Don’t take the wrong pill…
Bullet Points:
** Indiana Fever star Sophie Cunningham is now being labeled “MAGA Barbie” by the Left for declaring she wanted to “protect young girls in sports who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”
** The Democrat lament – “The most left-wing people in America are people with postgraduate degrees who are financially strapped, and the most right-wing are people without 4-year college degrees who are rich.” – Are they saying that a liberal arts degree in Negro Studies isn’t a pathway to wealth?
** For those of you who are watching/waiting, Vengeance and Retribution is nearing completion at 92,000+ words, and I’ll soon be in edit mode. It’s the fourth book in the Duelist Series, and if it is well received, there will be a fifth book, which will take you in an even different direction – post War of Northern Aggression/Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln was scheduled to attend a performance of the play “Still Waters Run Deep” at the Campbell General Hospital on March 17, 1865. John Wilkes Booth (right) and his fellow conspirators found out about the President’s schedule and planned to ambush his carriage on a country road as he returned from the hospital. Lincoln continued to travel and live in the Executive Mansion (White House) without bodyguards or a military escort.
Their original plot at this stage is still to kidnap Lincoln, take him to Richmond, Virginia, and exchange him for Confederate prisoners of war, and bring about a more favorable situation for the Confederacy, which is unraveling.
Lincoln unknowingly foiled the abduction plot by changing his schedule at the last minute. Instead of going to the play, he stayed in downtown Washington to attend a military ceremony at the National Hotel, where he presented a captured Confederate flag to the Governor of Indiana. Because Lincoln never showed up, the kidnapping attempt failed.
Following the surrender of the Confederacy a few weeks later, Booth abandoned the kidnapping strategy entirely and shifted to the assassination plot that unfolded on April 14, 1865, at Ford’s Theater.
** The 1970s amphibious C-130 concept was a Lockheed-Georgia design study known as the Hercules-On-Water (HOW)/the L-100 Hercules Amphibian, intended to give the proven tactical airlifter the ability to take off from and land on water. To minimize the risk of water spray damaging the engines during amphibious operations, the design featured inverted Allison T56 turboprop engines mounted high above the wings. Old NFO mentioned this the other day – upside-down P-3 engine configuration. Although the concept showed promise, it never progressed beyond the design and wind-tunnel testing stages, and the project was ultimately canceled.
** A discussion of getting patched. The outlaw motorcycle gang culture is interesting.
** Florida officially ended “permanent alimony” for good under reform bill HB 1301. Instead of open-ended payments that lasted until death or remarriage, the state now uses durational alimony capped by how long the marriage lasted: up to 50% of the marriage length for 3- to 10-year marriages, 60% for 10- to 20-year marriages, and 75% for marriages over 20 years. Marriages under 3 years are generally presumed ineligible. Payers can also seek reductions ahead of retirement. Big picture: how long a marriage lasts now directly shapes what’s owed after it ends.
** Mick Jagger, 82, Says There’s ‘Nothing’ Good About Getting Older: ‘It’s Not Particularly Pleasant’.
** Reptilian democrat pundit James Carville called Democratic Socialists of America members “overeducated white turds.” Fact check: TRUE. Carville and stopped clocks are occasionally correct.
** Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed that Turkey helped prevent armed Iranian Kurdish groups from opening a new front inside Iran as part of what Tehran says was a U.S.-Israeli regime-change effort. In fact, Erdoğan was opposed to the Iranian Kurdish militias who were willing and able to take on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Had Trump given the Kurdish militias a chance rather than heeding Erdoğan’s request, the war with Iran might have progressed differently.
** In Nepal – “In impoverished Nepal, where a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options, the impact on aid workers’ lives was particularly crushing. Starving and scared, around 100 LGBTQ+ aid workers left jobless by the funding cuts have turned to sex work.” How dare the Associated Press stigmatize sex work like that! They’ve been spouting off about how the oldest profession is an honorable way to turn a quick buck.
