Bullet Points:
** Who is Pete? And why do we do things for his sake?
** Is it time for the VM Christmas Party? Why, yes, it is, and you’re all invited.
** I no longer have a boat. But when I did, taking my girls out in the Newport Beach boat parade (SoCal) was an annual thing. I also went out with friends on their boats for Christmas parties during the Season. I realize that some will view this as a decadent display of wealth, but it was a lot of fun, and I look back on those days with very fond memories. Could we organize a boat parade in Arizona? Yes, but it wouldn’t be the same.
** (h/t Claudio) The European Council reached an agreement on a €90 billion loan to Ukraine. They plan to float EU general obligation bonds to cover the cost of the loan. The money will ensure that Kiev can meet its most stringent financial needs for 2026 and 2027 and continue the war against Moscow. Without this loan, there was a real risk that the Ukrainian war machine could grind to a halt by June. A significant portion of the €90 billion will be spent on US weapons systems, so it’s a win for the USA too.
** The democrat party mood shifted abruptly as reports surfaced that Chevron gas operations are leaving California. Insiders say the development rattled Sacramento, triggering urgent calls and rapid damage control. Analysts point to energy costs, regulatory pressure, and investor confidence now colliding. What began as a business move is quickly becoming a political problem with no easy off-ramp. Fuel in Arizona is half the price that it is in California.
** Judge Hannah Dugan from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was found guilty of felony obstruction. Judge Hannah Dugan impeded federal ICE officers from making a lawful arrest of an illegal alien with an order of deportation. She distracted the officers while she let the illegal user use a back door exit to try to escape capture. She has been found guilty by a jury of felony obstruction.
** Confucius says: “Build a man a fire, he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”
** What is the solution to the housing shortage (and high home prices)? Dave weighs in.
** Prostate cancer awareness month.
** Historical weapons – Historically, slings were versatile, inexpensive projectile weapons used globally from Paleolithic times for hunting large game, evolving into crucial military tools for ancient armies (Hebrews, Greeks, Romans) for long-range harassment, sieges (lobbing over walls), and specialized mercenary units like the famed Balearic slingers, effective for their devastating power and cheap ammo (stones or lead bullets). In ancient battles, slingers were part of a mix of light artillery (along with archers), called peltists, used as flankers. Projectiles during the Roman period often included lead bullets.
** More bull riding in Mexico. You want more?
** The real problem with immigration—both legal and illegal—is a determined resistance to assimilation, which is the key to successful immigration. Our values are not theirs, and that defeats the whole purpose of welcoming newcomers to America. They want to turn America into the land they left behind.
Funerals
I commented briefly on the M-I-L funeral in the blog comments yesterday. I have instructions for my own burning and planting. I don’t want a pageant. I want to have my remains interred in the same place that my father and grandfather are buried – a small, rural cemetery. I’d like to have my children and grandchildren present, and because I chose cremation, the timing of the service can be a month or a year after I die. There should be no rush. I don’t need a bugler or people shooting off 21 guns (I guess if somebody wanted to shoot off a few hundred rounds of 50 BMG, or drop half a dozen 81 mm mortar rounds from an M-252 in random points of the compass, it would be more fitting, and memorable, but no). Just take the time to travel there, tell some fun stories, and that’s it. A wake is likewise unnecessary. Most of the people I worked with are already dead, whether by their own hand or because of some malady. I don’t expect they to travel a great distance and stand there with their walkers.
Or robot tech will be sufficiently advanced to place my consciousness into a metal and plastic shell – or my brain in a jar – and the blog will continue. It may go down that way.
How do you (dear readers) propose to punctuate your lives? Viking funeral with a burning ship and a sacrificed virgin? New Orleans jazz funeral with paid mourners? Internment at some noteworthy place, such as Arlington National Cemetery? Buddhist sky burial, where they lay out your carcass and buzzards eat it?
There is also the send-off pageant that the neurotic, narcissistic, sociopathic sister-in-law planned and executed for the MIL the other day, featuring only the sister-in-law.
Teachers and their Labor Union
The National Education Association (NEA), which is the country’s largest union, recently held what it called a Focus Academy event. The material presented to attendees provides a terrifying glimpse of what we face and where we are headed.
“Oppressed people’s stories are deliberately kept out of the telling of the story of what we know as the United States of America. What we now call the United States of America is still an uncomfortable, awkward, and sometimes unsafe place to be a member of the LGBTQ+ community.”
Much of what was presented at the Focus Academy event concerned the goal of pushing transgender ideology. Teachers were trained to create a “transition plan” for students. They were repeatedly admonished never to try to talk someone out of transitioning or to question a child’s decision to transition. In fact, they were taught that it was their duty to facilitate students’ transitioning.
