What should you do with a boring white wall? (caption)
I believe in art – all forms of art – that lift the human spirit and make the world a little more interesting.
Bullet Points:
** Can you find her missing dog? Do you want the reward?
** Jules – Kiss and Fly – Something for a Wednesday.
** Hypothetical – Going forward, how should USGOV respond if Canada becomes an even more significant cat’s paw for the Chinese Communist Party? They’re headed in that direction as their collectivist economic model begins that inevitable death spiral. Will Alberta (Canada’s milk cow) leave their union and look for friends elsewhere?
** Should the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) be required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act?
** A fair discussion about the present – and coming – space-based economy.
** In the Caspian Sea: Ukrainian President 𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐝𝐲𝐦𝐲𝐫 𝐙𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐤𝐲𝐲 announced that Ukrainian forces struck Iranian vessels in the 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐚 carrying military cargo bound for Russia — components for the drones and missiles Moscow has been launching at Ukrainian cities for years. Iran’s government confirmed a vessel was hit, claiming the strike killed one sailor and wounded another, and summoned Ukraine’s diplomat in Tehran to protest what it called a “𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘤𝘵.” The strike lands as Iran absorbs pressure from two directions at once. The United States just wrapped 13 straight nights of strikes on Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure, with President Trump saying Tehran is “𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘸” about a deal but “𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘯𝘶𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘯.” At the same time, Iran-backed Houthi rebels are trading strikes with Saudi Arabia after hitting two Saudi oil tankers. Iran has spent years selling Russia the drone technology now raining down on Ukrainian civilians. Kyiv has been forced to shoot down more than 𝟒𝟒,𝟎𝟎𝟎 of those Iranian-designed drones since the invasion began. Now the arms pipeline itself is a target — and Israel held its own cabinet meeting the same morning, watching how far this Caspian front expands.
** Chaperones required – a form of mentoring.
** What is going on in Philly? More picking winners and losers.
** In Communist China, property prices are falling. Youth unemployment is elevated. Wage expectations are weak. Millions lack stable employment. Families respond rationally by saving instead of spending. The result is a vicious cycle: Weak consumption creates excess capacity. Excess capacity triggers price wars. Price wars destroy profits. Falling profits weaken employment and wages. That makes consumers even more cautious. China’s GDP and exports may still look respectable on paper, but the domestic economy tells a different story. China doesn’t have a production problem. It has a demand problem, and the old investment-led policy playbook is no longer fixing it. China’s top-tier cities are leading the way in population collapse. Birth rates in Shanghai are only one quarter of replacement levels. The one-child family is history, but it seems that the government can not persuade people to start reproducing again.
** Would you like to visit the Vatican? Take the test. Holy See if you measure up.
** Confession to Boron (a dentist) – I have a new dentist. I passed the do-you-have-the-right-insurance test (a colonoscopy), and was ushered in to see the dentist, who pronounced that I have the teeth of a thirty-year-old with no dentistry required. No dentures, no bridges, no appliances, even teeth, all mine. If all goes well, I will die with my own smile, not a store-bought imitation. The new dentist knows me rather well, but I didn’t utilize his professional services in Arizona until now. I had a dentist who retired and needed a new one. He remarked that my teeth were remarkably intact, given my history, and I pulled out a mouth protector from my linty pocket, with fangs painted on it. “I’ve used this one or one like it (custom fit) for the past fifty years whenever it looked like I might be going into a fight.”
It’s not as important as an Emergency Clown Nose, but it’s still an important part of the daily kit. It’s interesting how people react when a fight looks like it will break out and you slip that beauty in, and smile.
WSF Says
Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting.
The problem is easily solved by desalinating ocean water with nuclear power and piping it to where it’s needed. We can walk on the Moon and can create a longer-lasting lightbulb, but these basic solutions seem so far from our grasp. We need to change the name of the river to the Arizona River…
China’s Budget Deficits Are Becoming Structural
China’s fiscal expansion is no longer cyclical—it’s becoming structural. Since 2016, total government fiscal support has surged from roughly RMB 2.7 trillion to nearly RMB 12 trillion by 2026, driven by larger central deficits, rising local government borrowing, expanding special bonds, and new sovereign recapitalization programs. At the same time, Beijing’s official fiscal deficit target climbs toward 4% while GDP growth targets have drifted down from around 6.5% to just 5%. That’s the key message: China is borrowing dramatically more simply to sustain slower growth. Fiscal policy has evolved from a temporary stabilizer into the primary engine of demand. For investors, this means future growth increasingly depends on government balance-sheet expansion rather than private-sector confidence—a much less durable growth model.
