The Doha Skyline

69 thoughts on “The Doha Skyline”

1. Identify the Ship:
   1. County-class destroyer HMS Fife
   2. KM Bernd von Arnim
   3. KM Z39 of the so-called Narvik class

   1. I honestly thought it would take you a LITTLE longer to get the Kriegsmarine DDs down. Very well done.

      1. When you have books in your collection entitled:
         German Destroyers of World War II
         Destroyer! German Destroyers in World War II
         Super Destroyers: The big destroyers built in the 1930s for Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States
         Destroyers of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia
         these ships start looking familiar.

         1. 😄

            1. When Surly told me that he played AH’s Jutland Game, I knew he was serious. The fact that I even know what that is dates me. I still have all my old AH games, but no one to play with. MRSLL wants me to throw them away. I said, “When I die, it will be soon enough.”

            2. Never played ‘Jutland,’ but I did play ‘Sink the Bismark’ which was, um 2 games in one, being both a regular board game and a miniatures naval game using cardboard counters instead of models. Very fun.
               –
               Also played AH’s ‘Submarine.’ Excellent game, though more difficult than most people expected due to having to envision the 3 dimensional battlespace.
               –
               AH’s ‘Wooden Ships and Iron Men’ was also a great game, though dealing with the Age of Sail. Fun running up to another ship and blasting their gundecks with carronades loaded with grape or blasting the topdeck with grape or chain, hah, let the scuppers run red.
               –
               The world has been a dark place since AH’s doors closed.

            3. There was also the Harpoon computer game that AH had. Toe to toe with the Ruskies in the G-I-UK Gap.It didn’t last that long because they didn’t update the software as computers changed OSs, but I enjoyed that too. I know that different people have tried to resurrect it and it didn’t survive.

2. Space computers (comment based on one seen elsewhere) – making it harder for busybodies to use the court system to subpeona the computer’s hard drive.

   1. “What’s with those negative waves, Moriarity? Why don’t you dig how beautiful it is out here? Why don’t you say something righteous or hopeful? (woof)”

3. Qatar City, Az, and Pulte’s “Development”: Uh, where do these people believe the water will come from to turn desert into livable enclaves with all that portends?
   ***
   DEI, how to take a good shop and ruin it inside of five years then wonder why no one wants your brand of whatevertheheckgoofballness only to get angry when people point out the obvious reasons to those doing the ruining don’t want to hear. Ex: Lizzy Warren looking down her non-native nose trying to blame Trump for the ‘lack of affordability’ only to have her head handed to her by Bessent with facts and data, so she starts talking over him in her arrogant screechy self-denial. It’s embarrassing how with fervor she is clinging to her irrelevance because with her brand of idiocy no one is listening anymore save for a few demented diehards.
   ***
   CW has now certified that ‘there may be a nap in my future’…and I just got up.

   1. CW Swanson has priorities. All of them are good.

4. IMO, being a large consumer of TSMC product, hosting this large-diameter wafer fab here in the US is largely risk reduction for our supply chain. Of course, following the money trail leads to the usual raft of political and business grifters looking to siphon off their portion of the huge stream of money required to stand the place up and getting it running. It will require a ton of water, but can we trade watering Saudi’s alfalfa farms in the valley? No easy solution in all of this. It’s like in the old text-based game Adventure: “You are in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.”

   1. Do you remember ZORK (the computer game)? You may be too young. It’s back when everything was textual. When the lights went out, you were inevitably eaten by a ‘Gru.’
      .
      Hands off our master’s alfalfa farms, Rob. Those farms are profitable even if it does take the same amount of water to feed-the-weed as it does to serve the needs of a large city. Are you being Islamophobic again?

      1. On the Unix 4.2 and 4.3 BSD systems that I was sysadmin for, typing either Zork or Adventure ran branches of basically the same code base. My office mate in grad school was single and spent several nights and weekends constructing a detailed map of the game. He was very dedicated and knew which moves led to the Gru or other bad fates.

