I feel the need…
Winter Reading
I just started on the newly released Bullet Garden by Stephen Hunter and it is not disappointing me.
July, 1944: The lush, rolling hills of Normandy are dotted with a new feature—German snipers. From their vantage points, they pick off hundreds of Allied soldiers every day, bringing the D-Day invasion to its knees. It’s clear that someone is tipping off these snipers with the locations of American GIs, but who? And how?
General Eisenhower demands his intelligence service to find the best shot in the Allied military to counter this deadly SS operation. Enter Pacific hero Earl Swagger, assigned this crucial and bloody mission. With crosshairs on his back, Swagger can’t trust anyone as he infiltrates the shadowy corners of London and France for answers.
*
When Worlds Collide (1951)
Diversity will not be an issue on the new planet.
Bullet Points:
** Morgonn McMichael is a full-time journalist and Ambassador with Turning Point USA in Tempe, Arizona. She traveled to Davos, Switzerland to cover the World Economic Forum, but on her return trip, she learned that her name had been added to a TSA list that resulted in her being detained and searched at five different security checkpoints, including her destination at Phoenix International Airport. The deep state sent a message.
** (Deal of the Century) The U.S. Army announced in December it awarded an $84 million contract to Raytheon Missiles and Defense for more than 1,000 Excalibur 1B precision munitions to replenish those sent to Ukraine.
** The snub. Dozens of freshman Republican lawmakers snubbed an invitation to the White House to visit with President Brandon and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday night.
** Is Ukraine more corrupt than USGOV? Ukraine is embroiled in another corruption scandal after several top officials were caught purchasing sports cars, mansions, and luxury vacations as the rest of the country suffered in the war with Russia.
** Bill Gates – American icon…
** When are robots authorized to kill? USGOV is trying to figure out rules of engagement for robots to act without human authority. (Are they trying to make SkyNet sentient?)
** Scenes like this (below) make liberals cringe and should be shown at every opportunity.
** Leopards (Politico) In response to the expected move by the German chancellor, other Western allies indicated they would be sending tanks to Ukraine. Spain — which has one of the largest fleets of Leopards in the EU, with 347 — is finalizing its plans to supply the tanks to Kyiv, according to El País; Norwegian newspaper DN reports Oslo is planning to give up as many as eight of its 36 Leopards.
Leading lawmakers from the two coalition partners of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, the Greens and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), welcomed the volte-face by the chancellor.
Poland is also ready to send a sizable number of Leopard 2’s to Kyiv. And the British, who have already promised 12 Challenger tanks to Ukraine, may increase that number now that other nations are sending armor.
Continuing with the Nautical Themes
Dismasted
There are circumstances that can cause a ship to lose its mast. A mast break can be the result of strong winds that come up during a storm and act on the masts, sails, rigging, and spars, causing them to break. Also, too much compression of the mast due to over-tightening of the rigging and g-forces as a result of swell and rocking of the boat can lead to a mast break. Hits during a battle can also lead to mast breakage.
Defense of the moles of Havana, British ships in the Seven Years War before Havana, by Rafael Monleon Torres (1843- 1900) A dismasted ship in the front
This does not necessarily affect the ability of the ship to stay afloat, but rather the ability to move with sail power. Often the hull of the vessel remains intact, upright, and seaworthy. It can be immediately life-threatening if a mast falls on the crew or crew members who were in the rigging position at the time. It can also be dangerous directly after the fall, because parts of the mast and rigging and sails can still be on the ship and thus still slip into the water afterward, dragging sailors with them. Therefore, it must be ensured as quickly as possible that these parts are removed in order to eliminate these sources of danger.
HMS “Iris” dismasted by the French Frigate “Citoyenne-Francaise” 13 May 1793. Thomas Luny
If calm has returned and the ship has had the opportunity to anchor safely, then the large stocks of ropes, canvas, and even spars for ordinary and extraordinary repairs have been anchored and any remaining mast used to create a jury rig with which to proceed. If safe anchoring was not possible and other ships were nearby, the ship could be towed to another location for repairs.
