The Far View

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Some of you know that this week — other than the zombie dishwasher (yes, again. habitues of the blog know there was another zombie dishwasher now almost 20 years ago, in another state. I swear I don’t do anything to them. In both cases, they were in houses we bought.) — I’ve been making unkind and untoward comments about Europe and the thought processes or what passes for them over there.

Mostly because I’m amazed the very people who taught me to be distrustful of everything I see on mass media are swallowing wholesale the view of European media about…. well, anything, much less the US, Trump, and their own governments.

Look, I have a strong stomach, and, having been on the net forever, I’m highly inured to human folly, but to hear someone who pegs right of center tell me that Biden was a reasonable and smart human being, not like that crazy man Trump is bad enough. When she then tells that Two Tier Keir is just nice and full of good intentions, I’m going to rampantly violate Heinlein’s golden rule and tell the unvarnished truth.

I’m fairly sure I’m not a sadist, so I must be a fool.

The truth though is that Europe trying to interpret what they see going on over here is roughly akin to a cat trying to interpret what it seems me doing on the computer. No. I don’t mean in terms of intelligence, but in terms of life experience. The cats even if our intelligence were the same, wouldn’t have the life experience to see what I do. At best, they’ll think I push the keys for the feel of them. And — supposing they had human intelligence — from that construct an entire system of theories on why we do things.

Despite being the same species, sharing a language with a portion of Europe natively, and with a large number of Europeans as a second language, and generally having the same outward daily trappings to life, i swear to you when it comes to governance, Europeans trying to interpret what we’re up to, often looks like my cat trying to figure out why I sit here tapping the keys for vast portions of the day.

And then today, at dinner, I was reminded the lack of understanding goes both ways. Okay, I just found the woman at the bar — performing for three men. No, not that way, just, you know, being all sparkly and “smart” — hilarious.

Yeah, we ended up at a bar for well, appetizers in lieu fo dinner, because of the dishwasher disaster. Late, so bar mostly empty except for said blond. Yes, of course she was blond. I mean, I have blond friends, but some people are inevitably blond. Because the Author uses cliches.

Anyway, the Mathematician kept shooting me warning glances, and when he went to the bathroom to wash his hands made me go along with him into the little hallway and wait there, because he kept seeing my eyes light up with “oh, what now?” and was afraid I’d jump in.

Not only were we informed that all food everywhere but the US is wonderful and good for you, but all US food is crap (no, not processed food. The food you cook in your kitchen, too, is somehow bad for you.) But then I found out she was talking about Asian street food in countries where I know it’s trivially easy to catch the never get wells. And some of the dishes, I know how they’re actually made over there, and….. ewwwwwwww. But by the point she informed her companions she spoke a little Asian, the Mathematician…. dragged me into the little hallway. and whispered in my ear, “DO NOT go back there and inform her you speak a little European. Other people’s mating rituals are none of your concern.”

Yes, from what I gathered she was MAGA by way of RFK Jr. (For this and our other sins may the Good Lord forgive us.)

Anyway, the thing was she had obviously traveled. But it’s hard to know what you’re seeing. It’s harder for most Europeans to know what they’re seeing here because they are only “seeing” us through their media, which assumes a priori that our media is biased for the “right” and therefore they skew any news to the left, to be — they think — accurate. Also because if they don’t skew left they don’t get invited to cocktail parties, don’t get the good jobs, their landlords evict them and the opinion police arrest them, but you know, like that.

This is akin to watching something through the wrong end of the telescope.

All the same, the biggest problem is the divide int he stuff inside the head. I mean, I was raised on that side of the Atlantic and lived there till 22 (with intervals.) So I should “get them” instinctively.

But I don’t. I kept stumbling on things on their news programs, which made no sense to me. Like, some secretary or minister or whatever talking about how many day cares they’d authorize for building in the next 20 years. I think that was in Spain. (Might have been Holland. I had a fever and things were fuzzy.) Or talking about the necessity of the government building houses. Or–

Look, Europe was fairly alarmed at the American revolution. Because long before they were socialist, they believed the person (preferably the one, at the center) who ruled the country had every right to make every decision for everyone by divine right. When they stopped believing in G-d, they started believing that person was simply better and smarter. They can’t not believe that. (Reminds us of our blind little throwbacks “You have to belong to something, so we think we should belong to the government.” Can we send them back?)

Anyway, their minds on this are so completely different, that they knew a government of the people for the people had to be either a great big lie, or it would fail in weeks. They’ve been gleefully expecting us to fail.

The FDR deviation reassured them — we still weren’t like them. Still too individualistic for trusting — but they thought we might be okay. The sensible people were finally in charge, and we’d become a normal country by the by.

And of course, we protected their butts, as was right, since Europe is the center of the universe and we owe it to them to keep them safe.

I think what’s going on is that even through their occluded vision of us is a mess, they have gleaned enough through the glimmers, to have a strong suspicion we’re doing the American revolution thing again. (You know they might be right.) And returning to our origins.

And that’s unpossible! How can we do that to them!

They’re locked into a scream of “Trump is ruining everything.” And “Doesn’t he know we’ll fall, and therefore civilization will fall if he doesn’t send Kansas boys to die for our interests.”

Meh. Weirdly I DO understand their fears. After all, we’ve saved them, technically twice, but really three times already.

But understanding is not the same as sympathizing. All right. Maybe a little bit of sympathy. I will refrain from posting pictures of European cars captioned “European or Donald Duck’s?” At least this week.

Seriously, we’re scaring the living daylights out of them over there. And us over here can’t help but feeling it’s a little bit funny.

It probably isn’t. Panicked people do very weird things.

Hang on tight, we’re on the track that leads to the interesting ride. It has to be done. It’s already too late for telling the Europeans to pick up their own rooms and mind their own defense. But it’s going to get more and more interesting as we go!

And telling them the unvarnished truth is unlikely to help.

298 thoughts on “The Far View”

        2. Son came with a full head of black, not brown, hair. Mine went dark with red highlights quickly as a child (early photos are black & white, hair shows “light”). Red highlights turned white in my 20’s. Was fully going white with gray, with a few black, in my 50’s. Don’t know exactly because was coloring to light brown. Before 2020 was already using lighter and lighter brown coloring to phase out coloring altogether. 2020 just hastened the process. Why all this? Because my hair, in most situations, now shows “white blond”. It isn’t. It is white with some gray and a few black. I get random strangers asking who does my hair color. It’s natural is not believed. Oh well.

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        3. When we were small, you could look at our photograph and determine which little girl was which of us three sisters not only by height but by darkness of hair.

          Then I hit 12 and my hair shot to much darker than my older sister’s. (She caught up, but only about 20 or so.)

          Then our younger sister hit 12 and shot up in height. (Neither of us caught up.)

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      2. Much the same here. I was a lot more adorable as a blond, but of course most of us were more adorable when we were three. As to whether shedding blondness equates with gaining wisdom, I will leave that to better philosophers than I. My growing wiser seemed to lag the process …

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      3. Born strawberry blond. Now dishwater. Do not get me started on the argument I had with the young thing behind the counter when I had to go get a new Driver’s license. My hair is not and never has been brown. It is dark or dishwater blond. I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.

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          1. Only because I’ve learned through painful experience to stay out of the sun (I don’t tan, unlike some redheaded jerks I know. :P ), and when I get a lot of sun, or used to, the red was the first thing to go.

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            1. Now now, I don’t tan (if you were talking about me). I freckle, very briefly, and then I burn :D I avoid it by slathering on massive amounts of sunscreen if i’m gonna be outside. The only reason I don’t insta-burn is because I lucked out and got mom’s dark eyes, lol

              The platinum blonde/blue eyed friend of mine from middle school/high school who turned a lovely brown, though…that was just unfair!!

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              1. *Waves in photophobic* I held the All Flat State record for 0 to lobster. My boss thought I was joking about burning while looking at photos of sunny beaches. Then he saw what happened when I had to work outside for fifteen minutes in summer without a hat, and with my sleeves rolled up. (Mild burn, not too painful).

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                1. That’s me. I like to refer to my skin tone as fish-belly white, with that lovely blue undertone…. :P I used to live about 20 minutes from the beach and when I went it was after 4, hat, sunscreen, long pants, and long sleeves.

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        2. The last driver’s license I got still has the red-brown hair on it. The red went to gray a decade ago, but nooooo. #SMH

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    2. I have two older brothers who were blond as youths. Oldest was blond until bald, Middle was strawberry blond, but turned brown/gray. (I was red-brown, with the red going gray first.) Nieces on both sides were blond-ish. Haven’t seen pics in a while. Advantages/disadvantages to being 2000+ miles from family dramas.