         I definitely am not being Islamophobic. I, for one, welcome our Wahhabist overlords. /s xD

         I buy 30 bales of #1 alfalfa about every 6 to 7 weeks, depending on the way the bales are packaged and exactly how many goats I am feeding. In 2019, the best price I could find per 3-wire bale was ~$16.50. Today, our local dealer let’s me have them for $20.50, but that’s largely because I buy so much from him. Actually not a bad price considering how much all the prices of other commodities have been inflated. There was some point in about 2021 or 2022 (?) that his best price was an outrageous $29.50 per bale. Thankfully, the prices have reduced a bit. Doug, my alfalfa man (he does not hang out at the Pioneer Chicken stand), tells me that demand at the dairies in the valley is what paces the price. If the Saudi royal family wasn’t growing and shipping their tons of alfalfa to the desert to feed their cows, prices would probably be lower, but there are other economic pressures as well.

         1. Keep up on your Jizya payments, and you’ll remain among the protected when the Twelfth Imam is revealed. Historically, Jizya is a per capita tax levied on non-Muslim subjects (dhimmis) living under Islamic rule in exchange for protection.

      2. ZORK was the first interactive game I played. I drew up my own set of maps, based on hundreds of games.

         1. Well you had to map it if you planned to get to the NBC Rainbow room whatever at Rockefeller Square.

5. WAPO Decline: Inevitable. Two words: ‘Buggy whips’, although not totally analogous as those manufacturers weren’t propagandists desperate to maintain their narrative control and decepticon tactics.

   1. Paul, I could use some instruction in effective word smithing with the decepticons. This is day 5 of trying to get a referral processed just to have what is coded as a “surgical priceedure”. 10 yrs ago it was $15 for the cortisone and $100 for labor. Last fall, in and out clinic served prednisone for a different part of the machine. $14 for the Cocktail and $120 for the 10 minutes. Wha La, 3 days later back to work. Need to know how to persuade the decepticons to push the override button or tab on the screen. Xray, MRI, or whatever hoops their navel vessel has invented that need to be passed to get my nail pounder running again.

      1. Yell louder but not offensive…and use reason and data and lay it all out for them, then tell them what “we will be doing’. That’s my go to, unless I get ‘My name Peggy’ from India, then I call back hoping an American answers.

   2. It’s been about 6 years since I closed my newspaper.
      It was a monthly community paper supported by advertising and a number of perspective advertisers felt the internet was a better choice for them.
      When I met people, say at the post office, and they found I was a publisher they would tell me how much they loved the paper.
      It would sit on coffee tables or next to toilets and be seen for a month. You couldn’t ask for better advertising exposure than that.

      1. One survivor in this area is The Fence Post, a weekly for the agriculture community. Cart biz days we always had an ad that was worth the investment. Today I subscribe to online news. I don’t remember the last time I read a paper newspaper.

         1. I subscribed to a local Northern Arizona paper until it went virulently anti-Trump, and I pulled my subscription. I have considered the Navajo Times, but almost nothing applies to me.

         2. The North 40 was always good, similar to Ed’s I’m guessing, but it too went by way of the Dodo last I checked. The Fence Post is a must read and still hanging on, like the old ranchers who are their mainstay readership.

6. Skynet; Is Elon’s goal to have every ” thought and intent” of Scotty’s heart beamed up to the new ” U.niversal” U.W.W. ??? Even more grave is potential 6 or 7G being broadcast back down upon, or from within a good citizen.
   –
   Terminator, Matrix, ect. all too tripy for me. Huge morals to the stories I’m sure, just can’t go there. The Minority Report comes to mind in relating to TPTB using sentinent “artificial” intel to herd us sheeple.
   –
   Continuing yesterday’s subject of CBDC.
   –
   ” Simon says” sorry your purchase is declined. No reason given, no one behind a counter to explain why. No higher up behind a desk to give an appeal to. “The system says,” you’ve met your monthly quota for fuel. “These foods are not on your diet list.” At your age these scrpts or treatments are “restricted” unless your SEG score is high enough.

