Bullet Points:
** While leaders in the US and Iran swing between talk of deals and annihilation, a month-long pause in American strikes on Iran may be nearing its end as reinforcements head to the region. Washington is deploying additional warships carrying at least 9,000 troops, with the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier group expected to arrive by late November, the Financial Times reported. US President Donald Trump is considering strikes after next month’s midterm elections. The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen are showing no signs of slowing their attacks on Saudi Arabia. On Thursday, a drone struck a power distribution station serving the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, according to Saudi officials, while the kingdom’s air defenses intercepted missiles in the southwest. The Saudi-backed Yemeni government retaliated Friday, hitting Houthi positions in Sanaa.
** PHOENIX magazine named Filthy Animal the Valley’s best new restaurant of 2025. The jungle-themed Filthy Animal centers its dining room on a wood-fired cooking pit and a life-size stuffed jaguar. Arizona is the only U.S. state with jaguars roaming around. They are mostly in southern Arizona, with some sightings as far north as the White Wolf Mine.
** Should Red Chinese intelligence operations hide behind “civic action groups”? The Philippines says, “No.” (h/t Claudio) Chinese Commercial News (菲律賓商報), a Manila-based Chinese-language daily, reported Oct. 2 that the Philippines is expelling teachers from Chinese-language schools nationwide. The paper puts the number at about 150 and says teachers were returning to China in groups throughout October. Mr. Powell has emphasized repeatedly that most Chinese-Filipinos are “loyal and patriotic Filipinos” who “have every right to take pride in their heritage,” but that foreign government influence campaigns should not get a free pass to hide behind local civic groups.
** In San Francisco – You might want to avoid robotaxis. (h/t Claudio) I’m sure that fluids remain behind when the participants depart. You’d want to bleach the interior aggressively before sitting down for a ride. Check the headliner for drips….Something about Mary (film)? Keep in mind that San Francisco is the city (maybe there are more?) with a glory hole hotline. You can call to find out which glory holes are ‘manned’ around the city at any given time. Volunteers are standing by, etc. Maybe they’ve moved to robotaxis now?
** The FP-7 (nicknamed the “Pelican”) is Ukraine’s first domestically produced tactical ballistic missile, developed by the private defense company Fire Point. It achieved its first combat use against Russian forces in October 2026.
** Barack doesn’t know! “I don’t understand how we got so toxic and just so divided and so bitter.” He shouldn’t be so modest about his accomplishments. Own it, gay boy.
** Police in New York have reopened the Cornell 7 case, in which a Jane Doe got drunk at a frat party, had sex, and later claimed rape because she was too drunk to give consent. The media believes the frat boys were completely sober and able to make good decisions at two in the morning. “Thomas Giuffra, the lawyer representing Jane Doe in her case against the Xi Chapter of Chi Phi fraternity and Cornell University, told CBS News’ Lilia Luciano that Doe ‘didn’t have consent from the time she walked in the door.’ She was completely, grossly intoxicated,’ he continued. Doe alleges she was raped by multiple men at a fraternity house in October 2024.” Old: Passing out condoms. New: Breathalyzers.
(VM Comment) I recall a case where a white female, aged 23, went to a biker bar in Anaheim, California, drunk, and had consensual sex with at least four men sequentially on a pool table. The fifth man (overweight) decided to ride the train, and she objected (she later asserted). She returned home where she lived with her mother that night. At about 10 am a young man she only knew as Skeeter appeared at her bedroom window; she let him in through the window and had unprotected vaginal intercourse with him. A couple of hours later, upon reflection, she called the Anaheim Police Department and reported that she had been raped by fat-boy biker #5 at the Never on Sunday sports bar. I (Area 2A9) responded with a trainee and took the report. Due to “contamination of the scene,” a rape kit was not administered. Detectives followed up but could not locate a specific fat biker; the victim was shown mug shots of bikers who frequented the bar and could not identify the suspect. The crime didn’t make the news. But that was some years ago.
** Passengers thwarted an attempt by the Muslim co-pilot to crash a FlyDubai plane full of Israelis. The media duly reported it without a spin. (more here)
 |
Our fellow blogger, Claudio, who is occasionally cynical, has some doubts. Israel is weeks away from a major election. Bibi needs a boost. Somehow, a locked cockpit is opened. The terrorist co-pilot is overpowered by random passengers who may have been trained by Mossad. The passenger roster includes two highly qualified 737 pilots, who somehow pull the plane out of a dive that stretched the airframe to its limits. Bibi declares another terrorist incident immediately. Just because Claudio is paranoid doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
In Russia
Identify the Armor
1
2
3
Parting Shot
How does this look, Al?
