Through the Looking Glass

Blog Post
Larry-Lambert

Caption Photo: William Marshall (The Perfect Knight?)

I don’t trust many people in this world more than I’d trust Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), with a teen intern, or Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) with a Chinese honeypot spy (Fang-Fang), but William Marshall was one of those rare people in history whose integrity showed through the intervening centuries. (more)

“Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth, always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong. That is your Oath“. (The Kingdom of Heaven)

 

Everytime I look in the Mirror – Postmodern Juke Box – a band I follow –

 

New Year’s Resolution

I propose to convey my thoughts and opinions with unimpeachable sincerity and honesty, carefully avoiding sentimentality and eschewing any language deemed injurious to those with differing perspectives while simultaneously upholding the principles of truthfulness and transparency. Having diligently gathered my thoughts and mustered the requisite courage to express them, I have ultimately realized that I possess no observations of any real substance. I offer my sincerest appreciation for your indulgence.

 

Energy Independence? Or Energy In Dependence?

US imports of Saudi crude continued their multi-year decline in 2024, bringing a long-held goal of US presidents — independence from Middle East oil — within reach. The shift also opens up greater diplomatic options in the Middle East. “For incoming President Donald Trump, it presents a white canvas to redo foreign policy in the Middle East in ways that his predecessors could only dream of,” according to Bloomberg’s energy columnist Javier Blas. While eliminating Saudi imports may be possible, Blas stressed that the kingdom remains a global force in oil markets, capable of influencing what Americans pay at the pump, even if the hydrocarbon doesn’t come directly from Saudi Arabia.

Chart of US Oil Refineries and distillates. In recent decades, no new refineries have been built in the U.S. Building new refineries is expensive and fraught with environmental and political opposition, particularly with rising concerns over climate change and the transition to greener energy. This should change during Trump 47, but to do it, the companies risking their capital must be assured that they have a window of at least ten years during which these new refineries (which take time to build even if fast-tracked) are allowed to operate.

 

The Art of the Troll

 

The Saudi Nuclear Program

Saudi Arabia plans to enrich and sell its domestic uranium reserves as part of broader efforts to develop its nascent nuclear program. Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said, “We will do a yellowcake,” referring to a powdered concentrate of the mineral used to prepare uranium fuel for nuclear reactors. The remarks will heighten growing concerns of a regional nuclear arms race, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman telling Fox News last year that if Iran were to obtain a nuclear weapon, then “we will have to get one.” While Riyadh and Tehran have been restoring ties, the Director General of the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, told Semafor last month that Iran is “dramatically” increasing its uranium enrichment — bringing it ever closer to the level needed for weapons.

 

The DPRK (Norkland) – Deployed

(Forbes – h/t Claudio)

When North Korea’s 12,000-strong 11th Army Corps deployed to Kursk Oblast in western Russia to help Russian troops battle an invasion by a powerful Ukrainian force, they brought along anti-tank vehicles, howitzers, and rocket launchers.

They also brought a rarely seen air defense vehicle, combining a large wheeled chassis with the radar and missile launchers from a Russian-designed Tor surface-to-air missile vehicle, which usually rides on tracks.

The customized North Korean Tor is so unusual that the Russians themselves didn’t recognize it as belonging to their side. On or just before Friday, Russian drones spotted and struck the North Korean vehicle, destroying it. Celebrating what they clearly believed was a devastating strike on Ukrainian air defenses along the 250-square-mile Ukrainian-held salient in Kursk, Russian forces circulated a video montage of their attack on the North Korean vehicle.

It took a few days for outside observers to figure out precisely what the Russians blew up in Kursk last week. “It seems that what was originally claimed to be a ‘Western-made radar system’ is very likely to be a North Korean Tor SAM version on a cab chassis,” Polish analyst WarVehicleTracker noted.

 

Bullet Points:

** (Financial Times) “Many of the world’s wealthiest economies will need to at least double productivity growth to maintain historical living standard improvements amid sharp birth rate falls.

