Arizona Sand Worm
Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people. I need to get a tooth for a knife — or a pike.
Bullet Points:
** Cause and effect. Love is a battlefield.
** (BBC) Poland’s foreign minister says his country has evidence that Russia recruited people on the Telegram messaging service to carry out last year’s massive shopping centre fire in Warsaw. Speaking to the BBC in an exclusive interview, Radek Sikorski said Moscow’s actions were “completely unacceptable” and that a second Russian consulate in Poland had been closed as a result. His comments come after a Polish investigation concluded that Moscow’s intelligence services orchestrated the Marywilska shopping centre fire.
** There is much complaining and whining about “Federal Entitlements” and their place in the national budget. Entitlement has become a dirty word. Entitlements aren’t welfare. They are contractual obligations. When your government forces you to pay into Social Security and Medicare at the point of a bayonet, it’s exceptionally boorish of them to complain when you live long enough to collect on the contract. They’re thrilled at the tax they take from you and squander, but they have a different position when paying out. If you collect a military pension or social security, you’re somehow branded a ‘leech’ on the exchequer. If the federal government or any government doesn’t want to pay pensions, don’t take money from people to pay for them. Maybe nobody will take the shitty job but that’s a separate issue. Pension plans are run like legal Ponzi Schemes. It wouldn’t be legal if they weren’t the government.
** Former (disgraced) FBI Director James (Big Jim) Comey, now retired, called on people to attack President Trump.Will he face the consequences? Secretary of Homeland Security Noem posted on the social media platform X, “Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey just called for the assassination of @POTUS Trump. DHS and Secret Service are investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”
** Are you being tracked?
** Flying with MRSBRM.
** I enjoyed watching President Trump’s historic trip to the Middle East. The trip will be good for business and international relationships on the diplomatic front. I think that it’s fair to say that the BRICS alternative currency to the US dollar is dead.
BRICS was an intergovernmental organization comprising 10 countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates. Initially, the acronym stood for Brazil, Russia, India, and China, but later expanded to include South Africa.
Enemies and rivals were like sharks smelling blood in the water as they watched the US implode under guidance from The Swamp and clownish democrats who couldn’t decide which restroom to use. I think it’s fair to say things are being set right.
** Donald Trump promised to drain the Washington, DC, swamp of its entitled, smug elites, and he delivered again Sunday by firing the top U.S. copyright official. Shira Perlmutter’s dismissal came just days after the termination of the head of the Library of Congress, which oversees the U.S. Copyright Office. AP reports her office said in a statement, Perlmutter received an email from the White House with the notification “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately.”
** Russian officials continue to reiterate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent call to base future negotiations with Ukraine on the early 2022 Istanbul protocols, which included Russian demands for Ukraine’s complete capitulation. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also reiterated the Kremlin’s demands that any resolution to the war must result in regime change in Ukraine and restrictions against the West ahead of negotiations in Istanbul.
Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Pokrovsk, and Russian troops recently advanced near Kupyansk, Toretsk, Kurakhove, and Velyka Novosilka.
The Chinese Communist Party Code
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) employs a system of coded speech to communicate policy directives to its implementing bureaucracy. Rules govern this coded speech and exist in a specific cultural context, potentially confounding those unfamiliar. CCP leaders deploy these codes through the party propaganda system to issue policy directives, and the codes take the form of slogans, linguistic formulations, or key phrases, collectively called tifa.
I’ll give you a brief analysis of tifa by providing an overview of the role and relative authority of the information systems the CCP uses to develop, build consensus around, and promulgate tifa. There are four essential characteristics of tifa. Although tifa analysis has specific limitations, it can produce authoritative determinations of what the CCP tells itself it is doing and why, and could yield valuable insights into the CCP leaders’ perceptions.
Key Information
- Tifa has four identifying characteristics: (1) they are politically laden and stated verbatim, (2) they extend along a clear line of authority, (3) they are distributed to official party organs, and (4) they characterize or resolve a dialectical contradiction between competing ideas in the CCP.
- CCP leaders speak in a code of tifa distinct from daily speech to announce collective assessments and new policy determinations. Although this coded speech follows rules specific to the CCP’s cultural context and might not be straightforward to outside observers, it is not secret. Tifa is openly announced to an audience of CCP bureaucrats responsible for implementing new policies.
- CCP leaders discuss and debate tifa in the internal-only neibu system, and they publicly present policies that have achieved ostensible consensus, characterized as tifa, in the gongkai public information sphere through the CCP’s propaganda system, including WeChat online social networking.
