It starts — with yet another desert patrol vehicle picture (retro)
Recalling the News
I thought that Covid wiped them out…guess not. The news reports sure sounded like that was the case.
Tank Corner
Char Saint Chamond Developed in parallel with the Schneider CA, the Saint Chamond was the second tank built by the French in 1917. It dwarfed the Renault FT and was the most heavily armed Allied tank of the war. It was also one of the pioneering generations of “armored boxes”, which actually never really succeeded anyway other than demonstrating the inability to cope with rough terrain. With a long hull and feeble 90 hp (67.14 kW) engine for nearly 25 tons of solid steel, its prospects never matched the reality of trench warfare.
Bullet Points 
** Few FBI blunders of late likely compare to what just happened in Boston last week, when Federal Agents on a training mission wound up barging into the wrong hotel room and inadvertently interrogating an innocent hotel guest who was sleeping for nearly 45 minutes.
The bizarre mistake, outlined by NPR last week, occurred during a training exercise at a Boston hotel.
An innocent guest was sleeping in his room at the Revere Hotel when Federal Agents began banging on his door “and demanding to be let in”, the report says. Agents then handcuffed the innocent man, isolated him in the shower, and interrogated him for more than 45 minutes before ever realizing they had made a mistake.
The FBI-Boston Division said they were “mistakenly sent” to the wrong room “based on inaccurate information”. The man in the hotel room was in his 30s and was an employee of Delta Air Lines.
I recall an FBI raid in Costa Mesa, CA around 30 years ago. It was the wrong house. The sleeping man, thinking that it was a home invasion robbery, opened fire. FBI executed him, then HRT left without identifying themselves to the responding police officers.
** Race hustlers make out. It’s a great business to be in.
** C-130 News – The U.S. Air Force says it has accelerated work to integrate Raytheon’s AN/APQ-187 Silent Knight terrain-following/terrain avoidance radar onto its MC-130J Commando II special operations transport/tanker aircraft. This has come amid the retirement of the Commando II’s predecessor, the MC-130H Combat Talon II, with its highly specialized AN/APQ-170 radar. The Combat Talon II divestment process was slowed down significantly due to concerns about the MC-130J’s terrain-following and terrain avoidance capabilities, which are critical to its core mission sets, with its original radar.
It is unclear how many MC-130Js have received the Silent Knight Radar, or SKR, to date, but Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) told The War Zone that the plan is to eventually integrate it into each one of its Commando IIs. AFSOC currently has 56 MC-130Js and is planning to acquire a full fleet of 64 of the planes.
** Musk vs BBC
** (American Thinker) In a little-noted speech last week, VP Kamala Harris revealed that the federal government will be giving out gifts amounting to $1.7 billion dollars to “minority” businesses. This amounts to a stealth reparations plan, as the recipients likely will be predominantly Black. The Hill reports – more here. She said that the lenders will not need to pay back “not even a dollar of this investment,” noting that the awards are grants, not loans. — free cheese.
** (LA Times) Chinese Doctor Survives! (Mike_C, take note) An Irvine dermatologist is facing multiple felony charges, including three counts of trying to poison her husband with a liquid drain cleaner, in an alleged plot uncovered after her husband secretly installed cameras around their home.
A grand jury indicted Yue “Emily” Yu, 45, on three felony counts of poisoning and one felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury, the Orange County district attorney announced Wednesday.
Yu’s husband, Jack Chen, first grew suspicious in April 2022 when he began to notice a “chemical taste” in his morning tea. According to court documents in which he sought a restraining order from his wife, Chen fixed the tea for himself in the mornings, and grew concerned as he started to suffer from stomach ulcers and a swollen esophagus.
Growing suspicious, Chen secretly installed cameras around his Irvine home, where, according to the restraining order request, he captured a video of Yu pouring liquid drain cleaner into his cup when he left it unattended.
Fact
Meme-of-the-Day
“”The training was meant to enhance soldiers’ skills to operate in realistic and unfamiliar environments,” he added. “The training team, unfortunately, entered the wrong room and detained an individual unaffiliated with the exercise.””
What the hell are soldiers doing in Law Enforcement?
Posse Comitatus anyone?
“Authorities confirmed to NPR that no one was injured in the incident”
Being unlawfully detained in a shower for 45 minutes is an injury.
