Caption: Naval Warfare – “English men-at-arms, supported by their archers, board a French ship.”
Send the Spies back home to Red China
hint: they ALL have ties to the CCP.
Chinese Supply Chains
(Strategypage – h/t Claudio) China recently adopted new reporting procedures for foreign firms doing business in China or with Chinese companies. While Western companies have adapted to constantly evolving reporting practices, this is all new for most Chinese firms. Chinese businesses quickly adapted, but the Chinese government did not. When Chinese companies cause problems for foreign companies, customers, and governments, the Chinese government finds itself unable to cope. The heart of this problem is a government that still operates as if it were a communist dictatorship. That can work inside China, but not with foreign customers. Foreigners with complaints have no one inside China who can assist them. This is detrimental to Chinese businesses, which have responded by relocating a significant portion of their manufacturing operations overseas. There, they employ locals to help set up operations and deal with local practices. The Chinese government is unable to keep track of all this foreign expansion, let alone solve problems with its offshore operations.
China’s government cannot halt all these businesses without crippling the economy. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) remains in power by providing a growing economy for the Chinese people. The government is desperately seeking ways to understand and manage the workings of this ever-increasing economy. That can be done inside China. It isn’t easy figuring out how Chinese firms operate in over a hundred foreign countries.
There are unique problems in every country. In China, the government has failed to overcome the corruption that has been part of Chinese culture for thousands of years. Commercial corruption briefly diminished in the early years of communist rule. It didn’t disappear but migrated to the new government institutions. This was especially true for the military, whose primary role was to maintain the CCP’s power. The military was corrupt, as it had been throughout China’s history. In the 1980s, China’s economy was unleashed by CCP leader Deng Xiaoping. He declared that it was alright to become rich, and family members of CCP officials were the first to take advantage of this.
On the plus side, Chinese military corruption was so acute that China was incapable of invading Taiwan. Current ruler Xi Jinping took power in 2013 and made the alarming discovery in 2023 that China’s navy and air force were unprepared for a significant conflict. There were too few spare parts, and many weapons, like missiles of all types, didn’t work at all. Those who did work would do so for only a month or so in a major war. The generals had become wealthy by diverting funds needed to make the weapons function properly. The generals stashed the cash in foreign banks and made plans to leave quickly with their families if their hustle was discovered. Xi discovered that many of these families had already established legal residence in foreign countries. Xi had many of these generals prosecuted and sought to increase the production of aircraft and ship spare parts. The goal was to threaten Taiwan with invasion convincingly. Many Taiwanese are descendants of anti-communists who fled China after losing a long civil war. These Chinese kept track of events in China and know all about the corruption and futile efforts of the government to deal with it. For the Taiwanese Chinese, corruption is a significant factor in protecting them from invasion. Another asset was the Taiwanese free market economy, which the Chinese were trying to emulate.
To China, all this prosperity made Taiwan vulnerable. This is becoming increasingly visible as Chinese business operations expand globally and displace Taiwanese suppliers. China offers lower prices for the same goods, so when the competition is gone, China can raise its prices. These practices have driven many other foreign firms out of business. The rest of the world began to realize that Chinese business practices were contributing to their local economic problems. As the largest supplier of industrial and commercial products, China believed it was invulnerable to retaliation. That was not true, and many major customers, especially the Americans, began punishing Chinese imports with high tariffs and efforts to produce locally or find other suppliers. The Chinese thought this was not possible because China could not undertake such a task. Western countries had more control over their supply chains and were accustomed to adapting quickly to new circumstances. The CCP still believed in central planning, even with its free market economy. This problem became visible when the Americans threatened to blockade a China that threatened Taiwan or any other nation.
Chinese leaders recognized that they were unable to withstand a prolonged American blockade. A prolonged blockade of China by the U.S. Navy would be detrimental to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China’s national unity. China’s economy primarily exists to achieve full employment, thereby maintaining the CCP’s power. Nearly half of China’s GDP and jobs are based on exports, most of which reach their customers by sea.
States with a smaller population than Los Angeles County.