** Senator Ron Wyden-rhymes-with-Biden said, “Our staff believes that there are instances where the Canadians are gonna pay higher tariffs than the Chinese are, and that’s not right.” I agree. Raise all Canadian tariffs above what we charge Red China.
** John Kiriakou reads the tea leaves on 2028.
** A discussion of Title Insurance.
***
Japanese Aircraft Carriers from WW2
Photographed in September 1934, Ryūjō was one of the most distinctive light aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Her bridge was located at the bow, and she featured a flush flight deck without the conventional island superstructure found on most aircraft carriers.
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
249 built – Given the time and place, the technology was transformative.
3
3,300 built
The type quickly proved to have many important advantages over the Albatros and Pfalz scouts. Unlike the Albatros scouts, this aircraft could dive without any fear of structural failure. It could maneuver effectively and climbed like a homesick angel. Unlike its contemporaries, it had a remarkably docile stall and reluctance to spin. It could “hang on its prop” without stalling for brief periods, spraying enemy aircraft from below with machine gun fire. These handling characteristics contrasted with contemporary scouts such as the Camel and SPAD, which stalled sharply and spun vigorously. It wasn’t perfect. Several aircraft suffered rib failures and fabric shedding on the upper wing. Heat from the engine sometimes ignited phosphorus ammunition until additional cooling louvers were installed on the metal sides of the engine cowling panels, and fuel tanks sometimes broke at the seams.
Parting Shot
h/t WSF
End
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat
2. Fokker E.III
3. Fokker D.VII
Excellent. #1 Does “Ghost Bat” mean “Dead Bat?” I guess we’d need to ask Boeing for clarification.
Compliments on your continued good content, L.L.
–
Duelist series update +
–
Cold Turkey on the Kurds +
–
The POTUS kidnapping plot +
–
Delayed response; The Utah family’s fortitude has inspired me to ” carry on” daily. ++
Thanks, GFW2.
Sen. Wyden [rhymes with Biden]: Immediately Elmer Fudd saying “Wascally wabbit” popped into my head. Yet another elected genius who is supposed to work for We The People but doesn’t.
***
First mortgage, going through this long list of ‘costs’ and come to ‘Title Insurance’ for ‘x’ dollars per month. Asked the agent what they hey is this and why do I need it? Total scam. Now for EVERY real estate transaction this has ballooned into Title Company’s injecting themselves into deal regardless of known provenance to inject themselves into every deal and skim off the top’. Yet another immoral lawyer-generated mailbox money scheme under the guise of ‘protection’. This guy, while humorously acerbic in delivery, is spot on.
***
Permanent Alimony: See ‘Title Insurance above. Florida is ahead of the curve on this one because they have the guts to see it for what it is, another bureaucratic grift, so has taken the first step to eliminating this practice builder and money-transfer scam to keep the payer (usually the ousted, now ex, husband) indefinitely on his heels.
***
Sidebar: Opening up a betting table…taking odds that despite damning evidence that us ‘normals’ knew it all along that Covid et al was a PsyOp Scam The Fauch Mengele will get ZERO jail time for his obvious role in taking a wrecking ball to American’s at all levels to elevate his personal glory while filling off-shore bank accounts. Oh, and what’s with this 1974 “law” that disallows these lab rat types to be sued for screwing up and causing harm? What genius came up with that special protection law? (Again, hearing ‘wascally wabbit’ in my head.)
Title Insurance has to be forked over whether or not it’s a scam because it’s baked in as solidly as sales tax is.
Exactly…like a few hundred other ‘fees’ and taxes created out of thin air designed to lighten our wallets while chippingb away at freedoms.
Nope! Depends on the state. Here in VA, I moved around and bought several homes. I passed on it. It’s a gamble that some rather dishonest builder actually had clear title to the land or home. What usually pops up here is properties that have undisclosed easements or cemeteries. Civilian graves must stay out, if military, they can be excumed and moved to a national military cemetery.