Long Reach
LONDON, Dec 19 (Reuters) – Ukraine struck a Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker in the Mediterranean Sea with aerial drones for the first time, an official said on Friday, reflecting the growing intensity of Kiev’s attacks on Russian oil shipping.
The vessel – the Qendil – was empty when it was struck by drones in neutral waters more than 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) from Ukraine, sustaining critical damage, the official at the SBU security service said in a written statement. The tanker’s last visible position on Friday morning was off the coast of Crete, sailing parallel to Libya’s coast, according to Marine Traffic ship-tracking data. The Qendil was en route to the Russian port of Ust Luga in the Baltic Sea from the Indian port of Sikka.
The Worker’s Paradise
(h/t Claudio) Rural China is very poor. Like poorer than them, the Oklahoma Dust Bowl poor. Most tourists are not allowed to see it, but in my day, running and gunning (as a distinguished foreign expert), I got a lot of access. So when I was traveling through the countryside, I brought candy and gave it to the children. (left) And the secret police would let me look around. I have many stories of those days. In one case, I visited a headman’s home and found a television with only one channel. It played Dynasty with Chinese subtitles. I asked the secret police guys why they’d have Dynasty playing on the TV in an adobe home with a dirt floor and only one electric light. He said, “It’s so they can know what they can have if they work hard.”
China is a world of two extremes: It has gleaming cities, modern airports, modern factories, and safe streets. It also has well over 300 million homeless and impoverished peasant farmers who pull plows with oxen.
Chinese exports are off at least 50% no matter what people tell you. It’s one of a dozen significant problems that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) grapples with, even as Pres. Xi purges their cadre. Yes, some sectors are booming through serious artificial manipulation. There is no question about that.
(h/t Claudio) As those who journeyed to big cities in search of development dreams return home, protests in China’s rural areas triggered by land expropriation and local fiscal issues have noticeably increased. According to statistics from research institutions tracking social protests in China, by the end of November, rural protest incidents this year had already surged by 70% compared to the entire previous year. This highlights rising tensions in grassroots society amid China’s slowing economic growth.
The Guardian exclusively reported on the 19th that protests like the one in Lingao County, Hainan Province, where residents demonstrated against the demolition of a small Taoist temple in November, may be small in scale but represent a recurring pattern of public anger unfolding across China’s rural areas. Data tracked by China Dissent Monitor, a project of Washington-based Freedom House, shows 661 rural protest incidents recorded in the first 11 months of this year—a roughly 70% increase over all of last year.
Slower economic growth and intensifying “involution” competition have forced many who sought better opportunities in cities to abandon their dreams. Yet upon returning home, they face not the prosperity long promised by the Chinese Communist Party to secure its rule. Chen Zhijiu, a researcher and director at the Institute of Sociology of Academia Sinica in Taiwan, pointed out that many returning villagers are not yet of retirement age. They carry expectations from urban life and political awareness, yet face severe frustration due to a lack of economic opportunities, making them more prone to erupting in discontent.
Amid a sluggish real estate market, land retains value as collateral for loans, making it a frequent source of funding for cash-strapped local governments. However, local governments often fail to provide compensation deemed reasonable by villagers. Meanwhile, citizens are suffering other consequences of the economic slowdown, such as unemployment, which is fueling greater discontent with the status quo and increasing willingness to protest.
Identify the Aircraft
1
Three of these landed at Aviano AFB for a fuel stop on their way home for Christmas from a deployment in Djibouti. The first two passed by in the evening, but the third one landed in daylight before continuing to Mildenhall to refuel again. All of them belonged to the 319th Special Operations Squadron based in Hurlburt Field, Florida. Can you identify the aircraft?
2
It was never ready for prime time. Thus, you have an unprecedented three graphics and hints to aid your identification.
3
ID the aircraft and missiles.
Identify the Ship
4
The single 7.9″ gun mounts were later modified to doubles.
Identify the Vehicle/Weapon System
5
End
4 is probably Japanese Heavy Cruiser Myôkô
My wife has 4 sisters, the oldest one with health problems struggles but is pretty normal. The one just older is the most sane but lives 10 hours away. The younger 2 are bat shit crazy, and we don’t have any correspondence with either one even with their close proximity. I told her once “I didn’t know your whole family was crazy when we got married!” She said neither did I! Sounds like your stable influence is what helped keep Mrs. LL normal, much like my wife and I.