A McKinsey report investigating the economic impact of declines in birth rates found that the UK, Germany, Japan, and the US would all have to see productivity rise at double the pace seen over the past decade to maintain the same growth in living standards witnessed since the 1990s.

The consultancy’s report, published on Wednesday, showed that to match GDP per capita growth between 1997 and 2023, productivity growth in France and Italy would need to triple over the coming three decades.

In Spain, it would need to rise fourfold between now and 2050.

The report highlights the stark impact of declining birth rates on the world’s most prosperous economies, leaving them vulnerable to a shrinking proportion of the working-age population.”

** What the Hell?  (Dumbing down New Jersey) (h/t Claudio) Teachers in New Jersey will no longer be required to pass a basic reading, writing, and mathematics test to be eligible for public schools, according to a new law. Act 1669, signed into law by Gov. Phil Murphy, D., in June, went into effect on Wednesday at the start of the new year. The law aims to tackle teacher shortages by removing what the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), a teachers’ union, called a “barrier” to certification in 2023. The woke solution for a teacher shortage is to hire illiterate teachers. Many teachers won’t teach in New Jersey because the schools are “gladiator academies” for gangs and pose a physical threat of violence to educators.

** Swedes take action against feral sand people. The Danes have the right idea. The Swedes are coming around. Accepting no-skill, military-age males from sand countries into Sweden (and elsewhere) was a horrible mistake. Getting rid of them is more of a challenge but everyone has grown tired of the savages from the religion of peace.

 

Hearings

 

Steel & the Chinese Economic Boom

Financial Times ‘Big Read’: The scale of China’s appetite for steel has been epic. According to government data, as China built up its cities, it consumed twice as much metal in the two decades from 2000 to 2020 as the US did during the entire 20th century. This massive industrialization and urbanization, at a pace the world had never seen, drove a vast commodities supercycle. It caused prices of raw materials like iron ore and steelmaking coal to skyrocket and profoundly reshaped the global mining and energy industries.

But that supercycle, which started to wane during the Covid-19 pandemic, has finally ended. Last year, China’s steel production fell to a four-year low and is expected to shrink again this year. The country’s consumption of iron ore, a key ingredient for making steel and iron, declined last year after peaking in 2023, according to Macquarie.

There are some indications that Chinese oil demand is starting to peak—well before most forecasts predicted it would.

Steele Li, vice-chair of mining company CMOC, says that the real estate boom that drove the Chinese economy has ended. “That engine is over, and I don’t think it will come back, ever.

So China’s economy needs to find a new engine, with a similar size,” says Li.

While Chinese demand has been weak for several years, especially since the pandemic, some hoped that the government stimulus measures would spur a new upturn.

However, the resources industry has given up hope for another construction boom, like the ones that accompanied earlier stimulus packages. Experts quibble about the exact timing of the peak in Chinese demand. However, as Tom Price, head of commodities strategy at Panmure Liberum, says, “The China commodities supercycle is over.”

 

Identify the Aircraft

1

 

2

 

Identify the Armor

3

 

4

We’ve had this on VM before, but it’s an LL favorite. So it’s back for an encore. It carries the largest Gatling gun ever made – a 37 mm, six-barrel rotary cannon that can fire 3,000 rounds per minute. Each round is almost half a meter long, tipped with a projectile that weighs twice as much as the A-10’s 30 mm.

 

 

Parting Shot

 

 

End

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47 thoughts on “Through the Looking Glass”

  2. Identify the Aircraft:
    1. British Aerospace Nimrod AEW3
    2. Fisher P-75 Eagle
    Identify the Armor:
    3. StuG III Ausf. G
    4. T249 Vigilante

  3. With the teachers union backing the hiring of illiterate teachers there should be no more doubt about what that union is all about!

    1. I did a quick search for teacher salaries: In New Jersey, the median salary for teachers in the 2023-24 school year was $80,196. This is a 2.88% increase.