Fauci’s Manifesto
On Saturday, Senator Rand Paul released over a thousand pages of Anthony Fauci’s personal diary/journal entries (covering roughly December 2019 to December 2022) ahead of Fauci’s subpoenaed Senate testimony. The entries include notes on COVID cases/deaths alongside Fauci’s tracking of media coverage of himself, interactions with Trump administration officials, journalists, and celebrities, and private thoughts that some critics say conflicted with public statements.
The media covered the damning diary as little as possible because they knew this was true 6 years ago, just as they knew Hunter’s laptop was true. The media’s mission in 2020 was undermining the economy and hence, the chances of Trump winning re-election.
More will be coming, and the pundits will be all over it – or you can read what I wrote when the COVID epidemic was first announced in back issues of Virtual Mirage. There was no prophecy to it; the evidence was blatant, and yet the lemmings ran into the ocean and denied the bio-weapons lab release in Wuhan.
Anti-Corruption or a Purge?
China’s anti-corruption campaign is no longer just hunting Xi’s enemies. Xi is now purging his own people.
According to figures published by China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, 412,000 officials were disciplined in the first half of this year. That included 2,274 officials at the bureau level and 74 senior officials at or above the provincial and ministerial level.
Last year, that final number was only 30. The number of senior officials punished so far has therefore surged by roughly 147%-an explosive increase spanning the military, ministries, local governments, state-owned enterprises, financial regulators, serving officials and retirees.
CCDI says this reflects a “backlog” of corruption that has not yet been eliminated. But Xi Jinping has ruled China for nearly 14 years. At this point, blaming everything on officials inherited from the Hu Jintao era is no longer credible. Many of today’s fallen officials, including the recently purged Fang Xinghai, were selected, promoted, or politically empowered under Xi himself. This is not merely the removal of old corruption Xi inherited. It is the discovery of new corruption inside Xi’s own system.
Dictators normally conduct purges while consolidating power. Stalin targeted rival factions. Mao used the Yan’an Rectification Movement to eliminate opposition. Once supreme control is established, the need for constant internal purges should diminish. Xi already dominates the Party. There is no obvious Liu Shaoqi-style second-in-command threatening his position. Yet the purge is accelerating.
Why? Because personal loyalty cannot repair a collapsing economy, restore broken political norms, or eliminate fear inside the bureaucracy.
Officials have watched retirement protections disappear. Investigations can now reach back 30 years. Even officials retired for a decade can suddenly be detained. Promotion rules have been rewritten, economic policy has repeatedly failed, and nobody-not even Xi’s appointees-can feel safe. Xi may believe that arresting more officials will produce obedience. In practice, it produces silence, not loyalty.
The jump from 30 senior officials to 74 is evidence of a leadership that must use ever-greater coercion to maintain the appearance of unity.
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
3
219 built
Parting Shot
The Great Hawaiian Knife Buy-Back
I don’t think the guys you have to worry about are going to be the guys who will sell you their knife.
They’re kicking it off the first weekend in August.
What are the characteristics of an assault knife?
End
Identify the Aircraft
1 – Soviet Sukhoi P-1
2 – Soviet Yak-18
3 – Russian Yak-130 Mitten
Excellent!!
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Sukhoi P-1
2. Yakovlev Yak-18 “Max”
3. Yakovlev Yak-130 “Mitten”
Nailed them!
I wonder if/when Hawaii will offer for lengths of lead pipe and wooden baseball bats. Used razor blades? spear shafts from spearfishing guns? My wife’s knitting needles?
Were I one of the great writers, I might be able to toss off a short emphasizing silliness/ generalized idiocy of liberal rule-makers.