On an unrelated note I instructed my wife that I wanted a simple well constructed pine box, throw me in the back of a pickup, and have my buddies drive it out into the flint hills and watch the sun come up, then they could plant me in our plot. She told me she was in charge and that’s not going to happen! As I outlive my buddies one at a time that’s not as viable option as it once was.
I had thoughts of something more elaborate, FHubert, too. But as with you, I’m outliving my friends. Boot hill will do, I guess.
I’m so blessed with my sister, We have buried our parents, dealt with estates, exes, and heirs, and did so without arguments and acrimony.
Our paternal family has a private cemetery about 14 miles West of Maybell, CO off US 40. The property was once a homestead and is landlocked. A wonderful adjacent rancher keeps and eye on the place. Those who were cremated are usually interred the first weekend of May during the Sombrero Great Western Horse Drive, a three day event dudes pay thousands to play cowboy. As a family, none of us really care, but it is a good excuse for a family get together.
My sister plans to bury my pickup with me inside. I don’t care.
The threat, “We have a backhoe……..”, is no joke with us.
That’s a worthy tradition, WSF.
1 – Pilatus PC-12 /USAF U-28A Draco
2 – Supermarine Type 545
3 – General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark with AGM-142 Popeye missiles
4 – Japanese Navy cruiser Furutaka – sunk at the Battle of Cape Esperance by the USS Salt Lake City and USS Buchanan
5 – AM General Humvee 2-CT Hawkeye Mobile Howitzer System
Outstanding!
My wishes for my end of life send off is much like yours, although I hadn’t contemplated a .50 cal or mortar salute but I like those ideas. My wife knows what I want but says she cannot cremate my remains and she will almost certainly outlive me so who knows where I will reside for eternity. Our sons know and understand my wishes so maybe.
My father wanted to be cremated, unfortunately he only expressed those wishes to me. My older brother took charge of arrangements and decided he better knew what dad wanted and he is buried. I learned from that.
Other people will decide for you…but I haven’t heard complaints. (glass half empty/glass half full)
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Pilatus U-28 Draco
2. Supermarine Type 545
3. General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark carrying GBU-15(V)1/B glide bombs
Identify the Ship:
4. Japanese heavy cruiser Furutaka
Identify the Vehicle/Weapon System
5. HMMWV/Hawkeye 105mm Mobile Weapon System
Excellent!
The F-111 picture shows very good detail of the triple blow in door style inlets. There was a significant evolution of multiple design configurations with multiple paper designs competing with each other. The whole F-111 inlet evolution was good example of multiple concurrent path development that was more flexible than today’s highly system engineering approach. Like Hot Rods it was “Let’s try this” quickly. Tom
CAD works great. Still needs futzing to fix what the combonculator can’t quite calculate. You can only program in so many parameters. Real world has a way of throwing curve balls, sometimes explosive curve balls.
–
It’s why SpaceX uses the concept of design, launch, evaluate, redesign, repeat system. Because no matter how good the computer modeling is, the real world is always more complex. Always.
The better half has already made the arrangements. She’s purchased a plot and we’re to be cremated and interred there. My dad once joked that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes placed in the garage under the car to catch any oil that may drip down. Didn’t work out that way.
I have a list of places in the Southwestern US where I’d like my children to go and visit and think of me. Places I’ve been, but they haven’t that I liked very much. No pressure in terms of timing, just go there and think of Dad. One spot is underwater (Eagle Reef near Catalina Island), and while it’s not “difficult to get to” like the America song lyrics – the ocean is a desert with its life underground and the perfect disguise above. And you can’t dive it if there’s a strong current running – you can tell if the kelp stringers are lying on the bottom.
Mother had grand plans for her and Dad to be buried in the family plot several states away from where they’d lived the majority of their lives. He’d left verbal and written instructions that he not be buried there. But Mother outlived Dad, and thus it was she got her way in the end.
.
I would prefer a Viking funeral, but don’t own a yacht. So, I’m depending on everyone here who survives me to throw my carcass on any one of the dozen or so boats owned by Al Gore, preferably the biggest but whichever one is handiest, and set it on fire. If Al should “unexpectedly!” be cuffed to the handrail during the process, well, you certainly won’t hear me complaining about it.
Take one of John Kerry’s yachts, and now that woke women have sworn off men, there should be plenty of virgins to choose from to sacrifice.
Valero is leaving CA as well
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/12/valero-eats-1-1-billion-loss-to-escape-newsoms-toxic-california/
Eats $1.1 billion, costs the state many jobs, and increases the price of gasoline, home heating oil, propane, and associated distillates. Very woke.