End
Identify the Armor:
1. M1 combat car
2. M2 medium tank
3. M22 Locust
Good to see you on the job, Surly. Well done – AI fast.
SI
The M1 Combat Car set the basic drive system for the future M2/M3/M5 light tanks.
–
The M2 Medium set the basic drive system for the future M3/M4 medium tanks.
–
Yeah, the M1 CC and the M2 Medium sucked serious balls even at the time, but they were the predecessors of much more successful series of vehicles.
–
And bitch about the M3 Grant/Lee all you want, it put a decent 75mm gun in a decent armored vehicle before many others. Yeah, hull mounted, limited transverse, but you can say the same thing about the StgIII or the Semovente. And the 37mm turret mounted gun was a really decent weapon until 1943 against ‘main battle tanks.’
3 Hamilcar glider with M22 as Surly noted.
Excellent obs.
Between all the nonsense in VT to the legally condoned sodomy in San Fran and the abominations of late term abortions and euthanasia, my question is: why has not God incinerated us already?
I have to refer that question to EdB since LSP is vacationing in the British Caliphate and BRM is vacationing along the Gulf Coast.
God often pushed back judgement on nations in hopes of repentance, or until “there time was full”.
100%
Your question is valid, yet He is a loving and [very] patient God waiting on us to come around…plus that ‘sin is sin’ thing where H holds final judgement on us. But between you and me there is an interim aspect He could employ: a little Old Testament ‘smiting’ to take out those causing damage to the innocent. That particular ‘vengeance is mine’ tenet I could get behind when ridding us of the really bad actors.
We are a republic. We are responsible for getting rid of the bad actors.
Excellent point…Romans 13:1-7. Come to think of it, this as well: “….whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government.”, which to me includes those inside our government who are clearly not upholding their oath of office or shouldn’t be there in the first place and are like that ‘bad penny’.
William,
Perhaps He is patient/the fullness of time is not yet?
2Peter (I think):
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Juan
I just saw Ed/Paul’s replies.
Sorry to be repetitive nd waste reader’s time.
An excellent example of why I value LL nd his existence on the blogosphere is all the subjects nd (mostly) mature/reasoned comments.
Just my .02 worth…
Juan
The maps look pretty good, descriptive too – even without the coffee stains.
Right now I’m looking at them on a very large screen.
Will the names and routes be as visible when I’m looking at them in the book.
If you’ll pardon me: “We’ll see.”
AI map trip to Austin….just a few location errors…well maybe more than a few. Gulf of Mexico (at the time) is pretty much in the correct location.
Believe your AI source needs additional historical input.
The maps are not perfect by any stretch, but getting an 1865-66 map from the period that is accurate is almost impossible. File them under best guess from a novelist. Or would it be better to remove them?
Love the maps, well done.
Paper is so much better than Google when trying to get an overall sense of an area or route. Have the onXoffroad app which works well for route planning, topography, property boundaries, etc…but on a tiny phone screen does not give the big picture I prefer when spreading out a topo. (How many of us older folks still have a dog-eared Rand McNally in our vehicles?
Add 1 for us younger folks for the Rand-McNally, plus a folder of out-of-date gas station maps that we’ve made space for in each new vehicle, despite (in addition to?) my wife’s hookup thru her phone into the car screen with an annoying female voice providing directions (directress?) whom I’ve named Ophelia.
Yeah, but which accent did she choose? I prefer the Australian one. MrsPaulM’s is an iPhone with an older sounding woman – sounds like my 3rd Grade teacher – and is far more demanding in tone:
‘Turn at the next light or else you slow poke!’. Heh
The pouch behind the right passenger seat is full of paper maps for every state I visited or plan to visit. In addition, many city maps (Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, etc.) along with Canadian Provinces.
The map of the trip from Galveston to Austin is far from accurate, but considering Texas in 1865, I doubt there was even one individual that had enough knowledge to see the discrepancies. I can only imagine how the landscape appeared at the time, but it was probably magnificent.