The Clash of Civilizations
(Link) The article is submitted for your examination. “The hermeneutics of suspicion applies only to the West, of course. The wall text for the Metropolitan Museum’s warrior plaque from the West African court of Benin says nothing about that city-state’s lucrative trade in slaves or its ruthless territorial conquests. Court paintings from China are not deconstructed as a fig leaf for imperial expansion…”
(snip) Under the prior regime, the West’s self-hatred had reached a point of self-cancellation. According to the vast international network of government bureaucrats, media, and nonprofits, Western countries have no right to control who comes across their borders from allegedly oppressed lands. Irreversible demographic and cultural change is not a byproduct of open borders; it is their goal.
To live under the prior regime was to live under a set of fictions: The West ushered into world history colonialism, slavery, and xenophobia. Non-Western civilizations were peace-loving and egalitarian before being invaded by Western interlopers. Mainstream institutions in the United States discriminate against underrepresented minorities in admissions, hiring, and promotions. The biological difference between males and females is a minor convention that can be disregarded as a matter of personal choice. To argue that solar and wind energy cannot, at present, replace fossil fuels is to wish for the annihilation of the planet.
We also lived with Orwellian paradoxes. Destroy democracy to save democracy! So declared the elites in canceling elections whose outcomes they did not like, as in Romania, or in shutting out of government democratically elected parties that deviate from open-borders orthodoxy, as in France and most egregiously in Germany. Destroy free speech to save free speech! The international elites criminalize dissent in the name of safeguarding open discourse; here, Britain provides some of the most striking examples. A British citizen can be arrested and imprisoned for speech that might, in the government’s view, stir up “racial hatred” or cause someone anxiety. Vice President J.D. Vance criticized such violations of liberal values at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025; the outraged response to his address seemed to confirm his point. In the United States, the government merely pressured social media companies to silence heterodox views, though it did, for one shining moment, create its Orwellian board of disinformation.
American elites preserved the hegemony of these fictions and paradoxes through stigma, casting into the wilderness anyone who dared to deviate from the official line. Anyone who believed in the traditional American narrative of vitality and progress, who thought our history was not entirely disfigured by slavery, was a racist in need of bias training. Careers have been ruined for failure to toe the pro-diversity line, even in private conversation. Self-censorship reigned on college campuses, even as those institutions held themselves out to the public as the font of free inquiry. Members of the University of Pennsylvania female swim team had to hide behind anonymity to protest the unfair advantage enjoyed by a male teammate. (/snip)
Oh, Look!
Before Trump was “orange man bad,” he was just another A-lister in a tux, shaking hands with the same Hollywood elite that now pretend they don’t know him.
The same crowd that partied, posed, and profited alongside him now acts like moral crusaders. Spoiler alert: the only thing that changed wasn’t him—it was who he dared to challenge.
***
In Syria
Syria signed its first major reconstruction deal, sealed weeks after US President Donald Trump decided to lift sanctions in a signal of a shifting regional order. Washington’s envoy to Syria, Thomas Barrack, was present at the signing of the $7-billion gas and solar power project, as were US military officers working alongside predominantly Kurdish forces who had battled against Islamic State militants. Barrack later raised the US flag at the ambassador’s residence in Damascus and called for a non-aggression pact with Israel, saying the two sides should start talking about “boundaries and borders.”
The power project includes four gas plants and a solar farm that will generate 5,000 megawatts and is being executed by Qatari, Turkish, and US companies. It’s expected to create more than 50,000 jobs and return almost half of the country’s pre-war power capacity.
Bullet Points:
** Eisenhower (1951 letter to George Marshall): “If we commit ourselves to the permanent garrisoning of Europe, we will destroy the incentive of the European countries to do their part.”
** California’s “Leno’s Law” (SB 712) has cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee and is now heading to the full Senate for a vote. This bill, sponsored by Senator Shannon Grove and backed by Jay Leno, aims to exempt collector cars 35 years and older from the state’s stringent smog check requirements.
The legislation recognizes that these classic vehicles are primarily used for shows, parades, and special events, contributing minimally to overall emissions. It also supports California’s $40.44 billion specialty automotive aftermarket industry, which sustains over 149,000 jobs.