      Several years ago, I saw a “blonds have more fun” sort of license plate surround. It was carefully installed upside down. Props to the owner. :) (I assume it was deliberate. :) )

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      1. Dolly Parton on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (obviously, many moons ago), approximately …

        Carson: What do you say to people who cal you a dumb blonde?

        Dolly: Well, I know I’m not dumb, and I sure as heck ain’t blonde!

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          1. There was/is a show where artists from different musical genres get together to perform each other’s songs and others in the same genre. Ah, looked it up: CMT “Crossroads”.

            Dolly was on with Melissa Etheridge; during one segment, an audience member called out “I love you, Dolly!”.

            She replied “I thought I told you to wait in the truck.”

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  2. I am amused the strange European attitude that by going alone and solving their own problems they are somehow hurting or spiting us. As if that wasn’t what we’ve been asking them to do for decades

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        1. With respect to NATO, I’m getting a sense of our people giving the “don’t throw me into the briar patch” vibe.

          Oh, you don’t want us in NATO? Oh dear! Anyway.

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    2. Years ago we encountered a German at a viewing area in the Rockies who promptly unburdened himself to us because we were American and wouldn’t turn him in. It was rather sad, because his opinions were absolutely normal….for Americans.

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    4. For that matter, they’ve been *trying* to do that for decades, or at least they’ve been trying to be a bit less attached to the apron strings. Remember the European peace-keeping mission in Yugoslavia? We ended up having to provide support for it (and on the positive side, some of the people in that region are grateful that we did). Remember the European quick reaction force brigade? Never got started. The Europeans have had grand ideas about finally doing something that will show that Europe Stronk! But they never get past the talking stage – except for in Yugoslavia, and we know how that turned out. Poland and Finland are now sufficiently alarmed to start building up their own militaries, and the French (despite jokes to the contrary) have a reasonably effective one – for Europe. But Germany’s sitting right smack in the middle of it all with a military that basically relies on the fact that Warsaw is between the Russian border, and Berlin. And unfortunately, the British military is fading fast. A week or two ago someone claimed that Starmer was about to announce that he was sending British troops to Ukraine (supposedly to free up Ukrainian troops in the rear areas), and my snarky comment was, “What troops?”

      But it is hilarious to see people like Kristol warn us that Trump’s actions might cause the Europeans to stand strong. Cue the meme with Peter Parker and Harry Osborn, with Peter telling Harry that he’s already good with it, and doesn’t need to be sold on it any further.

      I also see people keep bringing up that the US is the only country that’s invoked the NATO treaty, and we should be grateful that Europe came to assist us in both Afghanistan and Iraq. My response is to note that just because NATO hasn’t been invoked doesn’t mean that the US didn’t back Europe up in Yugoslavia and Libya.

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  3. Bet she never had Delhi Belly or any of its cousins. Likely she never got beyond Asia Light in Honkers or Singapore where the streets are clean and the street food regulated, and yes, mostly delicious.

    I spent a lot of time in Asia. In Pakistan they sell tea out of cauldrons on the street. You can drink the tea, but you can’t use the cup. Everywhere, Only drink sparkling water and listen for the hiss. No milk, no ice, no raw food. Only piping hot. Keep your mouth closed in the shower.

    Still, it’s gotten better than it was in the heroic times of the Raj when the local Brits brushed their teeth using gin.

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    1. I don’t reveal which Asian country I live in where anyone can Google it, but I will say that in that country, I eat the street food all the time and almost never get sick. (And when I do, other people who ate at the same place don’t, so it was more likely a stomach bug than food poisoning). Most street food stalls are good about washing their plates, silverware, etc. — and although you shouldn’t drink the tap water, it’s perfectly okay for washing dishes with.

      I have lived in other countries before, where I had to soak lettuce in a dilute chlorine bleach solution overnight, then rinse it thoroughly, before it was safe to eat. So it’s very nice to live in a country where I can just buy safe-to-eat lettuce from the grocery store, and the only reason I need to wash it is to get the bits of dirt off (same as in America).

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      2. I was always less careful in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea. Still careful, but less so. Then again, my system tends to be fairly fragile, I have trouble with a lot of US tap water for example.

        I only got sick, sick the once and that was Bangladesh and I had been super careful but sometimes — happens.

        didn’t actually start out to pun, but it’s funny how things come out.

        Oops did it again.

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        1. I will neither confirm nor deny whether I live in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, or South Korea.

          And yes, digestive-system puns just sort of happen, don’t they?

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      3. I’ve recently met someone who has a Chinese husband and until recently was raising her family in China. She talks about how many times they wash produce—I think it’s three times, but it could be more. One of the times is the bleach wash, and the final one is to rinse off all the nasty things you had to use to make sure the produce was safe to eat.

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      4. My (Russian) co-workers were aghast that I had drunk the tap water while in Moscow. It didn’t do anything obviously harmful and it wasn’t enough for heavy-metal poisoning. I also ate street vendor food (I think the street vendors are gone, now) without issue – and was not warned that it was a potential issue until afterward.

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      5. When we were in. Bucharest our (American) professor suggested we try the Happy Chicken down the street. Behind his backmthe Romanian students shook their heads. Once we wandered by the Happy Chicken after closing, we understood why.

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      1. depends on the gin. I rather like gin, with tonic to keep off the Malaria or 6 parts gin to one part vermouth for a civilized martini.

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          1. I suspect the virtue of vodka is that it doesn’t pretend to taste like anything but alcohol. I wouldn’t know, though: I’ve never tried it and have no desire to, as my opinion of most liquors is exactly the same as yours.

            There’s one exception, though. When a friend of mine was finishing his term of service in the Army, I went with his dad and brother to help him get moved out. When we were done, we went to an Irish pub in town (this was in the USA). I had the best shepherd’s pie I’ve ever tasted, and my friend ordered a Scotch whiskey whose name I actually recognized (but can’t remember now — it was Glen something, but I don’t remember if it was Glenmorangie or Glenfiddich, or even something else; there are many Scotch whiskeys whose name starts with “Glen”, for obvious reasons if you know anything about Gaelic).

            I asked if I could try a sip of my friend’s whiskey (just a sip, it was a $25 drink — in 2010 dollars — and I wasn’t going to mooch beyond a tiny taste), and it was the first time I’ve actually enjoyed the taste of a distilled liquor. It was also the first time I really understood what it means when a whiskey is called “smooth”.

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            1. My father, MY FATHER heaven help him, has seduced me into Port Wine on the rocks as a summer drink. It shouldn’t be good. It should be watered down liquor, but oh my, on a hot summer day….
              Unlike him, though, I only use inferior Port Wine for that. Because I’m not made of money! And don’t have friends who own Port Wine farms.

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              1. One of my grandfather’s prized possessions was a Rex Whistler painting of a monocled Guards officer saying “Port Sir, is the only wine.”

                never did find out what happened to the painting, I suppose my cousin has it since his father, my uncle, got it off Whistler during the war. Worth a pretty penny now,

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              2. My great grandfather not only smuggled Canadian whiskey across the border, but had his own still that used into the 1950s. We sold the copper off in the 90s when my grandmother moved into town.

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              3. I mean, when you live in the region where they make port wine…

                My in-laws live in northern New York, close to the border with Canada. They only use real maple syrup on their pancakes. Because up there, you can literally buy it directly from the producer who lives 15 miles away, and not have to pay any middlemen or transport costs. Result: you can buy 1 liter (33.8 fl oz) of real maple syrup for $15.25, and I have the photo to prove it.

                What does maple syrup cost where you live? I’d bet it’s twice as much, at least: transporting liquids isn’t cheap, which is why most orange/apple/whatever juice you see in the store is labeled “from concentrate”.

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          1. Well…. you know we’re provincials, out here in the boonies. :D
            TBF older son tells me the problem is that I’ve only tried bad gin. I don’t know. Next time I visit him I’ll let him introduce me to the good stuff.

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            2. Bad gin is really bad and could put anyone off. There’s a lot of variability in gin and it definitely helps if you like juniper since that the usual flavor. If you find you don’t like the dry, London gin try Plymouth Gin with a dash of Angostura bitters for the classic Royal Navy tipple “pink gin.”

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    3. I drank the tap water in Germany, Austria, Poland, Moravia, and the Baltic without ill effects. Much to the chagrin of my interpreters and fellow college students, some times. (But drinking out of a public fountain is perfectly fine. Go figure!) I did NOT drink the water in Mexico when I was working there.

      My folks were the only ones on a trip to India who avoided the Raj’s Revenge. They tipped the ice-cooled drinks into a potted plant. The others drank them. Don’t do that.