If the desire is to hurt/damage/kill someone, there is such a multitude of ways.
Will they ask me to turn in my socks, which when quarter-filled with sand should the offending person be struck with it at the pterion, will (90%) most likely kill him?
How about my butter knife? pie slicer?
Pfeh!
You could rake in a fortune by turning in a dozen pair of old gym socks with a bar of soap in each.
I’m thinking I could empty my kitchen drawers and shop cabinets and finance a vacation on the big island.
🤣
I was thinking of hitting some local garage sales and buying kitchen knives that are garbage, flying them to Hawaii, and doing the same thing in the entrepreneurial spirit of disarmament.
“Murals matter”. They do indeed.
—
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-covers-downtown-whale-wall-mural-for-world-cup-40674801/
Is vandalism fashionable in Dallas now?
It is if it’s sanctioned…
That sucks.
I have never, ever employed a colonoscope – but I did have an x-ray taking films of hip pockets/purses to determine the thickness/weight of the card carrier – used to be known as a wallet.
A mouth such as yours is what used to be called mirabile visu (back in the days of the Roman Emperors and when I went to school).
BTW: a mouth protector is also a great thing – it prevents loosening of your own teeth due to bruxism when trying not to hit someone who’s being a total a-hole.
These days young dentists are taught to take a bur to the occlusal fissures (and pits) to create sufficient space for a dental sealant (the better ones leak fluoride ion into the surrounding hard tissue), which after a few/several years will have to be replaced as a result of normal mastication (ad infinitum).
The young dentist is also taught, upon seeing the “perfect dentition” to immediately refer that mouth off to his friend, the periodontist, who will, periodically, refer new patients to his friend, the general dentist – G-d only knows what lurks beneath the surface of the gums.
Now that I’ve embarrassed myself sufficiently (as well as my colleagues) – –
but I do thank G-d every day that while in the Air Force I decided to go back for post-grad and become an endodontist.
I’m into mastication. I hope that doesn’t embarrass anyone who visits this family blog.
I often engage in group mastication. Sometimes at church.
I just masticated with a burrito, if we’re all out there now.
You guys are too much……keep it up!
Impressive your teeth are intact…mine, not so much (my mother would now say ‘oh, now you’re going to blame me for not taking vitamins during pregnancy”). I only wore a mouth guard for football and hockey, but have more dental work than I could have predicted; accidentally chomping down on things not supposed to be chomped down on, ice chewing (bad), hardly any fillings but a few failed early, plus stress grinding at night caused some necessary repairs. Everything is there, albeit bondo’d and a few replacements. Still have my wisdom teeth, which are weirdly in good shape.
“You’ve got to admire those old British streets,” she mused. “Everyone knew their place.”
He nodded. “Bit before my time.”
“Same with wallets,” she said. “They used to stay exactly where you left them.”
He laughed politely. “So… what do you think the artist was trying to say?”
She slipped another note into her sleeve.
“Oh, probably that some people never notice what’s right under their nose.”
I was going to say emergency clown knows, but I didn’t want to make it too personal.
Nothing says “classic British culture” quite like discussing the finer points of an old pub mural while someone’s relieving you of your pennies. He’s admiring the artwork; she’s appreciating the opportunity. Somewhere in that painted street, even the Victorian scoundrels would be giving her a respectful nod.
And that’s today’s art philosophy.
Thank you for the lesson.
AIPAC – falls under the FARA definition – so definitely must be registered
however! there are many corporations with foreign adjuncts/offices/plants which are in continual (some continuous) contact with U.S. politicians requesting them to look favorably upon their products (or means of producing same). should they be required to register under the FARA rules?
If I were their lawyer, I’d say yes. Report it all, flood the system.
The little dog video is a ripoff of a Gary Larsen/Far Side cartoon.
Western water shortage. Annual spring Mississippi river flooding. Seems to me that .gov should build an eastern levee system to channel and then pipe excess Mississippi (and others?) flow to the western areas of the country that need it. Construct a large lake or something to handle the excess until its needed (at both ends, maybe?). Yes expensive but solves 2 HUGE problems, creates jobs, etc etc etc. Yes, sediment deposition in LA problem, but theyre already dieing from that anyway.