    2. Teachers’ Unions need to be destroyed. With fire. And sword. And chipper-shredder. Ain’t no good ever comes from a government-sector union, but Teachers’ Unions are the worst.
      –
      I can potentially see TUs for private schools, but even then, no, fuck the unions. The Unions are the major problem. They don’t allow incompetent teachers to be fired, abusive teachers to be fired, heck, anyone to be fired. They will fight far harder to save the pedophile and the pervert and the illiterate than they will for a good, strong, clean, hones and competent teachers.
      –
      Then again, public schools need to go back to corporal punishment and have the ability to block or charge and get arrested the violent and abusive students.
      –
      Seriously. This should be part and parcel of the destruction of the Department of Edumacation.

  4. okay, clue-bat me. so gates and company says we’re overpopulated and need to reduce. yet somehow when we do it ourselves that’s an issue. then they want to import babymakers from the dark regions of africa etc.? seems they’re amight confused, i know i am. the only thing i can figure is they want to dumb down all human civilization until something like a real (or man made) pandemic comes along and wipes us off the face of the earth.

    2. That’s because They want to control who gets to breed and in what quantity. After all, They know They can’t control too many peasants, serfs and slaves, so by reducing the lowly population will give Them more power overall to control said lowly peoples.

  5. “I have ultimately realized that I possess no observations of any real substance” With all due respect, of which for you I have considerable L-L, I call BS on that………
    .
    Post Modern Jukebox: Ermagosh! That gal can sing! She’s ferocious!

  7. “Postmodern Juke Box”: Holy Smokes! Morgan James has some serious pipes and control…could “feel It” from the hinterland. Brought it in spades. Thx for the heads up.
    ***
    Joizee (still vying for the worst drivers in America): Monopoly run [ran?] amok. More dumbing down of – 48th on the world list – public schools…time to eliminate them, APDJT (3 days to losing the ‘A’) will eliminate the Federal Idiots…uhh…Gubmint (New Year’s Resolution noted above and language adjustment made) hold on our yute’s education by disassembling the Dept. of [non]Education & State Indoctrination poste haste. About time….parents should be able to take their tax dollars back for the school of their choice.
    ***
    Once again Scandinavians Rule!..leading the pack on immigration reform” (we can take a lesson, altho I suspect deportations – individuals and “keeping them together” family’s will begin straight away, Homan has his orders and is unafraid to deploy the program).

    Nominees: Democrat hypocrisy on steroids…my favorite was when Sen. Mullin called out The Dem’s for THEM being drunk on the job while they “hammered” Hegseth for “being male”, having nothing to do with his job (just typical speeches by reprobates). The Irrelevant (in ALL of history at this point] just pardoned 2500 non-violent drug offense prisoners (“offence” for Jules), clearly desperate to warm-over Hunter’s pardon, who lost $500M in spit paintings from the Democrat caused fire. Waiting for Biden Jr’s insurance claim…will Bragg demand he be brought to NYC for overvaluing his paintings that no one wants?
    ***
    Aircraft #1- Who’s idea was that? Looks like it belongs in the animated feature “Cars”.
    ***
    3 Days…please Lord, let it happen without incident before, during, or after.

    1. Ps- KoH Quote: Finally printed and on my desk as a reminder, along with Hemingway’s re: “In our darkest moment, we don’t need solutions or advice…we need a gentle touch and human connection…we need love.” (to paraphrase)

    2. Wait! “Nimrod” (h/t Surly)…makes sense now. Is that where we get the condescending moniker, which came first, the aircraft or the title? Hmm.

      1. Nimrod the Hunter? Biblical dude.
        *
        Airplane named after him in the serious sense (like our Orion), moniker was sarcastic.
        *
        – Kle.

          1. Moving it inside due to the “predicted polar vortex” chilly temps. Me thinks it was 50/50, that and security.
            – No PPV here yet, 38 still since 5AM…maybe it’ll miss us (hahahaha)…but things needing it are plugged in, fridge and freezer are filled (no, didn’t brave the back wall at Costco, no 1#/slice pizza bought), split wood and kindling are put up, and the big coats and insulated Carhartt bibs and boots at the ready. Figured if I did all that – effectively “topping things off in the just in case” I won’t need them, iff’n I didn’t…well, we all know how that goes at 3am.