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  4. The European leaders are panicked in the same way that children are when Mom & Dad tell them they need to go do the paperwork for their first car/apartment/… on their own without a helicopter parent

    The fact that the US has been telling them to grow up and stop living in the US’s metaphorical basement for at least 8 years now (and probably earlier, I recall gripes from Dubya) just makes it worse

    Of course the fact that at the same time European citizens are upset with their leaders for blame shifting the fact that they have made things worse in so many ways. I don’t know where this ends but I’m sure the leaders intend to blame Trump for all the bad things that happen to Europe in the next few years instead of taking responsibility for their own (in)actions. What I think is moderately clear i that around 20-25% of the voters in all Euro nations have already seen through that charade and I expect that number to increase along with the immiseration

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    1. Back when there were two Germanys, the “good” Europeans still hated us. Buncha uppity underclassmen. Buncha ungrateful savages.

      Well, they deeply influenced us. And odds are we won’t try to save France and England from Germany again. Assuming the three wannabee Caliphates can’t get along, that is.

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      1. You just reminded me of the meme I saw on Instapundit’s overnight open thread (unless it was Sarah’s Saturday meme collection, but I think it was Instapundit):

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      2. There is an argument to be made that we were on the wrong side of WW1.

        Imagine if Moltke hadn’t been an idiot and deliberately violated Britain’s security guaranties to Belgium. In theory, Britain (and thus the empire) could have either stayed out or jumped in on the Germans’ side.

        ((happy thoughts of a crushed France and no USSR)

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        1. Actually it wasn’t the younger Moltke’s idea. Violating Belgian neutrality was part of the Schlieffen Plan from its inception. Schlieffen’s gambit was to bet that if France could be crushed before the UK could get mobilized and move troops across the Channel, they would be willing to accept a peace. The younger Moltke lacked his uncle’s forceful personality and wasn’t willing to risk Russian incursions while France was being squashed, so he weakened the forces on the west to shore up the east, which was a big part of the stalemate.

          If the war had come even a year earlier (IIRC there was some kind of provocation in late 1912 or early 1913), Schlieffen’s grand scheme might’ve actually worked and we might’ve ended up with a world more like my dieselpunk ‘verse (although that one also involved TR not trying for a third term, so Taft gets a second term and Woodrow the Socialist stays on the sidelines).

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          1. Moltke pulled troops out of the swing through Belgium into the center, causing the German advance to just miss. It was a very close run thing indeed. He took counsel of his fears and lost.

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          2. Yes, it was Schlieffen’s plan, but Moltke was the guy who ordered it executed. On the other hand, had they actually knocked France out in the outset like they planned…

            They came within a hair’s breadth of it too. As I recall, their push for Paris allowed a mostly trashed French army to escape and regroup.

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            2. If Von Kluck had kept going where he was supposed to go, even with the weakening of his German divisions on their right for silly distractions like the Russians advancing on Berlin, Paris would have fallen. As it was, Von Kluck wanted in on the glory of marching into Paris and instead of sweeping around Paris and turning the French flank like the frelling plan said, he turned and ran his pointy helmet right into into the end of the French line and got stopped, which stopped everyone, and they started digging trenches.

              Lots of folks do not realize how dynamic that first part of WWI actually was. With the German Army swinging very fast through Belgium and France, and the Tsar’s Russians pushing quickly towards Berlin, everything was movement. But once it stopped the heavy machine gun and artillery meant it was stuck, with no way to achieve the cavalry officer’s dream of a “decisive breakthrough”. Only in the German 1918 offensive did tactics and training, and to a small degree, tanks, came together right at the end to break loose the stalemate, but then the Americans arrived in quantity, and the Germans back home revolted (frelling battleship sailors), and that was that.

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              1. Von Kluck was an interesting figure. He was not of the Junkers nobility, but of middling sorts who rose to general’s rank by ability, so he was given a patent of nobility so he’d have the social status to match his rank in an aristocratic society. It’s possible that, at that critical juncture, a certain insecurity raised its ugly head and led him to an act of glory-seeking — and thus failure.

                Unlike the war that followed, there really weren’t any Complete Monsters in WWI (not that Allied propaganda didn’t try to paint the Kaiser as one), but an intersection of human flaws and frailties to create a catastrophe. The Kaiser was small and slightly built, with a crippled arm, and compensated with larger-than-life bluster and pageantry which was easily portrayed as vicious war-mongering. Germany itself was a latecomer on the international stage, having united in 1870 from a collection of principalities bound primarily by a common language and culture, and was hurrying to catch up with the other Great Powers, particularly France and the UK, which had far longer histories as nation-states.

                There’s even evidence that the Grand Council of War that was subsequently used to assign all war guilt upon defeated Germany was in fact a fabrication of the German ambassador to the Diwan of the Sultan of Turkey, who wanted an excuse to return to Berlin for some nookie with his mistress — and subsequently had to double down on that lie when the subject came up in the presence of his wife, lest his infidelity be exposed.

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                1. Well, to be a little fair to especially the Brits, the German Army did have an official policy of rapid and severe retributional reprisals to anything they considered civilian resistance, what was termed Schrecklichkeit (frightfulness) by foreign commenters, that led to them being pretty frightful indeed in 1914 in Belgium and later other occupied territories.

                  The reports were definitely sensationalized by especially the British press, but there were real civilian mass execution reprisals and town-burnings by the Germans in areas not near the front, with fair evidence that often the triggering “guerrilla” activity might not have actually occurred.

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                  1. Anything that involves partisans/guerillas/irregulars is going to be a nasty business, especially if those fighters then melt back into the civilian populace after their razzias are over, thus blurring the lines between combatant and civilian. Take a hard line on rooting them out and you’re a monster. Refrain and get bled dry by endless attacks — which may lead to demoralization, or to frustrated units lashing out and getting you called a monster even after you ordered everyone to strictly follow the laws of war.

                    At this point, it’s going to be hard to determine the truth of just how many of the reprisals by the Kaiser’s forces were actually responses to attacks by irregulars vs. preemptive attempts to terrorize the civilian populace into docility. The My Lai Massacre is far closer in time and far better documented (by the government of the forces involved, no less), and there are still debates about the degree to which it was malice aforethought vs soldiers on edge from endless guerilla attacks and poorly led finally snapping.

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                  1. One source I read when looking stuff up for this indicated the whole topic area of WWI war crimes, and indeed any of the stuff during their WWI occupations, are still an area the Germans historical academics just flat dispute to this day.

                    The Germans were forced to internalize their WWII actions via the occupation denazification mandates including mandatory curricula for the schools, and they still include a bunch of that from what I have been told by Germans I have worked with. I am sure they cover the NSDAP political rise in the 1920s, but maybe the First World War is not included, or maybe just a 30,000ft (okay, 10km in the obscure French system they use over there) hand-wavey overview, just major battles and events from 1914 to 1918?

                    It does seem odd to leave out something the NSDAP leaned on so heavily – maybe they just refute the stabbed-in-the-back thing about the end of the war?

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        2. Germany – like any powerful country with a shoreline – wanted to have a powerful navy. This was the High Seas Fleet, which was one of the biggest navies in the world.

          Britain is an island nation, and as a result having a powerful navy is important. The last thing that the British wanted was someone who could potentially embargo the British Empire. The Royal Navy was the most powerful navy in the world (right up until World War 2, when the US Navy went on a battleship and carrier building spree that would make everyone else jealous with envy), but it had responsibilities all over the world. Meanwhile, literally just a short distance away, a powerful nation was building a fleet that would likely rival the Royal Navy in just a short period of time.

          There were lots of people in London who were very concerned about this.

          Yes, Britain officially joined the war because Belgium’s neutrality was violated. But the British were looking for a reason to do something about the German High Seas Fleet. And entering the war alongside France provided that opportunity.

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          1. The battleships of the WWI Royal Navy Home Fleet was a huge sink of resources and manpower that basically sat out the war in Scapa Flow until Jutland, after which it went back to Scapa Flow. Similarly the German High Seas Fleet was a huge sink of people and resources, and while it did a bit more battlecruiser raiding on the British coast, it did not accomplish much until Jutland. At Jutland, nothing was concluded – the Home Fleet withdrew, as did teh Hochseeflotte. And in the end the massive battle fleets did nothing much of use for the entire war, except that the High Seas Fleet provide the initial mutiny that kicked off the German government collapse and abdication of the Kaiser at the end.

            Submarines, destroyers, and maybe the long range cruisers (and battle cruisers when used as designed, not like the British used them at Jutland where they were hung out in front of the battleships and blown to bits) were much more efficacious use of resources.

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            1. Both fleets acted as they did due to the threat posed by the other. The Royal Navy Home Fleet couldn’t leave the Channel so long as the High Seas Fleet existed. Meanwhile, the High Seas Fleet wasn’t strong enough to directly confront the Royal Navy, so it spent the war safely at its anchorage.

