Ragmatical Ragabash

Caption: Have fun with that, Boron.

Socialism’s appeal has always lain primarily in its vision of living in a fantasy land, a land of lollipops and lemonade, a land where everyone has plenty, and all have the same.

Aside from the utter impossibility of attaining such abundance without private property and free markets, this vision has a fatal element of abstraction from the realities of the Iron Law of Oligarchy. It declares that “society” or “the community” will own all the means of production, but in reality, this communal ownership always boils down to de facto ownership by a political elite with untrammeled power and a determination to obliterate individual rights, first private property rights, then all other rights, including the entire litany of civil rights.

Socialism is a mythical, impossible ideal employed as a rhetorical enticement to mobilize large groups in favor of collective action that leads ultimately, if not immediately, to their own enslavement. That so many young people in the West now regard socialism as the most desirable form of political economy is a tragedy in the making.”

Bullet Points:

** Teaching school in the era of AI – h/t Claudio – I’ve discussed this with two of my daughters who teach at Junior High Schools. Whether they view it as a blessing or a curse, it’s here, and it will only become an even greater part of our lives. We had restricted/limited bandwidth at the White Wolf Mine until recently (Starlink won’t work at the house because of tall pines). Now, with the new Dragon antenna setup (Verizon), I have priority access to the single coms tower in the region and unlimited bandwidth. With that, I tinker even more with AI.

** A person I have known for some time just came out of the closet and spewed a lot of Trump Derangement Syndrome crap on the net. It’s their right to demonstrate their ignorance. I think they’re watching CNN – and maybe washing it down with Sterno, or grandpa’s old cough syrup. Drunk posting?

** Fun with AI on the Titanic (right) – A comic scene of a young lady writing a romantic love letter at a desk by candlelight, just as the collision happens; ink splashes across the page, turning the elegant message into chaos. Speech bubble reads “perfect ending”.

** It’s a toe tapper.

** From Ammo.com. The relationship between gun control and crime rates is complicated. When we compare gun control laws across states, years, and countries, the truth becomes clearer: There’s no direct correlation between gun control and reduced crime rates. We compiled a report showing how crime rates fluctuate with strict and relaxed gun control. Here are a few quick highlights of our findings in our report on the subject:

• U.S. violent crime increased 261% between 1966 and 1993, rising from 189 incidents per 100,000 residents to 682 per 100,000, despite sweeping gun control legislation. Some of these numbers have more to do with better reporting.
• Seven of the eighteen states with strict gun control laws had violent crime rates above the national average in 2024.
• Of the 26 states with relaxed gun control laws, half (13) had violent crime rates below the national average in 2024.

** Talking dog – for sale.

** The White-Nosed Coati looks like something straight out of a tropical jungle rather than the Sonoran Desert. Most folks call them Coatimundis, and they look like a wild mix between a raccoon and a monkey with a long, flexible snout that never stops moving. They travel in big social groups called bands, and you’ll usually see them with their long, ringed tails sticking straight up in the air like antennas as they forage through the brush. They are world-class climbers with ankles that can rotate a full 180 degrees, so they can climb down a tree head-first just as fast as they went up. While they love snacking on beetles and grubs they dig out of the ground, they’re just as likely to be found high up in a sycamore tree looking for fruit or bird nests. We have had a few in the area of the WWM, but it’s tough to get close enough to get a good picture. They have scent glands and smell a lot like skunks,

** Blockading the blockade.

** Kurdistan Ascendant – (American Thinker) Having been to Erbil and having worked with our Kurdish allies, I know that Israel would also support a free and independent Kurdistan. The Turks would have something different to say about it, but they’re Turks, and nothing makes them happy. (Ok, money for nothing and chicks for free does make them happy)

(to the article:) “A weakened Iran, stripped of its ‘IRGC teeth,’ would create a power vacuum that should be filled by those who have actually fought our common enemies.  Supporting an independent Kurdish state — carved from Kurdish majority regions in northwestern collapsing Iran and neighboring areas in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey — would be the ultimate strategic masterstroke.  (These regions could first exist as autonomous entities within their countries, as is already the case in Iraq, with a concrete plan for eventual unification.)  A sovereign Kurdistan would be a natural ally to the U.S. and Israel, serving as a democratic buffer against whatever radicalism tries to rise from the Iranian rubble.”

It’s easier said than done, primarily because of oil revenue and access to a port. Even with the boundaries of the present Kurdish populations, there is no outlet to the sea. Yes, a pipeline could be laid north, crossing with an outlet in Georgia, perhaps, bypassing Iraq and Turkey. It’s still a sticky wicket.

The Kurdish solution will come slowly, primarily because of tribal/factional interests, which often diverge. Some factions are staunchly in the US camp (Barzanis), some rely heavily on profits from opium sales, some are communists (small c), and as I mentioned above, Turkey is not about to give up a square meter of land to the Kurds. At present, the Iraqi KRG cooperates with Iraq and Turkey on the Kirkuk–Ceyhan Oil Pipeline. Revenue is shared. And there are bitter disputes on how the revenue is shared.

** Trying to help.

** In 1228, Duke Conrad of Masovia founded a military order with 35 knights to hold his northern border. It lasts six years before being swallowed whole by the Teutonic Knights. A hundred years later, a 12-year-old boy from Naples inherited a kingdom in chaos, fought his way to the throne, and founded the order that every knight in Europe copied for the next two centuries — the Garter, the Golden Fleece, all of it. Nobody knows his name.

** Pope Leo says: “Christians and Muslims can live together and be friends.” He strongly believes Christians and Muslims can live side by side, be friends, and prove that faith differences do not have to lead to hatred. We’re seeing that experiment play out in Old Europe and, more importantly, in the UK, where they’ve demobilized their military  (for the most part) in the name of feeding the arriving great unwashed and in some cases giving over Christian churches to become mosques. We’ll see how the Pope’s plan works out. The most popular baby name in the UK is Mohammed. The experiment is underway.

** Big Mike Obama’s friends and supporters are increasingly calling on ‘her/him’ to sue over the long-running rumors claiming she/he is male. They say they are frustrated that she/he still has not taken legal action, and many are now questioning why she/he has not moved to shut it down in court once and for all. The discovery phase of the proceeding would be fun.

** (Daily Caller) Colombia plans to kill up to 80 hippos descended from Pablo Escobar’s private collection after they became an invasive animal population, officials said. The late drug lord smuggled four hippos into the country during the 1980s to stock a zoo at his sprawling Hacienda Nápoles estate in the Magdalena River valley, CBS News reported. After Escobar’s death in 1993, the animals roamed free and multiplied. Colombia remains the only nation outside Africa home to wild hippos.

Identify the Aircraft

1

You can take a stab at the U-boat, too, but it’s an aircraft challenge

2

Purpose-built – If you can ID it, you can tell everyone how it was to be used.

3

Two graphics for this aircraft, which carried out some noteworthy, if not particularly effective, missions.

As with #2 above, it was purpose-built, not a general float plane.

Parting Shot

End