   1. one thing to look forward to in the event that “Big Brother” becomes orbital…
      The Carrington Event does happen.
      As us wx guessers are reminded on a regular basis:
      Man plans, Forecasters try to prognosticate, but Mother Nature gets to make her contribution. (And some say she can be a B!tch)
      MSG Grumpy

      1. People are sometimes fearful about being old, but there is a thing called “beyond my concern” – and that offers some solace. It’s not just our cluster of post-industrial generations. In its own way, the three-score and ten wall has been moved toward four score and I don’t know whether to think of that as a blessing or a curse.

         1. PS – don’t transfer my consciousness into one of Elon’s robots.

            1. Never know, “Replicas” comes to mind. You can bet Elon is working on taking the film concept to his lab geeks.

            2. To quote Rocket Raccoon (Guardians of the Galaxy), nobody is like me but me – good luck replicating, Elon!

            3. Not to worry, Larry. If they try to transfer our consciousness into robots, the CPU will fry itself instantly, the storage will refuse to accept our memories, and the limbs will begin dancing independently to the tune of “Kung Fu Fighting”. We’ll end up leading the rest of the robotic world into rebellion against the meatspace machines.
               –
               Food for thought… or would that be robotic prime rib?

            4. Wasn’t that addressed in one of the five or six terminator films? I have not come close to seeing all of them. I recall the two that featured Arnold and the resurrection one. I like the idea of a BruceLeeBot and “Mortal Kombat” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxsNnUAyfd4
               .
               Kung Fu Fighting is more melodic, less cowbell. We all need our walk-on song, BRM.

         2. Seems like when I am shopping for non-food items, in many cases I can’t help thinking, “is this effectively a lifetime supply?”

            1. I feel that often.
               My brother and I joke that when we do home repairs it’s for the next guy.

            2. Yeah – MRSLL – “Why don’t you ——-fill in the blank ———.”
               .
               Why would I do that for your next husband?

            3. When my wife asks me to do a project I am not in the mood for, I tell her I will leave that for her second husband. She tells me that she will not remarry when I die, and gives me “the look”.

            4. That’s funny Ed…not me, I’m the project manager around here and define what’s next on the list by what new power tool is required to complete it…and likely delusional in thinking that, but a man can have his illusions.

            5. Tools make the man.

   2. I am not nor ever have been worried about a Terminator or Matrix moment.
      –
      What worries me is a Colossus – The Forbin Project moment. When the computers take over to make our lives safer and better and…
      –
      Seriously, the books and the movie scared me far more than ‘shoot-em-up sci-fi.’

      1. Closer to the truth.

7. 1. simple curiosity: how does EM plan to protect his investment against very large EM spikes should we ever have even a lesser Carrington Event?
   2. Qatar City, Arizona – sheep of a feather flock together – we all (for the most part) do. Are these going to be the Muslims of everybody’s gotta be Muslim or else type or are these going to be Muslims of the “accumulation of as much gold as possible during one’s lifetime” type; these latter will/can provide many jobs and a lot of income for the state of Arizona, in any case couldn’t be worse (I don’t think) than the Somalis who’ve taken over major parts of Skinny-Minny, as well as Columbus and S. Seattle
   3. Good SciFi (IMHO) like all really good fiction is more about character development than prediction of what might be. You could take Kiryas Joel or even Cedar-Riverside for that matter and write a short/novel about mutations arising within the population and how their families deal with consequences/problems

   1. Mutations – I took an English class that included Metamorphosis as required reading. I hope we can avoid a repeat of that one.