              As a result, two powerful fleets essentially tied each other down for the duration of the war

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              1. Since the British were averse to actually ever firing their guns (it messes up the paintwork and polished brass, old chap), they didn’t really practice gunnery. There are primary sources saying the rangefinders on Royal Navy Battleships were often inoperable due to being painted over so many times.

                This all stems from (or caused – chicken and egg) the “fleet in being” argument, that they only needed to have such an impressive fleet of battleships, all painted up and brass fully polished, to awe the wogs and such, and just by existing prevent any war. Once the RN admirals received a war anyway they were fairly sure they didn’t want anything to do with it.

                I have also read sources indicating they didn’t think gunnery practice was useful anyway, especially not at long range, as the admirals planned on just firing the big guns once at close range before they closed and boarded with cutlasses to take enemy ships as prizes. From big gun Battleships. in 1914.

                The Germans, on the other hand, did practice long range gunnery, with tragic consequences to the RN battlecruisers at Jutland.

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                1. If that description of the RN admirals is accurate, it isn’t really all that surprising. Remember that “big guns dominate all” was a brand new doctrine at the time. Prior to the turn of the century, long-range gunnery wasn’t really all that effective. It was expected that ships would draw in close because, while battleships did carry big guns, the gunnery simply wasn’t capable of hitting targets out at range. So battleships also carried lighter guns that would be more effective at point blank ranges. The idea that battleships would stay at range and blast each other was simply not in the tactics that anyone employed.

                  Then ship designers in three different countries (UK, US, and Japan) realized that long-range gunnery had improved to the point where a big gun battleship was feasible. The Japanese started their ship first, but had to settle for a mixed armament when they ran out of money. The British and Americans both started design work at about the same time. But the British rushed Dreadnought to completion, and she was commissioned the same month that both of the South Carolina-class ships were launched by the US. Meanwhile, the South Carolinas came last, but also incorporated the super-firing turret design that we’re familiar with, in which all of the turrets are arranged in a column down the spine of the ship, making them capable of firing on both sides of the ship. Dreadnought herself was only commissioned in December of 1906, less than eight years before the start of the war.

                  So yes, it’s not that surprising that many in the British admiralty might still think of boarding enemy ships. They’d been doing that for centuries. And it was only within less than a decade that the optimal battleship combat range had suddenly increased to “long” ranges. That’s hardly enough time for a new crop of officers to move up into the flag ranks.

                  On the other hand, just about *every* warship (including battleships) carried torpedoes. So moving close enough to an enemy ship to board her was a bit risky even if all of her guns had been shot off…

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. I believe there was also general doubt in the battlefleet RN command ranks about the efficacy of torpedoes against battleships. The fact that German and British submarines were able to sink battleships early in the war was apparently a major shock, which contributed to the decision to keep the RN battleship fleet safely concentrated in SCAPA Flow, where it could wait behind torpedo nets for the Germans to come out.

                    And recall the RN had not had a peer-level fight basically since Nelson was still pickled in that barrel. With a culture of “engage the enemy more closely” and the inertia of that long with nothing new to learn, it is not surprising that were so far behind their hardware.

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        1. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Adding: 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

            (There just weren’t enough!)

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          1. The Reader asks you to ignore the link above. It has nothing to do with anything. WPDE.

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          2. Nope. The Germans need Poland between them and Russia so the Poles can defend them.

            The German Army has been allowed to decay into pretty poor condition, possibly being one of the few armed forces that the Formerly Red Army could actually hold at risk these days.

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            1. Thus the old story. God created France and gave her all good things, Atlantic shore’s Mediterranean shores. Mountains, Valleys, rivers, forest and plain. The other countries were jealous and went to God to complain. So God created the French.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. But if you ask the French, THEY’LL tell you they were created to perfect the angels design.

                😇😇😇🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷👼👼👼

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          1. Similarly, why did the French plant (or, replant after WW2) the beautiful trees along the Champs-Elysées?

            The Germans like to march in the shade.

            Liked by 1 person

        6. If we have to pacify Europe again, wait a bit while the belligerents grind each other down. Then conquer the place and remove any prior “in power” folks. Run the place as a colony. Make states of Americanized places.

          Don’t make us come over there.

          Liked by 1 person

  5. Seoul is like a sanitary version of NYC, albeit with a more homogeneous demographic. Even they don’t drink the tap water. Only the USA really has clean water. And we went and polluted it with flouride and various things best not mentioned. But our tap water is more reliably safe than water bottled in plastic…

    I have only lived in six countries on three continents; but I’d rather live in relative poverty here (compared to government workers complaining about being forced to respond to an email) than any other country.

    And I thank God every day that I do live here.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf8hfZuzw_A

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Humph.

      Reminds me of the time during Desert Storm we took off the covering of a pallet of bottled water, and every bottle had bits of cardboard floating around in them. IIRC that pallet was sourced from the country we were in at the time. No idea if that contamination was deliberate, accidental, or normal. But we sure didn’t drink it.

      Liked by 5 people

    2. I’m *still* laughing over the wailing over the “tell us what you did last week” email. (I’m a fedgov employee–until Friday, anyway.) That’s an easy reply for me, but then, you know, I actually *work* (and at very specific things, too).

      An email from our HQ says it’s voluntary. I’m tempted to reply, but ultimately not gonna bother. My last day is Friday (::happy dancing::) and then I go on the lovely deferred resignation. (The fact that I am *still* more excited and happy about it than terrified–there’s a bit of fear, to be sure–but small compared to the rest–continues to assure me I made the right decision.) And hopefully come Sept 30 I will either already be or about to become a fully certified stenographer. :D

      Liked by 2 people

      1. My husband’s answer was “I do that every weekend, with action point plans for the next week. It’s not required, but it keeps me on track.” And I realized I should do it on Friday or in the case of this week, tomorrow, when I knock off. You know “This is where I am in this project. How to pick up again.” “Oh, and buy a dishwasher, and the downstairs bathtub needs the caulk renewed.” That sort of thing.

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  6. Sadly, the “I speak a little Asian” comment reverberates with having to dance around political discussions with the in-laws currently visiting. Half way through two weeks of forever. Otherwise very intelligent and nice folks, but they can’t imagine what they’re told by left wing media is not gospel. I made the mistake of mentioning the likelihood of massive Social Security fraud being uncovered and was told definitively that that was not possible.

    Liked by 4 people

              1. Thai food is great, as is most Chinese (especially Szechuan/Sichuan). Japanese? It depends; I don’t like raw fish in any form. Vietnamese (wags hand; mostly not). Not familiar with others.

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              2. I read, “I speak a little Asian,” to my beloved. He didn’t facepalm. But I have never seen his eyes get that wide or that particular expression before. He’s lucky he didn’t have to search for his eyes under the recliner.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. well, now you know the look I got and why Dan made me wait in the little hallway. Because he HEARD me think “That’s interesting. I speak a little European. Only under 5’5” “

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  8. “I speak a little Asian.” Oh, dear me.

    Your darling husband restraining you reminded me of when we were refused a visit with daughter-in-law’s family early in ’21 because we were unvaccinated Jesus loving Trump supporters and one of the sisters would not attend if we did. We gracefully bowed out, and then I took a sawsall to an old wooden filing cabinet that I wanted to get rid of. I felt much better after I dumped the splinters into the garbage bin.

    Liked by 4 people

    1. My beloved physically removed me from a church after the 9/11 memorial service where I stood up during the “ritual of penance,” and told the pastor exactly what I thought of it. He was afraid I was going to rip the pastor’s lungs out. (I intended to politely continue to express myself).

      Several years later at the same RI church (we were doing projects nearby both times) I returned the favor when the new, female pastor exhorted everyone to write/call their legislator to throw more money at social services so she didn’t have to tap the pastor’s discretionary fund.

      Liked by 4 people

      1. The church the kids had first communion in, which was our church for 20 some years, (and which is now rad trad as we found out in a flying visit to CO) the last time we attended as parishioners was when the priest went on about how evil Israel was and how they oppressed the poor Palestinians. (This was…. second intifada, I want to say.) I got up and was going to explain the error of his ways, but husband squeezed my leg, as he was afraid I was going to leap at the man and beat him to death with my shoe or soemthing.
        So, instead I turned and walked out, followed by older son who was having the same issue. The other two followed, then a bunch of other people. Probably 1/3 of the congregation. I wonder if the others went back. We never did. Instead we started driving — then — one hour to mass at the Denver Cathedral, usually on Saturdays. (Weirdly it was if not conservative not POLITICAL then.) That sermon was the culmination of a series of “ripped from the headlines” sermons each worse than the last.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Right after we were married and looking for a church would could both contend with, we tried one of the larger local churches. The sermon was on how uniquely evil humans as animals were, because no other species participated in war or rape. I told my wife we’re never going back to that one if he couldn’t get basic facts correct.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. We were at a church in Tulsa where the pastor complained that Nehemiah and Ezra had been wrong to reject the “foreign wives and children,” because they should have been tolerant and inclusive. He more or less called them racists. Then he tried to make the Year of Jublilee about income redistribution and complete openness to “the foreigner,” conveniently ignoring the verse a couple of lines farther down that basically said, paraphrasing for fun, “Don’t enslave your fellow Jews, that’s what the strangers are for.”