If you read the story, some maps are better than others, and they are not designed to be precise. They’re meant to convey a mood or impression as you read. The same is true of the historical photographs of historical people and things – more of an impression that helps you feel that you’re living in the book. At least that is my intent as I draw the pieces together.
Far be it from me to advise a writer to include something in a novel, or not. But my family ancestors were living east of Houston since 1838 and barely west of the Sabine River. I can guarantee you that they were aware the town, settlement, etc. of Liberty was east of Houston. Richmond was/is on the Old Spanish Trail, (originally used by the Spanish Conquistadors) which runs a little southwest of Houston. Columbus is due west of Houston.. So folks in 1865 definitely knew., if they were traveling from Galveston to Austin (spit), they weren’t going to go southwest then due west from Houston to get there.
Good luck with the book.
At least it isn’t Gulf of America. Yet.
Yet.
We ‘white Europeans’ tend to label everything; every hummock, hill, mountain, valley, stream, river, road, etc…could just call it The Gulf, altho Gulf of America is more accurate to the map in this time.
Hmmm! The mullahs and their proxies.
Do I remember something about “no boots on the ground” or is my memory failing?
Will MBS send troops? The UAE? Under whose command?
The low-hanging fruit is still the Islands, which could ‘legitimately’ be taken by the UAE with US support. Marines train to do that sort of thing. How long would they remain on Trump Island? I’m not saying that I agree with that because we can pound them to rubble from a distance. We can saturation bomb areas of industrial significance. There is no need for an amphibious operation, though I know the USMC is itching to show its worth. The oil tankers are getting through, and Iran seems powerless to stop them. If the US lets up and allows them to rebuild in part, that could change. So we need to demolish the place and make it look like Gaza or the Moon to please the IRGC.
Ref San Fran info .. thanks for another reason not to go there.
*
Map examples … absolutely perfect. Even has the right historical feel. I can feel and hear the parchment crackling as I unroll the map.
If you go, bring bleach and fluid-proof clothing. Maybe a MOP suit? If people there spit into a petri dish, a new civilization of mutants emerges.
.
I’m trying to find a blend of graphics, old photos, etc., to pull this off. How much is too much? As I noted, no one will please everyone. And if I sell 50 books (print, digital, and audio), that’s a significant victory. Reviews help to motivate Amazon to advertise. If I did it for the money, I wouldn’t. I do it for the sake of art, I think, in the hopes of entertainment, because that is the end of artwork – though most artists recoil that is what they’re doing.
.
How much of politics, religion, and sports competitions (WWE aside) is performance art?
“How much…is performance art?” All of it, including ‘the weather’. When did politic become o prominent in our daily lexicon and ‘media’ intake, as if it was that important to our personal day to day operations? Dad would read the paper, listen/watch the 10pm news…and that was it. Nowadays if we don’t hear something about some goofball, the latest shiny object, newest Chicken Little, Congress, or some nutjob on the other side of the world screwing with us…somehow we’re lacking in ‘information’.
Most of the everyday blather is useless and not relevant but presented as the ‘next big thing’ we all must know about (as they couch it in their own words as if we’re ‘two’ and need it explained as thy see fit…the ‘art’ part). At least Limbaugh and Prager…and Stigall before he bowed out…were interesting and funny and ‘not all politics’. Infotainment is like the sea, one sip is all one needs to realize it tastes lousy and not good for you.
When I see a church with a steam calliope, or a band, and a monkey in a little uniform collecting money, I laugh. It’s all about the Benjamins. People arrive to be entertained and to find ‘forgiveness’ {the robot priest concept is coming – just wait – THX 1138 (the film) is prophetic in its predictions}. Or it’s a lonely-hearts social club for woodburners in their 40s, searching for a gullible man who will take them on despite the body count in the 1000s.
Exactly, and that what passes for ‘church’ today…not the least gospel centered.
Ps. Figured out my dry working man hands need lotion (hey, no snickering) to type on the older iPad without dropping letters…my latest excuse anyway. 🤣
Pss. I purposely left out the ‘s on ‘that’s’ to make my ‘can’t edit myself to save my life when tossing out a quip’ point.
Make the maps Patreon?
X2
How do you do that? Email me to ask, so I don’t look ignorant. Oops, too late.
Heh…add them to the VM Merch Store with a Patreon pay button, we love old maps and would pay handsomely for an authentic copy…and ballcaps, gotta have a good ballcap (Old Favorite from Legacy is my preferred lid).