          2. @ Paul M
            ** one (the probably the only) reason I moved to Flowreeduh was (excluding skiing [on snow]) I’d just had enough of the cold, white stuff; after 80, it’s no longer a reasonably medical method of exercise, IMHO.
            ** in re 3 days: I (um, uh!) follow the market (sorta make money at it – I don’t consider it gambling. to which I’m “religiously” opposed and I refuse to “short” – dumb, I know, but…) and tend to get concerned when the graphs of the more sensitive issues go asymptotic – only because they (stock values) have a tendency to look for disastrous news as a reason to return to their more “normal” (inflated) values – they’ve been going skyward recently and this makes me very nervous.

          3. MrsPaulM will be down that way starting next week, preretirement breather to use up accrued vacation and visit extended famiy…hoping said vortex has vaminosed by then. Me, bach-ing it has its perks, catch up on missed episodes of Landman and Lioness…too bad they quit Joe Pickett after only 2 seasons.

        1. Could get weird, why wouldn’t it considering the crew inhabiting DC? A simple listen in on any one of the confirmation “speech opportunity’s”…err…hearings…proves the premise with shameless hypocrisy on full display.

  8. Balian’s admonition and oath quoted. Now here’s a stanza from “Sophia” by The Crüxshadows.
    Do not injustice to another
    Defend the weak & innocent
    May truth & honor always guide you
    Let courage find a life within
    Stand up when no one else is willing
    Act not in hatred or in spite
    Be to this world as a perfect knight
    Even if it means your life
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck4vl_8KZMI
    —
    >The Danes have the right idea. The Swedes are coming around.
    [link is dead, BTW]
    Did they do it to themselves? Maybe. Certainly partially. But I would argue that some other people exploited several factors to create this situation, the critical ones being: 1) cultural neuroprogramming “glitch” of Universality in Christianity, maybe especially Protestantism; 2) evolutionarily-based proclivity of Scandinavians for cooperation (no, it wouldn’t seem like that from the Sagas, or even history, would it? But it’s there.) Unfortunately, cooperation and prudent long-term planning only work with other higher-IQ, high trust people. Violent retards from a culture fundamentally inconsistent with not just Christian, but generally Western ethos and ethics do not, and cannot EVER fit in, much less contribute. On the flip side, high-IQ people who are (sometimes) high-trust within ONLY their own group, but always low-trust and given to deception (and contempt) for “outsiders” (such as the native population) also will never be a net gain for modern-day Scandinavia, or any part of Europe. This is a problem with the Chinese, as a people, for example. There can be individual exceptions (such as your humble correspondent), but in the aggregate this is true about Chinese.
    No less a spiritual authority than the Dalai Lama is against settling large numbers of fundamentally incompatible (and mostly not-so bright) people in Europe.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7ERut3AtJg

  9. China’s economic boom and/or bust
    I was talking with a few individuals from the PRC recently. I’m always curious what proportion want to stay in the US, since that would seem to be a comparator to how the US is doing relative to the PRC. Five, six years ago many wanted to stay; two years ago more were talking about going home. Let’s see what happens in say year 2 or 3 of The Trumpening v2.0. So in the mid 1980’s in my hometown there was this local restaurant owner (Chinese) who would marry women from the PRC for $30k USD. They’d work off the debt waitressing in his restaurant. Once they got the green card he’d divorce them. He was a piece of work. I was recently told that the going price for this sort of marriage (jia je hwun, literally “fake marriage” — the Chinese are not given to poetic allusions as a rule) was between $70 to $100k USD. Considering that $1 in 1984 is about $3 today it seems that the price of green card (fake) marriage is either constant, or even slightly decreased. Another person told me that the going rate for being smuggled in by a snakehead was around 300k RMB (so about $40k USD). My problem is that these are individual “point sources” and I have no context, no idea if these are generally true, or totally made up to mess with me, or true in the limited experience of my correspondent, but not generally true. But $40k with no guarantee of success (I assume you still owe the debt even if the smuggling fails) seems an awful lot to risk unless it’s quite bad in the PRC.
    —
    That said, a number of years ago I met an illegal in Toronto. She sighed. “It’s hard to make a living here in Canada, much worse than I thought. I still owe my “husband” a lot of money.” Aren’t you living with him?” She laughed ruefully. “Oh hell no. Picked me up at the airport, we went and took care of paperwork together, then he said ‘Good luck’ and literally left me on the street. Now I’m a waitress making $10 an hour and sharing a one-bedroom apartment with three other women. I was a nurse back home and I lived better than this.” So you’re going to tell people back home that they shouldn’t come to Canada, especially illegally?” “What, and lose face? Of course not. I’m telling everyone on social media that I’m doing great and they should come too.” (This was in Mandarin; she came to Canada without ever having learned English. Bad move. No pun intended.) Anyway, the point of that story is that there could be a misinformation/deception problem so that the fake-marriage people and the smuggled illegals are making decisions based on flawed data.
    —
    Is that an alligator (my guess, common things being common, assuming that’s Florida) or a crocodile? I know that crocs have “V-shaped snouts” vs alligators with”U-shaped,” plus there’s the upper-only vs upper+lower teeth thing, but that snout looks kinda V-shaped to me. Can anyone help a chigga out?