          We found another, and much better church without a hint of political bent, just Gospel. (For the record, the “inclusive,” pastor was male and the, “Gospel,” pastor was female).

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          1. My parents funerals were both officated by the same Methodist minister. The 1st time it was terrible and awful and only my not wanting to make a scene kept me from going up shoving her aside and given a real oratory. After, I found my sisters wanted to do the same thing and didnt for the same reason.

            Our fathers funeral, at his directi9n we had the same pastor. However she gave a general 0rayer and then invited my brothers wife to say a few words. It was better.

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          2. My wife is a Witness so I attend and have read most of their literature. One book, on Revelations, was originally written in the 30s. The version we used had last been updated in the 60s then 80s. Except for not using running dog lackeys of the capitalist wall street bankers it read more like a communist pamphlet

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            1. Sounds like the current Pope. Since he’s probably not long for this world (his condition sounds pretty bad), I can only hope, as a (mostly non-practicing) Catholic, that the next one actually accepts the content of the Bible…😒

              Liked by 1 person

        3. Way back in the age of dinosaurs in the 1970s, my home parish featured a priest we youts called Father Leningrad. We were regularly treated to agitprop about the poor grape pickers (Cesar Chavez and Co. was a repeating one in California in the 70s) and any other trendy leftist thing de jour in his homilies.

          Years later I eventually attended mass on base at NAS Pensacola, and it was actually something of a shock to get a non-commie-adjacent patriotic service at a Catholic mass. Plus they sang “Eternal Father, strong to save” in the service, instead of the hippy guitar music I was used to.

          Liked by 1 person

  9. Sigh. Not surprised in the least, actually. I used to pass on my issues of Atlantic, Harpers, Smithsonian, American Heritage, etc to my next-door neighbor in Athens. She was a very cultured, worldly Brit, married to a Greek – and was absolutely boggled to find out that there were magazines published in the US with such an intellectual bent. As one of our spots aired on AFRTS about keeping good relations with local nationals used to say – the local citizens don’t know America: all they know is Americans. And what they do pick up from our TV programs of entertainment and news is extremely warped.

    Liked by 6 people

    1. I’ve started to be a lot more sympathetic to the foreigners who think all Americans are dumb… because I’ve finally realized that for most of them, the only way they have to know American culture is American TV shows and movies. And whenever I’m in America and see American TV, boy oh boy. You’d think the average IQ in America was 75 if all you had to go on was TV.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. Exactly. I remember reading a short article in TV Guide (of all places!) sometime before the turn of the century lamenting how Americans were generally portrayed in movies and TV, and the bad and wholly inaccurate impression this would leave of us on viewers who only saw the US though that distorting lens.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. One of my absolute favorite moments was when my brother told me he would mail me a rather involved book on Chinese history “Because I know all your stuff is at a more popular level.” I asked him to repeat the title. I’d just finished reading it.
      I can’t tell him — I can but he doesn’t believe me — there are more scholarly books on PORTUGUESE history available here than there.
      And don’t get me started on “I know you only have one type of cheese.” Dude. There are thirty at our tiny grocery store. Just because it’s named American Cheese, it doesn’t mean it’s the only one.

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      1. I have been to Colby, WI. No, the town was not named for the cheese…

        I do recall a NY-er exasperated at some folks in Wisconsin: “They live in the Land of Good Cheese… and buy Kraft?! What’s wrong with them?!”

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      2. Our cheese drawer is currently full of cheese. Rather a lot of it. And there is not a slice of “American” to be found. (Kirkland Coastal Cheddar is quite good. As are the Marin brie variants from Petaluma.)

        Liked by 1 person

  10. “And telling them the unvarnished truth is unlikely to help.”

    Truth is a duty: internally always, externally sometimes. We may have to tell them the truth just to be able to say “You can’t say we didn’t warn you.” Whether VP JD’s address fulfills that requirement I cannot say.

    Also remember, “unlikely” is not “impossible.” It sure wasn’t last November.

    Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.

    Liked by 3 people

  11. “I’m fairly sure I’m not a sadist, so I must be a fool.”

    Well, you willingly hang out with us all the time, which lends credence to the fool theory :)

    Liked by 3 people

  13. “I speak a little Asian…”

    Well, hey, I speak a little European, too. What a dumbass.

    I used to work with a guy from Korea. He told me once, he didn’t like working with other Asians because their English was so hard to understand.

    Liked by 4 people

      1. My wife insists I come along to any ER visits because she can’t understand the accents of the foreign born doctors and nurses. It seems like half the doctors are from India, and half the nurses are from somewhere in Africa.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Half of mine, this go around, were from the Phillipines. Nice bunch, though. (Although I’m still not 100% sure if the orderly who brought me back to preop was a he or a she, lol.)

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Current NorCal SNF staff features nurses who immigrated from Israel, China, India, East Africa, and the Philippines, and CNAs from Guatemala, El Salvador, Mexico, China, the Philippines, and Taiwan. And those US-born are often first generation, from either Filipino or Mexican immigrant families.

            If you were to know Spanish and Tagalog you’d be tapped in on pretty much all the stuff they don’t want to say in English in front of the patients.

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            1. There is a preponderance of dentists in the Sacramento area of Vietnamese descent. If you know anything about refugee trauma, that makes sense. (Parents push their kids into high-status PORTABLE careers after being refugees. Nothing like having to start from scratch to make you appreciate being able to drop and run.)

              Liked by 1 person

            2. I will grant them this: they did not once in my hearing speak anything other than English :D

              (I used to be able to understand most Spanish, though I couldn’t speak it, on account of speaking Romanian fluently. I’m so rusty now though that I can’t.)

              Liked by 2 people

        3. I find it’s their cadence that’s most off, and there seems to be some function in my brain that can lock onto the odd cadence after I track it for a bit and after that it comes in cleartext.

          Likely all my years working in cubical-land with fairly heavy accents all around helped train that function.

          Liked by 1 person

    2. When I was on Kwajalein, I took a long weekend trip to Pohnpei (Ponape) with a small group of other Kwaj Kats. When the president of the Ham radio club heard I was headed that way, he gave me a bundle of gear for Father Kav(anaugh) who ran the PATS (Ponape Agricultural Trade School) and was an important part of a Pacific Rim radio net. After we delivered the gear, Father K invited us to stay for lunch and arranged for one of the older students to conduct a very impressive tour of the facility. During the tour it was made evident that there were students from the Carolines, Gilbert’s, Mariana’s, Marshalls, Solomon’s . . . One of our group asked if they could all understand each other, and the reply was, “Sure, if we speak English.”

      One of my bucket list items is to get back to Pohnpei and visit Nan Madol, the ‘Venice of the Pacific’.

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  14. “After all, we’ve saved them, technically twice, but really three times already.”

    We really need to stop doing that. It’s well past time for them to move out of Uncle Sam’s basement and live on their own.

    Liked by 3 people

  15. When I was studying in Taipei, I never had trouble with food from small local restaurants. Nobody drank un-boiled tap water, though.

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  16. I had some Italian neighbors for a few years. The first year they got here I’m sure there was some ‘culture shock’ and a period of adjustment. I took the guy to a gun show, which he was amazed at and his co-workers took him out to the range. The one thing they were always amazed with were grocery stores and the huge selection they had; not to mention the number of and choices of such stores.

    Alas they have been promoted within their companies and have returned to Italy. They were some of the best neighbors ever.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. “The amazing grocery stores in the US” has become a cliche. Or if it hasn’t, it deserves to be one.

      Although even in the US, there are grocery stores, big grocery stores, big general-merchandise stores that have full-bore grocery-store sections, places like Whole Foods, and places like Wegmans.

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    2. I guess I’m excessively charitable. I interpreted “I speak a little Asian” as being an infelicitous attempt to say “I speak a smattering of a few different Asian languages.”

      But if the blonde female really did mean “I speak a little of the one language of Asia,” then Hecatoncheires face-palm.