CBS News published screenshots it said were exchanged a few days after the night between Jane Doe and one of the men later named in the lawsuit. He apologized for “how things went down,” said his memory was “kinda fuzzy,” and said he and another brother felt bad for being too intoxicated to “shut it down and kick people out before it got way out of hand.” She replied that her memory was “super clouded too” and that they had all been heavily intoxicated. She also wrote that “non(e) of the sexual stuff was illegal,” said she liked being with him and another man, and later suggested they smoke together again, “but like leave out the extra 5 billion men and ketamine.” Her lawyer confirmed she texted that defendant afterward, said he could not verify those specific messages, and described her as in denial and trying to reconstruct the night. Sounds like the Duke Lacrosse players case from years ago except that chick made it all up and destroyed the lives of those guys. The Cornell girl was probably slut shamed by her friends and decided to have her parents take legal action w/o thinking about her digital footprint or the consequences for the other parties involved. I believe one of them has been fired from their job already.
Nice to see you back in the fold Surly.
-STA Lethal
Go 🦅
….aaand of course, discredited ‘special prosecutor’ Letisha James (oh, she’s special alright) is bringing the case at Gov. Hocum’s request. Another bogus case designed to distract the low-info voter.
“Are we not entertained!?”
I’m entertained, PaulM – pass the buttered popcorn.
That’s about all one can be at this point…but…Stay off my lawn! or there will be consequences.
Sounds like Tailhook…
Same deal, different week, rinse and repeat…it’s all those types know in their counterproductive adversarial mindset bubble.
Prologue: I’m a dentist (ret.), not a strategist nor even someone who plays board games, but I do love maps (looking at them – and at this point in my life absolutely no desire to travel “there and back again” “to see what there’s to see.”
I look at (am looking at) the maps of the area encompassed by the Eastern end of the Mediterranean and that continuous (contiguous?) body of water surrounding Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman, as well as the smaller states on the western side of the Persian/Arabian Gulf.
Trucking oil/crude (and/or its products) overland is both expensive and subject to easy drone attack, same with piping it, even underground. As I’m given to understand, oil tankers are the cheapest (and most easily secured?) way of transporting it.
There are only 6/7 oil refineries along the west coast of India. Could they be induced to build more to refine more product. While it may increase certain other problems, it would still give India more skin in the game, so to speak, though Indian politics (relatonship with China) are chancy. I’d even consider promoting the same idea with Pakistan, for the obvious reasons.
And I still wonder if it wouldn’t be less espensive, in the long run, to build a waterway/canal from Abu Dhabi, through Al Ain ending in Sohar- and there are several gaps/passes in the Jibāl al-Ḥajar which could be cut through.
“Cornell 7 Jane Doe”
She is very, very far from the first. Back in the early ’60s I had the pleasure of one young lady’s acquaintance (same institution) who made if her objective (before she graduated) to be intimate with every foreign black, (undergrads and doctoral candidates, even one professor) – not that there were more than two dozen – I think. And not that she discriminated – she dated others (races) as well.
But she was just one amongst many: Cornell (not just the Ag school) had been given the name by the other Ivies (out of jealousy perhaps): The Breeding Ground.
Why wasn’t I informed of this when I was a young man seeking an education?
Some families I met arranged their child’s marriage (Ultra-orthodox Jews and Old Family WASPs); for the rest of us it was a free-for-all. I’m talking about 1958-62; after ’65 or so the world turned upside down.
The guys went to college to get an education in their chosen field, meet their future cohort in social settings (fraternities), and learn to play jeu de paume and golf. During the summers many of these worked in their father’s companies/firms during the summer; the rest of us took the highest-paying jobs (usually in construction) we could find to pay for next year’s tuition.
Girls went to college to find a husband who’d be well-received by both her future cohort and her family, by employing her beauty and wiles in a way that would make Helen of Troy turn green with envy. Many of these took jobs 9-5, five days a week as secretaries in their father’s companies/firms during the summer, lounging around the pool at their parent’s club on the weekends.
And then there were those, resisting all temptation (well – mostly – and then very carefully), who went to college for the grades that would propel them to good institutions to further their post-grad education (doctors and lawyers and such).
Mandatory ROTC (at most colleges) assured the services that we’d have some idea of the duties that pertained to the butterbar on our shoulder.