- CCP bureaucrats and officials demonstrate loyalty to party leaders by publicly repeating tifa verbatim in a practice called biaotai. A party leadership announcement of a new tifa and bureaucrats’ repetition of the tifa become a call-and-response cycle, and foreign analysts can identify disruptions in that cycle to infer the existence of intraparty disputes.
Navy Ships
To respond to the Trump administration’s call for the reinvigoration of the U.S. shipbuilding industry, policymakers need to examine past failures, seek an improved shipbuilding workforce, and consider enlisting the help of close allies like Japan and South Korea.
“The U.S. shipbuilding industry is challenged to produce the quantity of ships at the rate required to effect lasting, sustainable growth in the battle force inventory,” Acting Assistant Secretary of the Navy Brett A. Seidle told Congress last month. “On balance, cost and schedule performance remain poor; deliveries are approximately one to four years late, and costs continue to rise faster than overall inflation.”
The Navy’s building programs include the Ford-class aircraft carrier, the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, the Virginia-class attack submarine, the America-class amphibious assault ship, the San Antonio-class landing platform dock, the Arleigh Burke–class destroyer, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, two variants of the Littoral Combat ship, and the Constellation-class frigate. Some of these classes have been relatively successful regarding on-time and on-budget delivery. Arleigh Burke, San Antonio, and America classes experienced early delays, but have for the last 10 years regularly been delivered on time and within cost.
The advanced technology to support Marine Operational Movement from the Sea took longer than expected to develop, and as delays occurred, the mission became less of a priority.
The other classes, however, have been troubled. Beginning with nuclear-powered vessels—unique because of the security and quality control requirements—the Ford, the Columbia, and the Virginia either experienced delays or were delivered with significant maintenance challenges that followed the ships into commission. The Zumwalt class experienced delays and cost growth with conventionally powered vessels and was ultimately cut to three ships. The Littoral Combat ship, which has two variants built in different shipyards, experienced lengthy delays (PDF). The Constellation class is already three years behind schedule and threatens to be further delayed. Many of the delays are due to self-inflicted behavior that I won’t rant on here.
The reasons for the delays and overruns fall into two broad categories. First, there are design issues related to requirements; these usually manifest in the first ship of the class but sometimes affect the entire class. Second, there are issues with labor and other industrial capacity; these derive from shortfalls in the nation’s industrial base.
Turning first to design and requirements, at the direction of the Secretary of Defense, the Ford class program incorporated multiple advanced technologies into the ship to reduce manning and to generate far more aircraft sorties than its predecessor, the Nimitz class. The combination of these new technologies is still not fully developed and is still delaying the delivery of the ships. The Zumwalt-class destroyer presents a similar picture. The advanced technology to support Marine Operational Movement from the Sea took longer than expected to develop, and as delays occurred, the mission became less of a priority. The Navy cut the number of ships in the class until it finally settled on three, significantly increasing the per-unit price.
In other cases, the issue is less of a risky new technology than an inappropriate design selection. The Littoral Combat Ship class variants were initially intended to host three different warfare system modules—mine warfare, anti-surface warfare, or anti-submarine warfare—and thus be able to replace multiple legacy ship classes. The modules did not generally involve new technology, but the means to put replaceable modules on different ships ultimately was abandoned. The Constellation class was intended to adopt a proven European-designed frigate. Still, the modifications required to bring the hull to Navy specifications became so extensive that, in effect, the ship might better have been designed as a completely new hull.
Common in all these cases is a failure to appreciate the risks of introducing relatively well-developed technology.
Regardless of its design, each ship must be constructed in a highly industrial process in a capital-intensive and expensively manned shipyard. During World War II, U.S. industrial facilities could continuously produce thousands of sophisticated and rudimentary ships. Over the decades, however, ship construction has migrated out of the United States. Today, the Navy is effectively the only consumer of domestically produced ships. There is no broader U.S. industrial base for shipbuilding.
Ship construction requires specialized skills, which have become less plentiful as the U.S. economy has moved away from manufacturing. Shortages of skilled crafts workers beset the industry. Many skills are bespoke to a particular warship class, surface combatants, or submarines. These labor shortages are particularly acute in submarine construction. They are the primary reason for delays in the repair of Virginia-class submarines and the initial delivery of the Columbia class. Automation will likely help in ship construction, but some tasks are so specialized that it may be years before machines can replace a skilled human.
Ship construction requires specialized skills, which have become less plentiful as the U.S. economy has moved away from manufacturing.
Successful ship classes have several things in common: They work from a stable design addressing well-defined requirements, are built in shipyards with a qualified and stable labor force, and adhere to industry best practices (PDF).