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      1. from what else she was saying, I strongly suspect the second, yes. … it was…. what people will do for sex?
        I mean, seriously, I was never in that market. Or as I told husband yesterday “It was always really easy to say “no” till you.” For some reason he thought that was very funny. Shrug.

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  17. My last wife was from France and a very intelligent woman (a CFO for multiple companies) … she grew up hard and is a self made woman … got herself into one of the best business schools in France via her smarts and drive …

    but when it comes to “experts” or government officials and especially the news she is completely unable to imagine biases or bad intent …

    especially during COVID when I would point out were the French government was just making stuff up or lying outright she would respond with “It must be worse than we know and they are just trying to keep us from panicing” …

    she could not imagine that it was less dangerous than the blob was claiming …

    she naturally expects that ANYTHING that effects you would always be subject to a government regulation or law …

    simply put she always looks to government to tell what she can and cannot do … period … her desire or opinion was never in the mix when it came to personal choice …

    she grew up in a single mother household and was very dependent on government programs in her childhood so naturally she appreciates the benefits of a paternal government … happily pays the income tax and vat to “fund” the good stuff all the while ignoring the nonsense it also funds …

    When Marcon first got elected she of course voted for him but she never trusted him … she said something wasn’t right in his eyes … (duh, sleeping with and marrying his teacher wasn’t a red flag for her of course)

    even living in the US she never got used too the lack of government rules/laws concerning mundane things (in her eyes of course, I was always pointing out too much government involvement)

    strangely the only thing she embraced was the 2nd Amendment … we lived in a somewhat remote location where if you needed the police they were half an hour away at best. She learned to shoot too the horror of all her friends back in France … (they one thing she did think the French government was bad at was public safety)

    Liked by 2 people

  18. It’s been nearly a hundred years since European civilians had to deal with the terror of outright warfare in their communities. Back then, the invaders used their military might to bulldog their way into control, but this time, they just carried a religious book, corrupted the politicians, and made Russia angry. The outright fighting is yet to come, but I don’t think it will be that long.

    Liked by 2 people

  19. Definitely saved them three times. Those T-72s parked a stone’s throw and a hop from the Fulda Gap were no joke. Though of course most of them are oblivious, even as they screech that Putin (ex-KGB) is a barbarian.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. My oldest brother was stationed at Fulda for several years, listening to the Russian radio chatter. Definitely not there just for the fun of it.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. My father was, too. He has a few funny stories about the Germans that wouldn’t serve Americans until they tried to get across in broken German. Then they were all smiles. Heh. Definitely odd ducks, but glad as heck to have American soldiers between them and the Ruskies.

        Like

  20. Still a lot of lands to see

    But I wouldn’t want to stay here

    It’s too old and cold and settled in its ways here

    — Joni Mitchell, “California” (back in the days when California hadn’t been ideologically conquered by Europe)

    Liked by 2 people

  21. I think watching Dan corral you to keep you from “other people’s mating rituals” would be fun as heck. Too bad we can’t have a camera crew follow you around on these outings in the wild.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. The Reader suggests we can chip in for bodycams for Sarah and Dan…

      The Reader would subscribe to the resulting YouTube channel.

      Liked by 1 person

  22. “I speak a little Asian.” OMG! Even I would have a tough time restraining myself. As to non-Americans view of the lording it over you class, I live in San Diego, and there are several English language radio stations that broadcast from Tijuana. They play pop-music, but during election season down there, they are forced to run the occasional government-mandated political spots. I remember hearing one where they touted “the right to elect our rulers”. They really have no idea how stupid that sounds to an American or how angry it makes (most of) us. Ain’t nobody rules us. We’re the most unruly bunch you can imagine. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sRDqMV5mxaDg5gz5yurvtULE4ZTpZJX4/view?usp=sharing

    Liked by 1 person

  23. How much of the people living in Europe expressing “support” for people like Starmer is due to fear of being targeted by the thought police if they criticize their governments and policies:

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/02/25/vance-vindicated-british-police-doorstep-grandma-after-criticising-leftist-lawmakers-on-social-media/

    UK and much of the EU (aside from Eastern European countries that were liberated from Soviet tyranny) have very aggressively gone after critics, such as the recent armed raids in Germany, UK arrests of people criticizing the government or its policies, etc.

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  24. Probably could use some tweaks, but came up with this to describe the current reign of terror in the UK:

    Tyranny In The U.K. (to the tune of Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols)

    Right now

    I am an Antichrist
    I am a communist
    Don’t know what I want but I know how to get it
    I wanna destroy the passersby

    ‘Cause I, I wanna be tyranny
    No dogsbody

    Tyranny for the U.K., it’s coming sometime and maybe
    I give a wrong time, stop a thought crime
    Your future dream is the secret police

    ‘Cause I, I wanna be tyranny
    In the city

    How many ways to get what you want
    I use the best, I use the rest
    I use the Stasi
    I use tyranny

    ‘Cause I, I wanna be anarchy
    It’s the only way to be

    Is this the NVD.?
    Or is this the KGB?
    Or is this the C.I.A.?
    I thought it was the U.K.
    Or just another country
    Another council atrocity

    I wanna be tyranny
    And I wanna be tyranny
    Know what I mean?
    And I wanna be a communist
    I get pissed, destroy

    Liked by 1 person

  25. when he went to the bathroom to wash his hands made me go along with him into the little hallway and wait there

    I have no idea what either of you look like, but I’m still loving this visual!

    Liked by 1 person

  26. The only thing wrong with American food is coast-to-coast fast food, which has homogenized our palettes and habits away from a continent of glorious regional dishes, at drive-ins, diners, and high-end restaurants that serve uniquely American twists on a world of classic dishes. When I take a road trip, I eat at a non-chain for the most part, although I do confess a weakness for fries and a Blizzard at DQ, or a leisurely restroom visit at Buc-ee’s.

    Unlike Sarah’s airhead blonde, I’m blessed with some great international cuisine right here in South Texas, thanks to research, logistics, and medical centers that attract folks from all over the world, and who like to eat. (I DO NOT understand their fascination for bean and cheese tacos, however.)

    Liked by 2 people

      1. People put tomato stuff on pizza. Tomatoes are a fruit. Some pizza buffets serve apple pie pizza. Apples are a fruit. It seems hypocritical to deny pineapple a place on the pan (although I insist on Canadian bacon or Spam as well).

        Being an adopted Texan, I prefer BBQ beef brisket, but I will also wrassle you to the ground for some good pork ribs. Pulled pork is an abomination, ’cause who knows who touched it or what’s in it? (Hell, I sneaked a NOSE in once.)

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        1. We know ours is 100% Boston Butt, because that’s what my beloved smokes. He needs work on ribs, though.

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          1. …. the problem is rolling it into the papers.
            (Runs. Look, the caffeine hasn’t taken effect yet. The jokes will get…. No, they won’t get better, but I can pretend.

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        2. I object, for myself, as I find pineapple just makes ham etc. taste funny without any benefit. If others want a pizza that tastes like a fruit salad or upside-down cake, that’s their business.

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          2. Pineapple on pizza? No.

            Tomatoes? Was raised on tomatoes on pizza. Don’t “add it” to pizza. But do get it on the side for my slices, with salt. Lots of salt.

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        3. Intelligence is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.

          I, myself, object to sweet fruit on my pizza because I’m a strict food segregationist. Sweet and savory should never mix. I don’t do kettle corn, I don’t do apple bits or cranberries in my green salads, most barbecue sauce is right out because it’s waaaay too sweet. A lot of teriyaki is out for the same reason. But, this is a free country and other people are allowed to enjoy being wrong, including my own dear sister.

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    2. Bean-n-cheese burritos can be great. Not sure about as tacos, though, unless it is Cuban black beans and a tart, semi-soft cheese with other things added.

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      1. Classic South Texas bean-and-cheese breakfast tacos in a flour tortilla have been a staple here for decades. Back in The Day, my Tex-Mex wife tells me that kids would throw away their homemade bean tacos rather than be seen eating them at school. And yet every fresh-to-Texas GI, of any ethnicity, just cannot get enough of them dang bean-and-cheeses. WTF? BTW, I’m a chorizo and egg on corn tortilla guy, myself.

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        1. They are warm, pretty fatty (lard and cheese), filling, and sort of comforting would be my guess. Toss in different salsas, and you have “starving grad student fodder” and “starving GI fodder.” I could make a batch of beans on Saturday and finish (the beans) on Thursday or so. Sometimes I added eggs.

          Chorizo in Flat State was … not great. Really not great. (People thought Chipotle was “really authentic and hot Mexican food.”)

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          1. Things are (slowly) improving and one CAN get ‘spicy’ stuff in MN that actually IS spicy. Recall that SPAM is “SPiced hAM”… the spices? Very MN: Salt and a hint (trace?) of pepper.