After ’65 sexual intimacy became so common, it was rare to meet a 18 year-old virgin. “Feminism” had begun to rear it’s ugly head and girls wanted to know, prior to any long-term committment on their part, just what their partner could provide in bed, since monetary concerns were no longer a part of the deal; many women now had the opportunity to earn more than their husbands. The churches (and I include all synagogues but the ultra-orthodox under that heading) no longer regarded fornication as a sin; they passed it off as “young peoples experimation.” They felt that if they didn’t turn a blind eye to it, they would only hear the resoundingly empty echo of their Sunday homilies.
Rant over.
Yep.
Maps. Go to map #7. Anthony (Anton) R. Roessler was my maternal grandmother’s maternal grandfather.
—
https://www.uta.edu/utamagazine/archive-issues/2010-13/2010/08/the-lone-star-shape/
More about Anton.
—
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/roessler-anton-r
To paraphrase Frankenstein: “Maps GOOD!”
On Barry. “Navy Corpse man”. Yeah, even he isn’t that ignorant. As I was once admonished in my youth, “Don’t mistake simple animal cunning and will for intelligence”.
“Somehow, a locked cockpit is opened. The terrorist co-pilot is overpowered by random passengers who may have been trained by Mossad.”
Three days ago, I posted on FB “I’m waiting for someone to come out and say the Fly Dubai airplane was a Mossad operation.”
Thank you.
Seems a little too elaborate to be a planned operation. It is not unusual for pilots to deadhead as passengers and many Israeli citizens have been in the IDF. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar (attributed to many and none).
It is not unusual in business to avoid interrupting a criminal/terrorist while they are making a mistake so you can take action. It reminds me of the Draw Mohammed Contest in Texas a few years back.
Nothing can be taken at face value anymore, or for that matter, for at least 50 years.
Nice map! Re the hijacking, the pilots were deadheading to work for FlyDubai, ‘most’ of the international flights I’ve been on have had pilots/crew deadheading to/from work…
>Claudio, who is occasionally cynical, has some doubts
I don’t like where this is going, Claudio. Someone might apply the principle of “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus” and then where would you be? Practically committing a hate crime. So we must leave commentary and interpretation of this totally non fake hijacking to the only people qualified to do so, namely PM Netanyahu. Whatever he says is true is true. Period.
—
And apropos of absolutely nothing at all. Do you know what a 2000-lb bomb would do your neighborhood? Of course your own house would be obliterated. Should I send you a pager to remind you of this?
Oops
The pager is best kept in your front pocket near your shaft and jewels where it will be safest.
Good idea. And when it goes off and severs my abdominal aorta (near instant exsanguination) it will obviously be the result of me being sniped by a sex deviant using a scoped .30-06 that he had concealed in his skinny jeans. Why no round or fragments found? Vaporized upon hitting my big brass ones. Or it simply broke apart in mid air and evaporated, as “frangible rounds” commonly do. This was proved by master debater Andrew Wilson, also a master gunsmith per his obnoxious harridan of a wife. (It’s well known that the difference between hollow point and frangible is a gnostic secret revealed only to those ABOVE the level of master gunsmith.)
Regarding the work altercation in the cockpit, the stabbed pilot managed to fight off the radical muslim (of course) co-pilot long enough to unlock the cabin door and let in the rabble that took down the co-pilot and allowed off-duty pilots to take over and save the plane.
–
Yeah, it could have been a Mossad op to keep ‘Bibi’ in power. Or it could be as presented, a fortunate series of events that allowed the plane to be saved. Which is easier to believe? I always fall on the ‘radical muslim’s’ ability to fuck up anything they touch, even a cockpit takeover and stabbing of the pilot.
–
I also believe that Lee Harvey Oswald, with an Italian rifle, shot JFK. After all, the ranges and motions are what that particular rifle were designed to work under. Now if it had been a 1,000 yard shot with a Carcano, yeah, foul, but it wasn’t.
–
Same thing with Butler, PA. Yes, I think the Biden Admin set up the situation for the assassination, with unqualified SS personnel and an on-site commander that should have been shot first before the shooter. But the shooter was well within his comfortable range with a weapon that fit within the range. Sure, he didn’t make his rifle team. Can most of you make a precision rifle team? Yet you can hit your targets, you get your deer and elk and other 4-legged targets regularly.
–
Simple answer is usually the correct answer.
Ockham’s Razor
My previous comment about Mossad was in sarcasm.