** Archaeologists may have uncovered the resting place of Genghis Khan in Mongolia’s Khentii province, near the Onon River. During road construction, workers found a mass grave containing 68 skeletons on an ancient stone structure. Forensic experts believe that these remains, likely dating back to the 13th century, include individuals who assisted in the tomb’s construction and were buried to ensure its secrecy. Among the artifacts were twelve horse remains intended for the afterlife, as well as gold and silver items. Analysis indicates that the tomb belonged to a powerful warlord, dating from 1215 to 1235 AD, which strongly suggests it is Genghis Khan’s final resting place. I always wondered how Genghis adapted to the afterlife.
** The term “sliders” originated on U.S. Navy ships, where burgers are said to be so greasy that they slide down the gullet. Another theory is that the term refers to burgers sliding on grills as ships pitch and roll. There’s nothing like eating a greasy hamburger in front of seasick shipmates during rough weather…You become instantly unpopular.
** Job fairs. An accurate representation. I only went to one once – a long time ago. The experience cited echoes mine. I’ve heard that medical job fairs tend to be more benign. Maybe everyone self-medicates?
** Of historical note: I’ve been approached by a few people over the past three months to do things to help Red China. Those approaches are both annoying and have been, and will continue to be, rebuffed. I don’t bother to examine whether the offers are genuine or are false flag ops.
** Not AOC – But AOC is still the leader of the democrat party.
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
There is a big hint
3
6100+ built – The pilots sat in a very cramped cockpit. Crew comfort wasn’t a concern of the designers.
4
Parting Shot
End
1 is North American FJ-4 Fury
2 looks like a Yakovlev Yak-52 Basic trainer
History
Seems to be dropped as a serious subject in most schools here by the mid 1980’s. Replaced with Social Studies.
Definitely gone by the time some of my younger cousins were in High School.
Yes.
.
And the same thing happened in the US. Even “history” is often a gross manipulation of facts to suit new social norms – thus social studies.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. North American FJ-4 Fury
2. Yakovlev Yak-52
3. Ilyushin Il-10 Beast
4. Boeing Model 306 Flying Wing Bomber
Excellent
Corruption could be reduced by having ascetics rotate into positions that dictate how money will be spent. Problem is, ascetics tend to scare the bejabbers out of politicians :)
The movement of money in and out of the Treasury drives the economy. The problem is debt that’s out of control, and a Congress that’s unwilling to set aside sacred cows for the good of the nation.
Sliders…Yep , Carrier had a speed line , sliders all the time . Sea sick shipmates , here’s a story , I knew a BM3 that would bring along a can of chunky vegetable soup when we were going out to sea . He would dump it (some) on a clean portion of deck on the foc’sle which was usually kept spotless (church services etc) . He would bet money to the unwitting that he would eat a chunk or two for 5,10 ,20 bucks , just more stupid shit bored squids do at sea . He made a few bucks . I just shook my head and laughed to myself . Sliders sucked by the way , gristle burger , I was a purist , nothing was gonna fix that food of last resort , so I ate them plain , unwrapped the checkered red and white paper and woofed ’em down , usually grabbed two for the road , in case some other guy down the road might be hungry . Carriers are the worst for food , small boys were much much better , the subs were the best . On shore duty when we were doing weight test jobs on subs , they would feed us lunch , I think that they didn’t believe we would come back if we left for lunch . Which may or may not have been the case .
Anyone know anything about Rod Martin’s book “The Counterrevolution” ? Looks like it might be interesting, but it may be a lot of fluff as well.
when I find big words in the (sub)/title or first paragraph of an article/speech, I tend to shut down.
My 10 vol edition of the OED, lies within an easy arm’s reach of the left side of my desk; printed 1937 when the English language had not yet been contaminated with modern-day -isms emanating from the drugged/sleepy/power-hungry minds of those elites in academia to the back streets in Harlem: I’m very comfortable with its use.
I see no earthly reason for ever employing the word hermeneutics outside of a discussion elucidating possible contradictions in the The Bible in a classroom of novitiates, particularly when I find it being used IMHO incorrectly; certainly exegesis would be a better word to describe what she’s attempting.
then again, personally, I’d re-evaluate what I’m trying to get across and rephrase that first sentence entirely.
would Taiwan be interested in establishing a large-scale Naval ship-building industry to supply the U.S. (etal) with bottoms?
would it irritate the PRC? to what degree?