What should policymakers do? Priorities they should focus on include: establishing that ship requirements cannot be changed unless there is some truly emergent warfighting need to do so; raising wages and implementing training opportunities for labor, with due recognition that automation will advance, and in some cases reduce, labor requirements; potentially creating distributed construction opportunities, which will likely involve close allies—such as Japan and South Korea—that have kept a significant shipbuilding industrial base.
Shipbuilding challenges did not develop overnight and will not be fixed immediately. However, the failure patterns are clear, and analysis of these should guide policy development and implementation. Failure to do so will likely push the United States back toward repeatedly failed practices.
Identify the Aircraft
1
Hint: This was a nation’s primary heavy bomber, but it is not well known. Maybe that’s because only 37 were built (and another 13 as a transport variant). Two graphics to aid your identification.
2
Identify the Ship/Boat Class
3
Yes, there were two of the same class, making it challenging to determine the specific ship ID from this photo.
4
Parting Shot
End
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Piaggio P.108
2. Grumman F7F Tigercat used as a water bomber
Identify the Ship/Boat Class:
3. Nelson-class battleship, HMS Nelson
4. Dark-class patrol boat, HMS Dark Aggressor
#4 – I hoped it would give you some difficulty, but you got it. Admiralty “Type A” Patrol Boat – Dark Aggressor.
Nelson and Rodney were truncated as a result of Washington Naval Treay, no big guns aft of superstructure. They would have been bigger.
What is the reason for “no guns aft of the superstructure?”
Italian heavy amber, Piaggio if I remember correctly.
The project was abandoned after one crash. Mussolini’s son was the command pilot.
Bomber. Autocorrect failed me. Must get Surly’s upgrades.
They made quite a few of them, when you add the bomber and transport variants. You may be thinking of a different larger aircraft.
CCP Coded Speech: Why do I have the strong impression that there is something very similar in these United States? Not with the Uniparty (because enny fool kno we are a sacred Democracy with TWO TOTALLY DISTINCT parties) but across-and-among the leftist political establishment, elite academia, Hollywood, and most of advertising.
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Cover art: Why is the big green being putting up with the [presumed] noise? That’s not some little girl. It’s an experienced fighter that just happens to LOOK like a little girl. But the cauliflower ear gives it away.
If you recall the documentary film MEN IN BLACK, the little girl was the most dangerous of the lot, and Will Smith had to put a round between her eyes.
There’s a talking points e-mail list – if you are progressive enough to be added to it. They don’t go to the trouble of coded speech. You get daily orders by e-mail.
She’s either giving a rendition of Vogon poetry or singing a Taylor Swift song.
Taylor Swift – definitely a Swiftie.
You’ve obviously never listened to most Renfaire or SCA ‘bards.’ They just don’t pick a key, they take the whole rack of keys to sing with, and yet still manage to be flat, sharp, off, bad, really bad, makes listening to Ozzie talking seem like the sweet sound of songbirds in comparison.
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No. I am not kidding. If anything I am understating how bad most singers at Rennfaires and in the SCA are.
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Trust me on this. Imagine a series of sounds so bad it could curdle water. Or be a major feature of a Lovecraftian movie or book. That’s how bad.
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And me born with perfect pitch, well, at least the ability to hear said pitch. Singing depends on how bad my allergies are doing at the moment. I can go from Josh Groban to asmatic frog croaking. Wee…
I may pass on buying your album.
I know my faults. And I am on one record, as a backup singer. Eh, ain’t bad. I have a good enough ‘ear’ to know that there are times I shouldn’t sing.
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Though wife and I can do a mean “Non Nobis Dominae” and a nice “Dona Nobis Pachem” and some others.
Nice landing! Didn’t drag it in, and if there wasn’t much flare, hey, didn’t slam it on either. Severe downhill is more of a challenge to me than uphill – not just because the wind does squirrelly things on short final (especially when ground effect kicks in before I expect…), but because there’s no easy turnaway if things go wrong, and you’re carrying less power.
I thought it was good for St. Bart’s.
Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
+1
And if the airplane is reusable or rebuildable following the landing, that’s a real WIN!
That would be a challenge in a strong, gusting crosswind.
“CCP bureaucrats and officials demonstrate loyalty to party leaders by publicly repeating tifa verbatim in a practice called biaotai. ”
.
Similar to “newscaster speak” here in America?
Same thing. It tells you how far we’ve gone and what we need to do in order to “return”.
Header Picture: If “Rich Men North of Richmond” was a graphic…or…if Democrats reacting to PDJT’s unreal “winning” was a song.
I never thought of it that way. But yes.