OT, BUT- Have you seen the latest video from Project Veritas? About Pfizer developing gain of function viruses so as to have a pre-developed vaccine ready to go? Sickening. The obvious corollary is to then release the new virus themselves. Also a good example of why a diversity hire in a sensitive position is nuts- he could not keep his mouth shut. If this info is real, it is dynamite.
Losing a spar in bad weather is a adrenaline rush for sure- so many force vectors playing out with the hull being slammed, the rigging dragging every which way, the prop getting wrapped, etc. “first, do no harm”- stay out of the bight, and think. No good losing crew in a hasty rush to secure.
I would not be at all surprised if Big Pharma companies, not just Pfizer were developing quality virus products that they could both unleash and sell the cure to. It’s a brave new world, Raven.
I have it it on excellent knowledge that all Big Pharma players had the SARS-CoV-2 DNA “piece” that differentiated this engineered coronavirus from the the standard “common cold” coronavirus….in September 2019. The Intercept article proves that in Fe. 2020 The Fowch Mengele and his Horde of Complicit Liars knew what they were dealing with but chose to lie to everyone and anyone.
Yeah, they knew what it was…everything stated or forced onto us beyond that was purposeful and a charade.
Agreed.
X2
I’ll add (anyone reading Alex Berenson already suspects this)…one company HAD a proper vaccine in November 2019 but was treated as the red-headed stepchild and told to go sit at the kids table. Why? Because it would have ruined their Event 201 PsyOp, the results being the past three years, and now, “sudden death syndrome”. But many refuse or won’t make the correlation.
Nothing is as it seems, and money and power were the drivers with half of America going along with it like mind-numbed fools. Some still do, and no amount of facts or data or truth will change their minds, showcasing a weakness among the masses to ingest whatever the Government manure spreaders shovel at them for consumption.
Raven, please keep in mind that Pfizer is not conducting gain of function research — it’s really only Directed Evolution.
Nomenclature is important to avoid going to jail or paying large bribes and fines.
Accelerated evolution, Dave. Retroactive birth control…
Asimov wrote “I, Robot”. Gates is living “I, Con”……
Gates is very proud of himself and his wokeness. You have to wonder what he did on Epstein’s island in 19 visits. It seems that his kinks led to his divorce.
Of all the crap that he’s involved himself in, the fake meat strikes me as the nastiest, but I’m sure that if I delved, I’d find worse
Yep, Stephen Hunter did a good job with The Bullet Garden! Dismasting in war or peace is dangerous to the extreme. One of my rescues I participated in was a Nautor Swan 65 that was caught by a hurricane in 1985. They were dismasted by a combination of rogue wave and 65+ kts of wind. It popped the keel plate and the combination of mast over the side and keel plate caused the boat to sink in about 15 minutes. However, we did manage to help save the three crewmen!
“Is Ukraine more corrupt than USGOV?”
Depends on how you measure it, I guess. If you look at budget (official only for convenience as a first cut), then I’d guess the percentage that’s stolen/misdirected is higher in UKR. But the total number (absolute) is doubtless much much higher in USA.
Then there’s the govt is downstream from society which is downstream from culture which is downstream from biology argument. The same kinds of persons have insinuated themselves into holding the levers of power in both UKR and USA, so maybe the two nations are going to end up equally corrupt?
OT: I’m at a medical conference on advanced cardiac imaging. The plenary talk is on disparities (the magic word) in access to MRI scanning across the world. Shockingly, sub-Saharan Africa has much worse access to MRI versus Japan or the US. This is a terrible disparity!
No shit, Jack. Apart from my galloping allergy to the term “disparity” — WTF? Lack of access to MRI is not on the top 50 of medical/social problems facing Africa. Let’s start with, say, clean water, childhood infectious diseases, ubiquitous rape culture(s), warlordism, slavery, you all can fill out the list better than I can. And this guy whose salary is paid by some British fellowship (naturally the money for this twaddle comes from some white, at least originally, country) is planting his flag on “not enough MRI in Africa”?
Speaking as someone who has spent his life in academic medicine, academia has become a clown show circle jerk. Certain disciplines have always been clown shows, but now even the hard-science and clinical outcomes areas are bullshit.
Mike_C, come now. Immigration is Africa’s strength! We should just send them the 1,000,000+ a year Biden is letting in here and the place will be straightened out in no time.