They are training for the next step in the “change we can believe in ” that Barack the light bringer promised us.
X2
Hopefully this guy will sue the Feebs for millions and win.
-Kle.
Why not? They’ll print more.
That’s all it is. More Monopoly money.
Musk once again showing why he’s the top dog, using reason to shred the BBC lefty who simply repeated what he had heard without actual fact checking. More of THAT! please.
Reparations/forced Federal mentality-
I go back to Col. Davy Crockett’s “It’s not yours to give” speech, especially the clear thought admonition from farmer Horatio Bunce:
“So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It
is a precedent fraught with danger for the country, for when Congress once begins to
stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it and no
security for the people.”
That was 139 years ago. Now look what we contend with, The Dem’s and half the R’s doing the same, only on steroids. All self-important bums sucking us dry and making us less safe and weak as a country and people. Always follow the money.
So no Kammy, it’s not yours to give, you useless piece of…
Sidebar: Brother attended a business conference yesterday morning, Calstart, a “non-profit” originally funded by CARB, that now has offices all across the country pushing EV’s to municipalities and fleet services. The guy presenting said that “EV’s are cheaper to operate over 7 years”, with the requisite charts and graphs propaganda. Brother about tossed his sweet roll. Told him to ask this grifter, “How about 8 years when the batteries quit or the vehicle catches fire?”
Then…like magic and utterly predictable…Ol’ Joe Your Emperor comes out by the afternoon stating that EV’s are the ONLY transportation option going forward, so tough darts if you want a gasoline powered vehicle. “WE are your Overlords!…Aren’t we MERCIFUL!”
It’s NOT theirs to give or decide for We The People. Reckoning time is nigh.
Time for a day of pasture dragging tractor therapy while listening to Sirius Margaritaville to clear the mind from these idiots forcibly running us into the ground.
I get rid of a lot of mad and disgust on my tractor, don’t listen to music though, might try it.
Have an earmuff radio, drowns out the engine noise on the old ’85 Massey, the old ignition has the added benefit of cancelling AM signals in case I’m tempted to listen to talk radio.
You’re beyond the range of our station anyway. :)
TuneIn fixes far off stations I used to only get with my Boys First Crystal Radio kit and attic strung antenna wire.
(FYI: Oh, I listen in Ed, intently, all the way to Michigan…gotta know what the good guys are saying.)
Gotta ask Ed B., you have a radio program/station? I am from GR, Mich. but haven’t lived there since 1963… Do you broadcast on internet? I would enjoy listening if it is as interesting as your comments here on LLs site.
Cederq, https://waamradio.com/your-american-heritage/
I post the recordings at my blog, also.
James Rosen on Antonin Scalia this Saturday.
Thanks.
Wait about two years and you will see, like with Asbestos, “climate change” legacy costs (climate reparations?) gets into tne overton window. Ford, GM, all of them, must pay, otherwise the grifters will run out of other people’s money much too soon.
It’s the Dem’s Perpetual Money Machine, they believe money grows on trees to pay for all their invented “grievances”, purposely destroying stalwart industries left and right with the assumption we’ll actually have a functioning country afterwards (or is that the plan?).
Brother’s latest Fleet services meeting update: “Nobody can get vehicles, still. Order 250 Ford Lightenings, get 4. (another useless EV pickup) Order 100 F550’s, get 30 or the order gets cancelled. Drivetrain assemblies, even tires, not available. Bucket trucks, not available due to a hydraulic cylinder shortage. 12 month lead times for gas and diesel vehicles. BUT, if you order an EV version, 60 days. Control! Control! Control!”
Sums it up. They are forcing this green crap down our throats. Again, “When a long train of abuses…”
Jennifer Granholm obvously did not have her husband ‘invest’ enough in Solyndra while she was governor of Michigan. I’m sure he took lessons from Paul Pelosi afterwards and is making up for the lost time.
Granholm is a poseur, probably cheated in High School chemistry and physics classes, these types are never who they profess to be — that character thing LL pointed to yesterday, a lot of these people can’t be with themselves when alone – assuming if ever alone – it’s pure torture. (The Nan used alcohol and fancy ice cream to assuage her demons.)
My F150 is back in the shop. The service department screwed up last time and I literally blew a gasket and dumped my oil.
It took them a week to get it in the shop.