Einstein:
and here I thought the 大鼻子 was going to discuss his favorite method of making 蛋花湯.
Cute :)
“sliders”
While not immune, motion sickness has rarely been a problem. On board the cruise ship T-AP-126 General Maurice Rose our first meal was supper, having departed Brooklyn. Crockery was sliding across the table. A soup bowl slid by full of vomit. A few diners immediately left the table. Heh, more hamburger steaks for the rest of us. Give the Navy credit, the chow on that trip was far superior to Army consolidated mess halls.
——-
That trip convinced me that not joining the Navy was a good decision.
RE: Red China. An honorable and wise decision. I commend you for it.
Sliders and autodogs… sigh… And bug juice!
>Send the Spies back home to Red China
Yes, good. And let’s send home ALL the spies from ALL the would-be ethnostates comprised of high-IQ persons who have millennia-long continual ethnic identities, and who openly consider all outsiders to be subhumans. (Just because you love someone slavishly doesn’t mean they love you back. If they are kind, they feel a sort of awkward pity. If they are not kind, they will exploit the hell out of you while sneering in your face, and mocking you to others besides.)
That’s an outstanding idea.
“States with a smaller population than Los Angeles County.”
Helps to know where to concentrate firepower
Concrete jungle.
I wonder what the population of LA County would have looked like if Prop 187 had been upheld?
I’m surprised Jersey didn’t make the cut. Has to be close.
– Kle.
Speaking of China, did you see who Harvard picked to be commencement speaker? That’s sure to please Trump.
Sliders. The proper was to aid your sea-sick brethren is chili-mac. But only if served appropriately. Clear plastic bag with spoon. Simulate barfing. Then reach in and take a heaping spoonful. Guaranteed to work.
Abraham Verghese, an expatriate Indian via Africa, is something of a cunt – if I may frame the characterization in that way. Thus, he’s perfect for Harvard and will deliver the hate speech that Satan’s Vatican revels in.
I wonder if Abe (can I call him Abe?) will explain that “Long Covid” is nothing but an adverse reaction to an experimental vaccine that people were forced to take and it will make them sick for the rest of their lives.
CVA 59 had the best chocolate milk ever made. It came in cardboard plastic lined box, maybe 3 gallons. The dispenser had a heavy knob resembling the head of a golf club that you had to lift to get the chocolate milk to flow. [maybe to keep weak swabbies from partaking ]
Weak Swabbies ? Some swabbie lifted that big ol cardboard box of chocolaty goodness from the deck up into the stainless box cow , from whose udder you so enjoyed suckling . Never recall any squadrons sending down any E1-3’s to partake in the sport of mess cranking , had I been king , you would have been banished from the decks of mess , and been forced to eat box lunches , with only chocolate UHT milk product in a small box from the Philippines , served warm , with a sippie straw . Be gone ..return to the parts of Earth of hard packed soil , that doesn’t pitch and sway . Be it known that after the squadrons were flown off and their mess cleaned up by swabbies , the lines were short to sup , and the fine rations were brought up from the lower decks , we dined daily on only steaks of beef , and fine creatures of the sea , shrimps , lobsters , and mahi mahi caught off the fantail in large amounts by large nets rigged on J Davits and beer rats were available daily along with fine cigars for non watchstanders .
Betcha didn’t know that …LOL !!
The Oldest Rate , the Boldest Rate , only GOD can make a Boatswainsmate . Crossed Anchors do not have fairy wings in the Real Navy .
I couldn’t set a proper pull up to save my life and barely squeaked by in the Army, but I could lift and snatch a 175# bale of alfalfa over my head using hay hooks and toss it up two levels on the truck. I would have never made the Marines. I would have been the fat guy in Full Metal Jacket except I wasn’t fat. Medical job fairs are quite vicious, you are expected to know medical things and not be disgusted with icky things…
There is very little inherently “clean” about the human body… I think that diagnostic medicine would likely be the cleanest and most removed from the ick.
I sure hope that isn’t the tomb of Chingis Khan. As there are some stories that say if his tomb is found, well, hordes will ride again for the last time. Kind of a Mongolian Revelations so to speak.
–
On the other hand, would be cool if it was Chingis. As maybe the Hordes could have fun in China again. And fun in western Russia again.