    1. this one appears to have a rounded snout and webbing between the toes (can’t be certain) so that might be a gator

    2. Based on my experience, your numbers for arranged marriages and so forth are correct. Snakeheads charge different amounts but those numbers are consistent.

    3. Gator. Wide rounded muzzle.
      –
      Though we do, even before the exotic kamans and other crocodiles were released, have the American Crocodile in South Florida. Long, v-shaped snout. Though they are few in number.
      –
      Gators, though, besides all the two-legged ones, are pretty darned numerous and are found in colder environments than people expect. The gators will go into a turpor state after either going into a den or digging into the mud.
      –
      Either way the question should be “What caliber to use?” Though the pesky Fish & Wildlife cops get peeved when you whack one without a permit or license.

        2. We are not supposed to kill them, but to call ‘Wildlife officials’ and then they call a gator-wrangler to come get the animal. Any gator longer than 6′ then gets whacked far away from civilians, while those 6′ and smaller just get relocated.
          –
          We are not supposed to kill pythons or most any other invasive species because whacking them in civilized areas is a bad thing.
          –
          But we are allowed to shoot feral hogs all year long, day or night, as long as said hogs aren’t on federal lands.
          –
          I know, doesn’t make sense, even here in mostly sensible Florida, but it’s hold overs from more ‘enlightened’ democratic administrations.

          1. Rumor has it The Magical Mr O is running around with Jennifer Aniston and Big Mike is not happy about it therefore snubbing public appearances. Now, as a Christian, gossip is not part of the job description, however, anything is plausible these days so maybe not gossip but factual reporting.

          2. > running around with Jennifer Aniston
            Doing what? Giggling about boys and getting their nails done with matching designs? It’s not as if the guy gives off “I am sexually attracted to women” vibes or anything like that.

          3. Heh, probably. “will that be a french polish or periwinkle swirl over a chartreuse base?” That video of him going all little girl watching some event…geez…your president. Teddy R is looking down shaking his head in disbelief.

  11. Can’t blame the Saudis for wanting nukes. They’ve had 12 years of US administration
    (O) backstabbing them while simultaneously boosting their nemesis (and ours) Iran.
    Besides, the world lets jackwagons like the DPRK and Pakistan publicly have nukes,
    and does nothing about it.
    *
    If the US doesn’t want the Saudis to have them, we should work out a deal to station
    some of ours at King Khalid, like we have done with other nations.
    *
    – Kle.

  12. Ironically, that Nimrod AEW bird was a massive failure. That particular pic is ‘after’ the Falklands, because it has the refueling set up. I saw one at RAF Finningley back in the early 80s and got a look inside. It was CROWDED! And there was an ongoing pissing contest between British Aerospace and I ‘think’ Marconi, or whoever was providing the computer system. The navigator that I talked to said they couldn’t keep the bird cold enough to keep the computers up, and they never did get a ‘good’ radar picture due to display processing on the computer.

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