And fwiw, I am from an eastern area that does not experience that flooding.
Good idea. Accompanied by other solutions, it has merit.
.
I recall the Larson cartoon – yes a rip off but still funny.
“AIPAC is funded exclusively by private American citizens, including individual donors, corporate executives, and wealthy contributors. . It states that it does not receive funding from any foreign government.”
From the act:
‘‘agent of a foreign principal’’ means—
(1) any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the
order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any
of whose activities are directly or indirectly
supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or
subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal, and who directly or through
any other person…..
“… or abridging the freedom of speech…” has to have some meaning.
Where does all this money come from? What is needed, IMO, is full disclosure. People are free to spend their money as they see fit, true. When they use that money to influence our lives, we should know who/what/why/where.
As an example, in my Congressional District last General Election, spent campain money was greater than $100 per district resident. Why should outsiders be able to buy my Congressman? How much of that money was foreign sourced? All this spending on one pissant Congressional seat makes “democracy” a joke.
The 17th amendment made our Senate Elections a national contest of competing parties. It busted the compromise our Founders struggled to produce.
The House races soon followed.
You are right. Our Representative Form of Government no longer represents “We the people…”
100%. Systems that seem impenetrable to human idiocy generally aren’t. Imagine God’s dismay when giving his Ten Commandments how people over a short period of time try desperately to ignore or do work arounds. The Constitution is no different because people inherently are not good or do the right thing…no one here of course.
Wow, what pub is Jules drinking in?
The East Midlands have certainly changed…
The Fauch Mengele, as expected, did the arrogant predictable, taking the 5th even though he was preemptively (🤬) pardoned by The Autopen in Chief…really needed the Emergency Clown Nose. I’m furious this cretin will take his scolding (about all it is) then laugh while exiting the chambers to a limo supplied by his lying fawning Democrat supporters (also as expected “IT’S TRUMPS FAULT!!!”). Fauci needs to see a prison cell and his largess redistributed to those his self-serving made up garbage caused harm. A woman was sitting in the gallery, was arrested at a high school football game for not wearing a mask. Arrested! 🤬 because of this Napolean-sized narcissist’s made up rules for ‘the little people’. Gotta admit, at 85 it appears he’s on an elixir. And although it appears he does not fear God…he ought to.
***
Philly was on a resurgence 6 years back, then the Democrat lunatics took over, now it’s back on track to ride off the cliff.
***
Hawaii…a beautiful place ruined by…wait for it…Democrats. Black Knives Matter…it’s a thing (or should be).
Refusing to comply with a valid congressional subpoena or ****refusing to answer pertinent questions**** can be prosecuted as criminal contempt of Congress, which is a federal misdemeanor. Under 2 U.S.C. § 192, a conviction carries a penalty of 1 to 12 months in jail and a fine between $100 and $1,000
That statute was discussed on the talker programs, pretty sure Levin will review the same. One of Fauci’s many lawyers getting rightfully tossed by Sen. Paul was a stunt to deflect attention while making a circus out of a serious hearing. Should have tossed him a cell with ‘Tiny’ for a few nights. Regardless the theatrics, I’m not holding my breath anything comes from it…and Fauci knows this, hence the smugness. Put in my request for a smiting today, but God has other plans.
Murals are interesting… Remember when Wyland did his first mural in Hawaii? Long before he was famous… And look where it got him! Fauci ‘knows’ his pardon is useless, that’s why he invoked the 5th over 100 times today.
I recall the early Wyland in Hawaii and in San Diego.
Assault knife, bwahahaha. They never give up.
Fauci, kabuki theater. Nobody goes to jail.
I’m not holding my breath, Claw.
Mr. Lambert, here is some great news for GFW2 in Oregon!
https://legalinsurrection.com/2026/07/oregon-measure-to-ban-hunting-fishing-ranching-fails-to-make-ballot/
It’s good news for us all. Sanity may slowly be creeping back into the country. If I hear another expert sound off on how men can have babies, I think I’ll take a hostage.