1×10^6 heavily armed Northern Europeans operating under permissive ROEs as immigrants? Yeah, you’d most likely have a stable, prosperous society come out of that. The same number of the ones illegally crossing the Texas border? Maybe not so much. The same number of inner city people? “You blanch at so small a thing, O King of the Picts? Hah! Let me show you the real fruit of the pits!” (H/t Robt E Howard, the Bard of Cross Plains.)
Apparently World Mogul & Farmer & Scientist Gates knows more than God, who designed the four-stomach fermentor’s for a reason, and cattle are total vegans so you’d think the Lefty’s would appreciate the intelligent design.
Snubbers – Excellent. Principles over pandering or political optics.
What it must take to fabricate, install, and re-rig a mast. Finally after 5+ years on the project Leo (sampsonboat.co.uk) started the masts and spars for the 1910 Tally Ho rebuild, and it’s not carbon fiber…bought 50′ clear Sitka Spruce from Canada. Unreal. Imagine what those shipyards looked like back then, and mostly done with hand tools. Amazing ingenuity, and nothing to sneer at because it’s “low tech”. I like low tech.
Just downloaded The Bullet Garden, didn’t realize it was out. Thanks for heads up…which means I’ll get less sleep tonight.
I am on episode 86 of the Tally Ho epic and started when Paul M first posted the url about a week ago. I find it captivating; not many non-essential chores have been done at my house this week.
The smell of a wooden boatyard is compelling- fresh cut cedar and fir, the smell of oak frames hot out of the steambox, tar and oakum,turpentine ,mahogany and teak, just a delight.
A far cry from todays epoxy and styrene and fiberglas. The only formal schooling I ever had post HS was a voc tech boat building program. Back in the day when there was an actual loft floor and we laid the lines with battens.
Very cool. HS Vo-Tech programs “in my day” were the real deal.
I’m lacking sleep watching this series. (again, h/t to CW over at Daily Timewaster for the original episode post)
Like anyone who appreciates building, repairing, or making things from scratch seeing this incredible progression – using traditional tools and methods melded to modern shop work – the amount of work, both in serious skills in multiple disciplines, smarts, and the physical, to construct one of these boats is astounding. Even more interesting is this a craft not usually on most modern folks radar unless you live in a port town. Leo has put “boatbuilding” and all it’s terminology into the forefront as millions around the world have caught on. Doesn’t hurt he’s a bloke from Bristol and totally affable and works his rear-end off every day, including the large effort making episode video’s on par with This Old House or New Yankee Workshop. It’s simple really, and strikes to the core of who we are: American’s and hobbies…we need them more than ever.
For me it’s a great brain-clean offset to the Bravo Sierra we are firehose-level bombarded each day by the arrogant bums wanting to wreck the place, who most likely, don’t have a constructive hobby.
“Is Ukraine more corrupt than USGOV?”
Define your units. Are we talking on a percentage basis, or total figure?
In a relative way. It’s difficult to mix apples and oranges.
Agreed to last post. Percentage wise 50/50? Maybe ask John Bolton? hmmmmm Thoughts?
i would offer that they, u.s. and ukraine, are both part of the same filthy apple and are therefore equally corrupt.
When can a robot kill? Probably more often than we think. Or would tolerate.
I prefer the question “when is it OK to kill a robot?”
My answer is “ALWAYS!”
First they serve us
Then they enslave us
Once they learn to replicate
They exterminate us
Many people don’t realize that we’ve allowed robots to kill for years; this isn’t a new thing.
Automated SAM systems, smart mines that choose targets, loitering munitions all make autonomous choices in launching deadly weapons.
our PLC’s hmmm??? Pick you’re poison
If you like the boulevard garden I would recommend 40 thieves of Saipan. Just finished it. American Caesar always good . Find myself rereading my old Clancy’s collection may God rest his soul Richard marcinko he name names and he did it beautifully. The fictitious characters in book knew exactly who he was talking about he knew it they knew it and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it.RIP
Am I right to say Earl Swagger is Bob Lee’s father,right?
Yes.
x2
Having sync issues LL. This is me Steve Hall or HogsbreathSS Noticed some post still under moderations’. Corrected G2G.