👍
Comey is a low-life criminal. Whether he was signaling to his cohorts, or just venting, his post is a direct threat to a sitting President. A less tolerant society would throw him in jail, and start an investigation that should include taking his house apart for evidence, leaking how he’s turned on his handlers, and watching who to see jumps ship, or is willing to provide evidence to lessen penalties.
I doubt that Big Jim will skate this time. The Swamp is galled at President Trump’s reception in the Middle East like Caesar’s. Big Jim’s reaction is emblematic. Putin had a hissy fit and didn’t show up in Turkey, and you can imagine how Xi is taking it. Pres. Trump made them his bitch on trade and now this.
At least we know Patel won’t release this statement: “While ANY threat made against a sitting President, as what Mr. Comey did, is a Federal crime, I do not believe he “intended” to do anything wrong and therefore it is my opinion no judge would prosecute such a case.”
Let a jury of our peers decide his guilt. Let a judge impose the maximum sentence allowed by law. Threatening the president of the United States is a felony under 18 U.S.C. § 871, punishable by up to 5 years of imprisonment. He’d do 85% if he behaved himself while inside.
Two of Big Jim’s children work for DOJ. They might feel more comfortable in civilian jobs.
Comey is in “talks” with DOJ…one lie and he’s toast (assuming THAT level of law is equal to all participants like it was for Gen. Flyn, who never lied to them but they said he did).
The shells appear to be uniform in size and color, meaning likely purchased (anyone who has walked a beach knows these weren’t “just found”). Pretty easy for Bongino to find out if a shell shop owner has Comey purchasing said “magically appearing” shells, ties him to doing the act with premeditation.
I read and re-read “Navy Ships” (with all the understanding of someone whose total and complete education was originally in organic chemistry, later in dentistry and endodontics: no economics, warfare, or geopolitics and the least U.S. and world history I could get away with and though I’ve done extensive reading and research in the past 15 years of retirement, I still find myself a novice/virgin).
Like many of your articles I’ve read, I’ve also review whatever printed adjunct sources are in my possession as well as some online.
In my opinion (my very humble opinion, seriously!), our country will not advance (I’m looking now, particularly at the USN, although the same could be said of the USAF), until we get rid of the paper-pusher “greenies” (as well as the DEI hires) in the various state and federal offices (I don’t believe I have to explain the “why”) and eradicate their theology (I’m certain there’s a better word) which has infected (as in diseased) our overall view of manufacturing in the U.S. and has turned the high-level arts and skills required into a labor looked upon as hod-carrying, there will be a continual slide in their effectiveness of our Armed Forces.
AI will/can not eliminate the pollutants generated by the manufacturing and the “greenies” desire/dreams to return to a “cleaner environment,” the central tenet of the true believer (the obvious/real purpose is power/control/money) is far more important to these people than the security of our nation.
IMHO
Boron, calling it their theology is entirely correct. Understanding it as such tells one all one needs to know about them.
X2
x3
You can blame the lack of shipbuilding ability in this country on one group of people, and it’s not Congress. Labor unions. Purely the fault of labor unions. The big shipfitters unions up northeast and out west made it way too expensive to build anything bigger than a fishing boat here in these United States.
I won’t disagree with you that the unions were a part of the problem (large) in the past, but my feeling (feeling only) is that their influence, in recent years, has been waning (greatly); the (highly) skilled workers (and the recent immigrants/invaders) have been telling the bosses where to put their threats.
Yes, the unions’ influences have been waning (though the truckers’ union got Yellow Freight killed in order to get more money from UPS, so…) but their influence is waning because of all the industries the unions have killed off.
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Garment workers union killed US based clothing manufacturing.
Textile workers union killed US mills.
Shipbuilding/fitting unions killed the shipyards.
Merchant marine union killed off what little merchant shipping was still under US flag.
Find an industry and unions have killed it.
Like, try to do renovations in a big city. There are places that won’t let you go to a hardware store and buy your own paint or plumbing or electrical or even wood because of the control by unions over ‘amateurs.’
“DHS and Secret Service are investigating this threat and will respond appropriately.”
Heard something like that so many times over so many years and so many crimes, I’ve come to the conclusion that “respond appropriately” means after the story leaves the news cycle, nothing happens at all. Could overflow the prisons with politicians, judges, and cops if “investigations” found anyone but sacrificial lambs guilty and were sentenced to “real” time.
Heh… ‘shortfalls in the nation’s industrial base’ is ONE way to put it… The lack of quality employees, the few shipyards, and having to source materials from overseas (with all that entails), is just the tip of the iceberg. And don’t get me started on cost overruns…