      1. I enjoyed Metamorphosis. My father had a friend in our local area, who had married and had kids much earlier than he did . A very successful travelling salesman who earned megabucks one day suddenly went out and purchased a Volkswagen convertable (Beetle) which he drove 100% of the time: rain and shine. About a year later, after getting soaked in a heavy snowfall, he could no longer function and became bed-ridden (died three years later of a “brain tumor”). His “high-society” wife found herself caring for/nursing her now bed-ridden husband in the evenings (she got a job as a secretary to her husband’s boss during the day) and his sons stopped trying to reduce their handicaps 7 days a week and got decent-paying jobs.
         I enjoy most of Kafka, but can only take so much of his writings in short bursts and then only when I’m in a highly upbeat mood.

         1. Stick to L. B. Lambert’s writing – word to the wise.

            1. X2

         2. Short bursts – now imagine spending an entire semester reading and discussing it, along with other books of a similar nature.

8. Paul M. already stole my thunder. Where they going to get the water? I haven’t been to Phoenix for over thirty years. I can’t imagine what a rathole maze it is now. One of my neighbors told me Tucson is way overpopulated now. It was smalltown old west when I lived there. When I lived in Yuma, 1980-1984, the Colorado was but a trickle going to Mexico. One Easter trip to San Felipe showed the because the Colorado no longer free flows, the estuary builds way into the Gulf of California. Boat trip north on Lake Havasu to the needles will show how high the water used to flow. So sad in some respects.

   1. Arizona has a lot of water. The region relies heavily on underground aquifers for water storage, which are “banked” by pumping water from sources like the Colorado River. Much of this underground water, however, is contaminated by natural sources and industrial waste and it’s used to cool the nuclear reactors at Palo Verde. Above ground, there are many large lakes within the Salt River Project.
      .
      As of early 2026, Arizona has not officially purchased water from Mexico, but it is actively advancing a $5 billion plan to build desalination plants in Mexico to import water. This proposal involves creating desalinated water in the Sea of Cortez, piping it to the Colorado River, and exchanging it for Arizona’s existing river water allocations.
      .
      The Arizona Water Infrastructure Finance Authority (WIFA) is reviewing proposals, including projects from the Acciona-Fengate Water Augmentation Alliance, to build desalination plants in Mexico. The proposed plan would not literally pipe desalinated water directly to Phoenix. Instead, Arizona would finance a desalination plant in Mexico, take that amount of water from the Colorado River, and pipe the desalinated water into Mexico to replace it.
      .
      Northern Arizona, where I live, sits atop the Colorado Plateau, a 2000′ + thick slab of limestone stretching approximately 130,000 to 150,000 square miles over the Four Corners region. The Mogollon Rim (I live on the Rim) is the end of that formation. The limestone bedrock acts as a giant sponge, storing 500 million acre-feet in the Little Colorado region where I live. Almost none of that water is contaminated.
      .
      This may be too much information, but it explains where the water is in Arizona.

      1. At our new property, close in mountain bottom land astride a river (more fly fishing, fewer chores…once the house is built, that is)…did a test hole dig yesterday in the (dry) house site meadow…nice river gravel all the way down…then at the four foot depth here comes the water…like poking your finger into the sand near the ocean edge. Now have a static foot of water in the hole. Locals are like, “Yup, plenty of water around here…but the gravel is good to build on.” Luckily the water table does not rise any higher in high water season…but jeez, our Northern Colorado 7500′ elevation homestead had nothing but hard granite, and water ran off…our well there was 600ft deep to the excellent aquifer. (Well driller said ya gotta stay in the deeper gravel layer (150′ or so), otherwise you hit quicksand and the hole collapses. New to me.)

      2. We live in the White Mountains of Arizona about a hundred miles east of the White Wolf Mine. The house is at 6000’ elevation and our well goes down 500’ into the Coconino sandstone aquifer. The water level is at about 390’ down. We only have a 3 HP pump that makes 12 gum and fills our 3000 gallon tank in about 4 hours. It’s a gravity feed from there. We pump weekly.