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            1. One of the Mexican restaurants we frequent put a chile arbol in a dish that is not supposed to be hot. (Roughly 5x the Scoville units of a jalapeño, which are already too hot for me.)

              if only i had found it before biting. 😱😬.

              Pain is not a flavor.

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            2. Yup, there’s some pretty good Spam out there if you look for it. While I’m pretty indifferent to the stuff, the chorizo flavor is a clear hit that I highly recommend.

              For a quick spice hit, blend up can of diced tomatoes, a chopped jalapeño, a a couple of green onions. Beats the heck out of restaurant salsa cruda.

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      2. I still remember the road trip from Albuquerque to home (I had finished the senior NCO academy course at Kirtland AFB) with my father. (Dad flew in to see me graduate the course, then to help drive on the 18-hour drive home to Valley Center.) We headed out very early on a Sunday morning, and hit Gallup, NM for breakfast at a little diner on old Route 66. (I’ve tried to find the place again, through google street view – no luck.) It was really an old-fashioned diner car, with a little extension at the front. There were a variety of battered pickups parked in front, a couple of nice cars, most with out of NM plates. We had such a good diner breakfast – omelet with everything, IIRC. The waitress looked like Evelyn Whirlwind (the office nurse on Northern Exposure, only more open and smiling) and Dad and I sat at the counter, next to a guy who owned a funeral parlor in Gallup and filled us in on some interesting local gossip.

        Perfect regional meal. I can’t find that place now, on google, so either it is gone, or renovated out of all recognition.

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        1. Red’s Diner, Lewistown, PA. It was their boast (confirmed, as well as it could be), that they were empty of customers just once, for about half an hour, during a blizzard sometime in the ’30s. We ate there as often as we could whenever we were in the area for trout fishing. Real central PA “comfort food”.😊😊😊

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        2. Side note about the lady they cast for Evelyn; she’d gone to the audition as her mom’s buddy, since her MOTHER was the one reading for the part. They decided to cast her instead, and when the character’s mother shows up in the series, that’s her actual mom.

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    3. The genius of nationwide American fast-food outlets is that you know exactly how what you get will taste. Not the greatest, but with no unpleasant surprises either.

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    4. Barbecue!

      Process or Food?

      Cow or Pig? Other?

      Sauce vinegar or tomato? Or…

      Texan at his first North Carolina barbecue: “Uh, what’s this? You said barbecue. Where’s the cow?”

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      1. We have every kind of BBQ in Georgia. Brisket? Chicken? Pork?

        Rub? Smoke? Sauce? All different everywhere you go. Some of the best BBQ is found in the parking lot of the gas station, where someone with a recipe and a dream parks a smoker under a tarp.

        Last Friday’s food truck was Vietnamese soup with smoked brisket (so much better than when they slice it thin and let the soup cook the raw meat).

        The name of the business was Pho ‘Cue.

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        1. For those unfamiliar with Vietnamese, “Pho” sounds very much like “fuh”.

          (grin)

          Wait until you find out how traditional Nước Mắm (fish sauce) is made.

          (Thus “fifty meter Nước Mắm)

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        2. So, funniest episode ever with my kids:
          When older son was moving to his residency (which he’s now done with) the whole clan got together to help because between cars, cats, plants, they needed a lot of help. We stopped for dinner — the entire caravan — at a barbecue joint. The boys are behind me, as I’m ordering. The guy taking my order heard the accent and must have got concerned. “Ma’am, do you realize the Carolina style barbecue has vinegar?”
          Kid #1 right behind me, “Oh, mom knows. She’s from Charlotte, NC.” Kid #2 “And that’s how she makes barbecue. Don’t start her.”
          Guy taking order does a double take, but shuts up.
          For some reason this still makes me giggle.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Technically, as you know, Charlotte is on the “tomato” side of the North Carolina BBQ DMZ, as the line runs roughly through Lexington (the Panmunjom of NC BBQ). I don’t think I’ve ever actually had eastern NC hash with the vinegar/pepper sauce, I should try it. I’ve had the Virginia version of western NC (more tomato) and the apostate mustard-based of the South Carolina Midlands.

            I knew a guy who was a black pastor, they used our church building for a few functions when theirs was being remediated from black mold (yikes). I ran sound for them, which in and of itself was a fascinating and eye-opening experience. It wasn’t until I actually met him that I realized he was also the guy that ran a smoker in our church parking lot (also the local Advance Auto parking lot) on Saturdays. That guy could work some magic with some pork.

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              1. Huh. Maybe Charlotte has vinegar commandos working behind the enemy tomato-based lines.

                I should hit our local BBQ festival here in Kannapolis this year. It’s groaningly called “JIggy With the Piggy” but it’s supposed to have some great food and competition of different kinds of BBQ, and yes even though it’s NC it’s not all a pig run through a paper shredder, there’s brisket and ribs and other stuff too. I have never been a huge BBQ guy but pulled pork done up right in a sandwich is pretty tasty.

                Liked by 1 person

                1. Well, keep in mind this was in the eighties. It might have changed. Notable only because this place was in Manhattan KS, and it called it Charlotte, NC vinegar based barbecue. So…

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            2. There was a restaurant (Poss’s) that was west of Athens Georgia. They didn’t serve the full-on vinegar and mustard sauce but there was definitely a strong vinegar tinge to the tomato based sauce.

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          2. My hobby is radio theater. I do voices.

            Just for kicks I played at accent-switching with the driver of a cable car in San Francisco. It was great fun, imitating my Brooklyn sister in law, then Ellie Mae Clampett, then a cockney, in rapid succession while challenging him to pick out my genuine accent.

            Actually none were, Ellie Mae is an *exaggerated* accent. If you want to know what my family sound like, Jeff Foxworthy is the closest available.

            Liked by 1 person

  27. have you considered that you might be externally possessed? You have demons following you around and possessing you plumbing and appliances (and cats)?

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      3. Personally, I think it’s your muse – it’s ADD, so occasionally it gets distracted from feeding you stories and wanders off to ”fix” the appliances.

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  28. Ron Swanson “tell us more about how Europe fears us” (chuckle)

    after avoiding it forever I have started hanging around on X and am addicted.

    so, did you hear they guy who wants a new, European only, version of NATO? He wants the UK and France (i think it was France) to take the lead militarily, and Germany to fund the whole thing.

    If I drank coffee, it would have been all over my screen. These guys won’t help with their own defense WITH the US, but he thinks they will if they cut us off?

    Liked by 1 person

    2. Yes. My mom thinks Macron is taking the lead and is so impressive.
      Do you see this dent on my forehead? It was hitting it on the desk.
      BUT seriously…. why don’t we let Europe throw us in the briar patch?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Both NATO and United Nations. US needs to say bye-bye, or let “them” kick US out. At which point, both can meet somewhere else, not anywhere in the US.

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        1. The League of Nations, United Nations, what will they be next? How about a little Honesty. Union of Whiny Kleptocrat Nations.

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          1. Pretty much covers it. At the very least, tell them to find another country to host their entitled idiocy, and “We’ll see you when we see you”.

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    3. If you read Cdr. Salamander he makes the point that given the probabilities heavily favor China being the next General Unpleasantness opponent of the U.S., and the past twenty years of political pillaging of the U.S. military means we don’t have anything close to a two-major-wars military anymore, so the outbreak of said General Unpleasantness will force us to direct pretty much all of our resources to the Pacific.

      Thus, whether they like it or not, Europe will be On Its Own. For Reals, this time. Maybe we can send over some wheat, or LNG. But maybe not.

      So that means NATO is effectively irrelevant if things go hot in the fashion that is most probable over the next 10-15 years, and if they have a concern or three they should address these concerns within Europe.

      Likely those Poles will be on the hook to protect them all.

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      1. The good news about a confrontation in the Pacific is that Japan is quite possibly our best ally in the world, and has been working to build up its forces. The Japanese have also been working to put defensive agreements in place with their neighbors in the event the PRC decides to go after one of the local nations. While the JSDF is unblooded, the troops are highly disciplined, and have some of the best military equipment in the world.

        The bad news is that one of our other important allies in the region – South Korea – doesn’t have a particularly strong navy, would probably be a co-belligerent alongside Japan at best, and might have a serious commie infiltration problem in its opposition party (which controls the legislature), if the president is to be believed.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I think it has already been asked when it happened “Who had Japan and the Philippines joining together for joint navel and military exercises, on their bingo card?” Pretty sure S. Korea, and Vietnam, would have been out there with them if possible. Problem both the latter have is China doesn’t have to come at them through the sea …

          A shock when it hit the news. A surprise? Not really.

