. The man makes commies heads explode, thats hot to be a big win…

      1. Doesn’t work that way. he has to be born within the USA, 35+ years old, and 14 years resident of it. “Natural born” citizen versus “Naturalized”.

        Absorbing, annexing, conquering a place doesn’t erase that.

        Article II, Section 1, Clause 5
        No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

  36. And this is what I mean by doomist and trying to stampede us. The same article added the helpful “terrifying” fact that half of young adult Americans have a parent born abroad.

    It apparently never occurred to the soft-headed leftist loons that this is another way of saying that the immigrants are massively integrating as we would hope.

    1. Indeed. I remember reading about some interesting research a while back that grandchildren of the latest waves of immigrants were culturally indistinguishable from average Americans.

      1. 1676 Baconist
        (Okay, not exactly a morally upright rebellion, but the spirit of rebellion in the then colonies does go back quite a bit farther than folk sometimes realize).

  39. Re: Importing blood from China to keep Xiden & the other wights viable – gotta find some ise for the good Uighurs.

    Also, FWIW, the typhoon season in the South China Sea starts in June.

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