Final resting place … I hope to be a file folder in some remote sheriffs department file cabinet with my name on the top corner and a hyphen, then PD-BNR. Presumed dead, body not recovered. My children are of the mind that a huge bonfire with fireworks, alcohol, catered food from the cheapest grocery store deli, loud music and then spread my ashes all over the world to generally gum things up and make a mess of things.
*
For the rural Chinese if the gov just left them alone to just subsistence farm in peace it wouldn’t be too bad. But getting tossed out for a new road, build a dam and reservoir, just mess with you to mess with you… it sucks.
*
California had numerous gov public news conferences on driving out fossil fuels and going all electric. They were told it’s a bad idea. Told the naysayers you’re stuck in the past. Well, now it’s reality time. Custom Ca gasoline can’t even be trucked in from other states as no one makes any. So, better buckle down and get that EV car and truck future going before the gas pumps run dry. Best part… they want to do this to the whole world. Idiocy.
If you want to give a lasting memory to the local police/sheriff, dig a pit at a jurisdictional boundary (better if it’s a convergence of FOUR jurisdictions) and bury yourself in concrete with just your head showing – as you expire. The argument over who will take the report and assume responsibility will be epic and could last for weeks.
I recall an episode of the TV series “The Wire” where detective McNulty (Dominic West) uses time of death and water current charts to determine jurisdiction of a Jane Doe found floating in the harbor, knowing full well this won’t go over well with the receiving agency.
The real problem with immigration:
many liberals still believe (are teaching and are being taught) that if you place a coyote in your chicken coop, he will shortly begin to lay eggs.
X2 – The fault is not recent. It goes back many decades. US Immigration and Border Protection did a bad job. It became acute during the Biden regime but the problem spans Republican and democrat administrations. A well regulated guest worker program would have worked but the Bracero Program (1942-1964), the USs largest guest worker initiative that brought millions of Mexican men to America on temporary contracts to fill agricultural and railroad labor shortages during and after World War II was not well regulated.
“For Pete’s sake”. Good question. Also, “Fire at Will”. What did Will do? Maybe we could ask Pete.
—-
Bulls in Mexico.
—
So a guy goes on vacation in Mexico. Taking the back roads, he stops for the night in a small town, and decides to have dinner at a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Turns out that one of their house special dishes is served the evening of the day of the local bull fight. On this side of the border, we might refer to it as a version of “Rocky Mountain Oysters”. Our hero decides to go for it. The meal is wonderful, full of flavor and generous portions. Afterwards, he decides that he must return on his next vacation.
—
Which he does. He is delighted to find the same menu, same staff, and they even remember him. He eagerly looks anticipates his dinner. However, when it is served, something is wrong. Again, it smells wonderful, but the portion is tiny, in fact a jokingly tiny. He looks up at the waiter with a WTF gesture. With a pained expression, the waiter explains, “I am so sorry señor, but today the bull won”.
hahahaha
Heh X2
😲
In real life, I will just be cremated and the can with 5% of my
remains stuck in a post-hole. I would prefer to be buried with
my wife, but there might be politics about that, time will tell.
Actually, I’d prefer to be buried previously to my wife, in the future
spot for her. If that doesn’t fly, my dad surveyed an expansion for
a local cemetery back in the ’50s or ’60s, and got paid in plots.
So, we still have a crapload there we can use.
*
I have come up with some fancy ideas though – I wouldn’t mind
getting left out in the woods for the critters to eat; only seems fair
after all considering the number of critters I’ve eaten.
*
Runner up concept is to have my corpse skinned and the skin preserved
and inflated into a helium balloon for the wake. Winner is same, but
instead of inflated, filled with jerky and hunter sausages, and used as a
pinata at the wake. In addition to being expensive and almost certainly
illegal, my wife has a dim view of these ideas.
– Kle.
Might I suggest the burial at the meeting point of four Counties, to ensure maximum long-lasting burocratic gridlock and interagency backbiting? The critters would have ample time to claim their share, as well.
Four counties AND four cities.
During the first SARS, the Chinese artists, jewelry makers, and other light manufacturing businesses in the Shenzhen Guangzhou area north of Hong Kong were sent to the villages because the tourist trade in Hong Kong and south China dropped off to almost zero. Those individuals were used to fancy coffee, Chinese boutique style restaurants, air conditioning, clubs, bars, a tiny apartment and other such things. The villages were as LL described and the mix didn’t go over very well with either group.
China now is not the same as when Mao ruled but the communist still carry the iron rod enabling them to do to their people as they wish.
China was always fun. When I first started going there 25 years ago, the police, both uniformed and plain clothes, followed us everywhere we went.
I watched a television show that had a woman born in the United States, but her parents were born in China. Her father was an engineer, and she eventually became an artist that is exceptional in her art.