Because they were putting in a motor that had been ordered for another truck, 6 months earlier.
How is this possible in a [supposed] modern era? Same arena as lousy roads and bridges. It’s stupid and self-immolating when CEO’s and Boards are more focused on Social Bravo Sierra than actually doing business and making stuff people need.
The cost of replacing a motor ain’t cheap. If you drove an EV you’d just flip it over, pop the little door and replace the D-Cells.
R.I. is the 2nd most densely populated State in the US (after Jersey), and we only have 1000 per square mile (approx equivalent to 3 sq. km. ). Cities are obviously higher, but I would like to see a US map in comparison.
-Kle.
Good thing I don’t drink tea in the mornings. Whatever I can find left over in the bottles from the prior night is good enough for me. A radiologist and a dermatologist household, eh? That’s two “luxury” subspecialties right there. (Cue angry radiologists keen to defend their honor. 😛)
So far as “reparations” go, well, both the stupid and the smart “victim” demographics have been putting it good and hard to the rest of us. And the stupid ones couldn’t do it without the guidance, aid, and connivance of the smart ones.
Though the Char St Chamond was a mixed failure as a main battle tank, it was the pioneer of armored self propelled guns.
The use of a canon 75 modele 1897 in the armored casement allowed the aforementioned gun to be moved up to and eventually through the front lines. Point blank fire against machine gun nests and other obstacles was found to be a good thing.
Other than that, overly heavy and underly powered seems to have been a French tank thing up into the 1950’s. Go figure.
I wonder how things would have fared for the French armored corps in WWII if they had a turreted Canon de 75 modele 1897 mounted on a chassis heavy enough and armored enough to carry it, and in sufficient numbers to actually matter. Seem to recall that one of the things Marshall Petain was pushing for before the war was more and heavier armored equipment.
As to horsepower, that’s a mixed bag of nuts. It’s the whole horsepower vs torque thingy. That 90hp engine might have been weak and not able to produce a lot of torque, because torque is what does the work. Or it could have been a 90hp engine with huge amounts of torque. Either way, pushing 25 tons or so with 90hp would be slow, but more torque means the ability to keep creeping through and over obstacles. Lots of farm tractors are or were low on hp but high on torque as only Jeremy Clarkson wants to plow at 75km/hr.
Clarkson’s eyes got big at the “Lamborghini” label, he thought “speeeed!”…then Kaleb set him straight, “That tractor is too big, it’s stupid.”…”You’ll never get it [3-point hitch ups] because you’re a Muppet.”
Heh.
The Lambo tractor may have no practicality, but it oozes style.
Image is everything…even if it won’t fit thru the farm gates.
The local high panjandrums hate him for it. The commoners love him.
Seems to be a recurrent theme, moreso here in the Colonies lately.
The Lambo may be overpowered compared to other local smaller tractors, but Jeremy is able to do things faster because it is a high-torque and decent horsepower tractor. Coupled with more modern attachments it can out-do others.
Jeremy’s problem is he bought a big tractor and is mostly stuck using smaller tractor attachments.
Funny thing is he bought the first reconditioned “more vintage” tractor he saw at the lot (S1 Ep1, I think), uses it for smaller tasks. Loved that he did that.
As to the AC-130 issue, how unusual that the modern military procurement system is messed up. Sigh.
French military equipment doesn’t seem “soldier proof”. They are not alone in that.
Torque. Per Rory Irish, a Moab, UT Off Road Recovery operator, “Horsepower might get you over the wall, torque will get you through the wall”.
The 130J is going to have some ‘nice’ capabilities…
A few years ago our rural county SWAT team was serving a no-knock warrant at 0-dark thirty.
Prior to the planned door-kicking it seems the home owner heard suspicious activity around his house and armed himself with a shotgun and turns on a light.
One of the SWAT team members sees the armed home owner in his living room through a window, and without announcing, shoots said homeowner to death.
Oopsie! Oopsie!
Wrong address.
So sorry. :-(
No body went to jail or lost their job.
Never leave your tea unattended!
You know, the more I look at the casement tank, the more I see so many advanced features. Sloped frontal armor, high velocity high diameter main gun, non-rhomboid tracks partially protected from fire from the front.
The English may have ‘invented’ the modern tank, but all of the real beginning innovations are French. Sloped armor, big guns, turrets, use of radios, all are French.