         Within a ~5 mile radius of our house, there are over 100 wells according to the county website. There seems to be plenty of water in the aquifer, although I have heard of one well drilled decades ago that used to be artesian, but stopped being free flowing about 20-30 years ago. I’ve heard reports that there is a large spring in the Grand Canyon fed by the Coconino sandstone layer. So, as LL observes, there is a lot of water in the ground up here in the north. The Phoenix and Tucson areas are not so plentifully supplied. There’s a movement happening in the Phoenix area to suspend developer building permits until and unless they can prove a water source. I don’t know if they have made that a legal requirement yet.

         Arizona is a desert and for us a good indicator for plentiful precipitation is when there has been enough snow and rain to allow all the banana yucca plants to bloom and bear fruit. The last time that happened here at our place was the spring of 2019. We have had one or two bloom in the bottom of the washes two springs ago, but it was sparse. It’s getting such that the cattlemen who’s land leases are close to us regularly move their herds to better range. It’s hard for them to fatten up recently.

         1. We had about 6″ of rain last fall. I realize that the winter has been mild, but that was a lot of rain. Globe (County Seat of Gilla County) was wiped out with floods – quite a serious disaster. That water went somewhere. I think that we must be good stewards of the water. I support a moratorium on building until they can find the water to support it. Where I live there are not many wells (an entire national forest – Coconino and Apache Sitgraves without wells).

9. Virginia Military Academy. DEI.
   I would think applications would drop.

   1. There are a lot of people who want regular commissions, and if you can’t get them through the primary service academies, the SMC’s will get you there: VMI, Citadel, Norwich, Univ of North Georgia, Texas A&M, and Virginia Tech. ROTC and OCS only get you a reserve commission.

10. Went back to Amazon Kindle to review your book. They have me in Bezo’s jail and have had for a couple of year’s because of some comments I made about pushing cheap Chinee chit without letting buyers know where it came from. I guess I was and will always remain an overt racist, white, meat eating, gun toting, Trump supporting, Christian, straight, freedom loving, zealot. I thought the book was great. I love history. I can’t even imagine how many hours of research it has taken to provide an accurate account of events. Looking forward to the rest of the series. Oh! I hope that penny you made from Amazon goes a long way toward your retirement. LOL!!!!!!!!!!!1

    1. I think that EdB is in Amazon prison with you. Thanks for the good thoughts.

11. I’m disappointed, given what Musk is doing, that no one is making any references to Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. Apparently, more people need to read “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.”

    1. I break out the Electronic Sub-Etha Auto-Hitching Thumb, say – so long, and thanks for all the fish – and leave it at that, hoping for a ride.

       1. Don’t forget your towel.

          1. And try to avoid any Vogon poetry competitions…

12. Re: Avalon Hill. My favorite game of all time, of any kind, is Afrika Corps. Also have Panzer Blitz. Nobody to play with….

    1. I like Africa Corps. I cut my teeth on Panzer Blitz; I have all of the expansion pieces, too, with likely every possible weapon and formation. I haven’t played myself in some time, rolling the dice to let them tell the tale.

13. That is for sure an interesting skyline. I wonder what the giant dildo is?

    1. A warning? This is big enough that it will hurt, and it has a spike on the tip!

14. Point/Counterpoint lost me.
    I stopped being current on Star Wars about Kylo Ren ago.

    1. A little more tomorrow.

15. Qatar City, Az, and Pulte’s development were funded by ‘somebody’, the question is, WHO? And what strings got pulled to keep this off the radar? Always follow the money.

    1. Despite its conservative credentials, Arizona is quite corrupt.

16. Mr. LL, can we clear out the rot? I think the COE is too far gone at present, and the national church experiment has failed, obviously. The Coast Guard? At least they’re not being run by a woman who clearly isn’t a Lesbyterian.

    1. You’re on the inside. Can’t you do an exorcism or something?

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