In her younger days, she went to China to explore the culture, and her heritage. That was eye opening. The numerous separate segments of culture, and minorities are only held together by tyranny, and the different flavors of that tyranny are never toward a common goal for liberty.
Never enjoyed office Christmas parties…thought they were…odd, especially when Joe Quiet from Accounting let loose, or the HR Matriarch (who was usually around 40) would explain all the games we were going to be involved. That was usually my cue to head on out the door.
***
Burial Preference: Funeral Pyre…it’s in the Will. ‘Ashes to ashes’ and all that…leave the container open on some windy hill and off I go…no casket and plot, total 18th Century waste of money, and patrons (all three) get a party with a bonfire, sorta like Burning Man only without the hippy chix and unwashed ‘fellas’ in weird get-ups…then again, I won;t care at that point.
***
ChevExit: Maybe Mr Hairgel will start taxing people leaving, like he has some lawful right to do so, might happen once he realizes (hahhah) ‘capital is moveable’ and no one has to be enslaved by taxes and regulations by The Thieves and Cheats running things [into the ground].
***
Opener: “Pondering the Universe”, good thing to do horseback when the chores are finished for the day.
TOTAL Sidebar: Unless it’s someone using Barry’s Kenyan namesake, apparently the president (small ‘p’ on purpose) was a follower of the Brown U shooter on Facebook. [How can ever know if it’s true but will take it on face value for the time being.] That deplorable mess – before, during, and after – was part of something beyond anything we could ever know…like the Vegas Shooter, Tenn. Catholic School shooter, Kirk shooter, Butler shooter…etc, etc.
Maybe Mr Hairgel will start taxing people leaving, like he has some lawful right to do so He’s already tried it. The courts smacked him down.
.
I received California auto & truck registration bills for my vehicles for the first three years I lived in Arizona (with my cars registered in Arizona). I ignored them, expecting the State of California to lien my tax returns and force me into court. I ignored the bills and they didn’t attack me beyond the mailed bills.
I remember the last Nakatomi party..
It was a blast.
One heck of a Christmas movie.
THE Christmas movie…’Welcome to the party Pal!”
A bit off topic, but thought I would boost the signal.
—
https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2002401082375352688
Mom wanted her ashes scattered over the bayou.
Her husband showed me her plot where he intended her to be.
Three plots, his first wife and her and him in the middle.
.
I intend to be organ donored, then cremated like dad, but we have plots.
Don’t need a huge pricy casket. no viewing, but a memorial service.
My dad’s in a hole in the wall I never visit. He lives in my head.
.
I had a teacher in HIgh School who became a friend and employer after school.
He had two urns on separate shelves.
I asked. They were his parents. “Why separate shelves?”
They weren’t close in life….
You don’t have to put all of the ashes in one place. I originally wanted mine spread at half a dozen locations, but I revised that to requesting that the kids visit. They can put my cremanes in one hole. I don’t want to burden them. Everything is optional.
My send off plans involve a gathering of friends and family to listen to “Rob’s Last Mixtape” and tell all the fun and crazy stories of our lives together. Could be inside a church, or in the church parking lot, or a nice park, whatever the weather and comfort permits. The music will be 8 or 10 tunes I find pretty and meaningful, with hopes that those assembled will also appreciate. I’m hoping to be buried somewhere on our 40 acres, cremated or not makes little difference to me.
Add this to the list – and make them think about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX6_bLhBtT8
While you’re alive you get to earn your keep. After you pass they get to keep your urn.
😄
Yeah, they’ll repurpose it.
😄
I, for one, look forward to your Christmas Party. But maybe change things up? A Spring Solstice Party on the terrace of the NatLib? Sorry, Whitehall mandarins, you’re not invited, mostly.
If my wife passes before me, I will take her ashes and the ashes of her two service dogs and scatter them in the Smoky Mountains. And I will toss the bag of her mother’s ashes in the dumpster where they belong. (Yes, I do not like my mother-in-law, just in her current state she makes far less noise. But the damage she caused still shows today. So we burned her before she went to Hell, so she could get a pre-view of coming attractions. No, I’m not bitter….)
–
If I pass before my wife, well, that’s gonna be a problem. Cremation and toss. It’s all my wife can handle, physically. And the way care facilities are these days, she’ll join me on the other side within 2 weeks of my passing.
–
I pray that she dies before me. Can’t stand the thought of her being in the tender care of the medical profession and the care-giving profession.
Interesting, your discussion on slings showed up just after I finished a Oregon trail western where a young man takes out an outlaw attacking camp with a sling and smooth stone!