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          1. From what I’ve heard, Vietnam desperately wants a big brother ally. Russia is it’s usual ally, but is currently busy with Ukraine, and looking ineffective to boot. The US has no strategic interests in Vietnam, so little reason to spill blood on its behalf. And China is the reason why Vietnam wants an ally to begin with

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        2. Japan and DPRK trade engagements occasionally, that get little official comment.

          “Unblooded” would be… incorrect.

          Also some “anti-pirate” ops.

          Met some interesting Navy folks a number of years ago. Had a funny way of saying “no comment”. (Grin)

          I like their recent Izumo-class “Destroyer” series, that now can haul around F-35s. (Heh) The name Kaga has some … noteworthy tradition.

          China is going to squat-out cinder-blocks when Japan gets around to re-using “Yamato” for their first all-up flattop. I wonder if it will be under 100,000 tons.

          Liked by 1 person

      2. Reverse of WW2. Hang on in Europe while defeating the larger / more urgent foe in the Pacific.

        Since Russia so helpfully bled itself gray in the Ukraine debacle, supplying Poland and Finland should suffice to keep Russia too busy to accomplish much.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Neither of those two need our encouragement to fight Russia, just the excuse and a nuclear deterrent. Both may already have started their own canned sunshine systems.

          Meanwhile, China and the USA trade very painful lessons. Going full out Jacksonian on their asses would certainly change the Pacific mightily. But they would be insane to start the party with Trump the NeoJacksonian in the Oval Office.

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          1. I’ve been wondering for a while what happens when the Moscow power structure changes. Russia had a Tsar during WWI right up until it didn’t, and it will have Tsar Vlad the Shirtless right up until it doesn’t.

            When that changes, especially if the succession is kinetic and the Russian Federation goes indeterminate, I wonder what China will do?

            I have been saying since the start of the Ukraine war that I think the higher percentage path for Beijing, from purely and economic perspective, would be to liberate the “we have a direct historical claim through the Mongol Emperors” Siberian territories from Russia instead of trying a cross-straight invasion of Taiwan. More resources in Siberia, plus they can walk there.

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          1. And the sad part is, they could almost certainly never have made it (or quite a few other classics, from “Blazing Saddles” to “Young Frankenstein”) during the past couple of decades.😒

            Now that we have sanity back in the White House, at least for a while, I’m hoping for that to change.

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      2. Sarah, you cannot tell me that your husband isn’t used to such outbursts from you by now. This is a reliably entertaining following you have here, you know.

        Though perhaps not as hilarious as Wisconsin politicians who are being serious.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. And did he see the meme himself? We Gen X kids grew up with Monty Python, Rocky Horror, Beavis and Butthead, and the Simpsons. Modern kids tryin’ to be edgy with their sad little attempts at such things are just that. Sad. C’mon kids. We played with lawn darts, played chicken with the train, and called each other fags, gayballs, and motherfrackers. Rub some dirt on it and all the rest.

        And our parents thought we were the weak, coddled generation. Heh. Great gran would be howling in her grave to hear what some of these young uns are getting up to.

        Fornicating inseminated person my sweet chunk. Hah. That stuff’s funny, ain’t no lie, and if you can’t laugh at it we probably aren’t friends.

        Liked by 1 person

      1. ‘Inseminated Persons’ comes from an announcement in one of the states (unfortunately, I can’t recall which one) that going forward, pregnant mothers were to be referred to as ‘inseminated persons’.

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    1. Sometimes Meme’s just aren’t as fun as they used to be, I mean Liberals make it soooo easy to mock and ridicule them. Oh and the cheese heads in Wisconsin must be so proud, every Inseminated Person Fornicator one of them. Maybe that’s who Joy Reid and Crocket the Rocket Mouth down in Texas were talking about when they mentioned uneducated voters?

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      1. Realize the ‘blue’ of WI is from Madison (which is called Madtown for good reason) and Milwaukee.

        Milwaukee? Recall the original Night Court? Bull asked what was so bad about the USSR… and gets told, roughly, “You take a car, drive all day… and are still in downtown Milwaukee. You take a train, travel all day, are still downtown Milwaukee. You get one a plane, and when you land you are STILL in downtown Milwaukee.” “MAKE IT STOP!”

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      2. i find it humorous that they call anyone on the right un educated,

        i would bet the left has mostly truly un educated idiots, how else can you justify their BS!

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        1. They only sound stupid to you because you’re not as Educated as they are. :-P

          ———————————

          Some folks, you send ’em to college and you just wind up with an educated idiot.

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  35. I remember thinking how weird it was that Europeans of past times viewed an “around the world” trip to be a grand tour of Europe, with maybe a stop in “the Orient” (i.e., Egypt, Turkey, maybe Palestine to see the Holy Land), and that was it.

    Then I saw a British-produced documentary on a Spanish-born filmmaker who, according to a German interviewee, “hated being part of ‘the system’, any system. The moment he felt he was becoming part of a system he’d leave, move to another country, and start all over”. Which gave the impression of going all over the world, but mostly meant that the filmmaker worked in France, Britain, Germany, Portugal, Spain at the beginning and end of his career, and that’s about it. (Well, a movie and a half shot in Brazil, and at least one that shot in Austria, too.) Which is downright parochial to any non-European.

    Liked by 1 person

  36. I don’t know why, but the blonde puts me in mind of a travel show I watched on Amazon recently. The woman who was hosting it had twelve episodes covering her trip to Bali (I think), Vietnam, and Thailand. The first four episodes were Bali, and I figured the remaining eight would be split evenly between Vietnam and Thailand. Instead, it was six and a half episodes of Vietnam, and an episode and a half of Thailand (travel to Thailand was part of the half episode). That episode and a half was split between the trip to Thailand, general travel tips (which, I will note, were useful), talking about how much she enjoyed some tea she had, a conversation that she had with a Vietnamese cab driver in Thailand, and a conversation she had with a guy (American, I think, though he might have been European) she met and was asking about his traveling. The sole bit of actual Thai content that I can remember was her watching a guy demonstrating the use of a traditional Thai sword, and goofing around with it a bit.

    Probably much like “Ms. I Speak a Little Asian”, the claims of useful information exceeded the amount demonstrated.

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  37. “gave the impression of going all over the world, but mostly meant that the filmmaker worked in France, Britain, Germany, Portugal, Spain“

    –

    Rolls eyes (oh good caught them before they rolled away). By those standards, I’ve “been around the world”, and I’ve never been off of the American continent. Only 3x’s to the east coast (Florida, DC – twice). Once to eastern Canada. But otherwise, just CA, OR, WA, ID, AZ, UT, NV, CO, WY, MT, and AB and BC – Canada (not counting taking the footbridge from San Diego over to the fairs, just across the border in Mexico). Pretty sure the area involved is larger than France, Britain, Germany, Portugal, and Spain. JIC – I do not consider myself “well traveled”.

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    1. I told my current GF that if we ever got married, I ‘d take her on a tour of that Capitols of Europe. Of course, at my current state of finances, it’ll probably be Athens, Ga, Rome, NY, Moscow, ID, etc..

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  38. Some Donks are calling for an economic boycott this Friday 28 February.

    That would be a good day to go buy a little extra. Maybe a book or two. (Grin)

    Liked by 1 person

      1. If you can afford it, definitely. I’m just putting things in hte cart to buy on the 28th, since we won’t be home till next week anyway. (Yes, we have cat sitters. Who have more guns and shoot better than we do. They’ve promised NOT to shoot Indy.) It’s nothing exciting. stuff like a folding dish rack for using until we can get a new dishwasher. If it weren’t for the con this weekend, we’d buy the dishwasher on the 28th.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I really like the idea of making the whiners heads explode, but frankly another Tesla would not be noticed among the vast hordes of them I see on the road every day.

          I do like your idea of queuing stuff into my cart and waiting to pull the trigger until Friday.

          And I might just splurge and go buy a dozen eggs. I know, big purchase. It’s just the kind of extravagant guy I am.

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  39. Hi Sarah

    Sefton Delmer update

    Trail Sinister has arrived and the bit I mentioned on Germany must be in Black Boomerang, which I will request tomorrow.

    But Chapter 38 “The New German Menace” might be of interest to you.

    I will be copying – it is three A4 pages.

    Regards

    Ian

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  40. Still pondering BGE’s comment about neeeding to see a major defection from the left. And noting Bezos just told the WaPo editorial, staff they will now focus on, “economic freedom,” and, “Personal liberties.”

    The chief editor of the opinion section resigned. Awwwww.

    Liked by 1 person

  41. The guy who did best during the first round of the Romanian Presidential Elections has been arrested. Earlier, accusations had been thrown that the “far-right” candidate was a “Russian puppet”. My questions about how a supposed Russian puppet got the best turnout have been ignored.

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