In circa 1993/4 Laguna Niguel, California, about 20 acres of wetlands (legally unbuildable) were transferred from the city to a builder, who subsequently built 65 homes on the land (landfill). It became a big old mess, and Chicago Title stood to take the hit on the whole thing because they issued title policies. The question of whether they knew or should have known that wetlands were unbuildable no matter what the City claimed was up for grabs. Binion’s Horseshoe Hotel and Casino was involved, and the Mayor’s wife worked for the building developer.
In places like Pennsylvania and Virginia (all the 13 Colonies for that matter) land descriptions were ‘big rock to large oak tree’, etc…so land descriptions and fence lines were often iffy, which led to iffy titles, especially when lands got transferred in a poker game or to the ‘3rd cousin twice removed’ type scenario. The rule is to do your own due diligence, don’t need to pay someone for the effort…who tend to go all the way back to day one, except for those situations when an ‘interested’ third party injects themselves into the deal, then ‘follow the money’ is usually the reason.
It became somewhat more orderly in the Old West depending on how old. Some of the Spanish land grants that are now subdivisions in Southern California had been reviewed enough that there was very little to contest because the litigation if any was so well established.
At some point it becomes ‘Oh well, it is what it is’. For me it’s mineral rights so spend time digging around to make sure some company can’t come in and start digging up the place due to some undiscovered language in the wayback.
Ms. Cunningham doesn’t care what the Left thinks, she’s smart, principled, and grounded. As typical, her contrarian commenters aren’t on the court playing so have no clue yet ‘feel’ the need to be critical of something they know nothing about. That Reagan line about Liberals ‘speaking so much about things they know so little about’ comes to mind.
I like her. That young lady has a future.
💯
She’ll be targeted like Clark for her non-lesbo, non-negro ways. And the WNBA leadership will be the ones ordering the hit on her while coaches, refs and reporters look the other way.
And she’s good looking. She did SI 2026 photo shoot. And a badass. There’s some great shorts out there where she’s telling the ref. I will take care of it personally and she does.
” Mick Jagger, 82…”
Mick,
some of us just “get older” IOW tend to lose our esssence, if you will; become mouths spewing gibberish into the passing winds
OTOH some of us, like fine wines and good pearls, mature: obtain more depth of character each passing year
some of us peak early on: others have yet to reach it
There is a “Confession for Boron” in tomorrow’s blog’s bullet points. I’ll leave my response until then.
I would add, some…mostly politicians…tend to linger on forever, refusing to simply just go away and leave the rest of us alone
Sopwith Camel vs. Fokker DR1.
—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z25T-s0gu8M
Into the weeds for the geeks.
—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zELul8q0HjM
Title Insurance.
There is some merit if, and it is a big if, the title research is done with due diligence.
I haven’t purchased property in several years. Being a serial pain in the ass, I required the title research be provided for me to read before accepting the title insurance on a house we wanted to purchase. After I forced a deeper research, three things jumped out. First, the property lines had never been surveyed since first platted. Second, the property was outside the boundries of a later established HOA who had been collecting dues from the seller. Third, 1/2 of the mineral rights were owned by someone else.
We did buy the property even though adjacent owners had built a fence on the lot. We had our lawyer inform the HOA we were not a member and would not pay HOA dues. The only valuable minerals in the area was coal and those mines were underground and abandoned. All of this took an extra six weeks, caused a reduction in the purchase price, pissed off the seller, their agent, the closing company, the neighbor and, worse, my wife, who wanted to move in immediatley.
For 98% of circumstances, I think that it’s a waste. If there are easements involved, mineral rights claims, etc., then it can be very useful to have the policy in case things go south.
It can be a problem to by a house to flip, from a tax sale, only to find that a retired cops name was on the property.
Fortunately he was a good guy and signed a release.
My son is a realtor and knows better, but thought that since the city was selling the property, the ownership was uncontested.
Texas has what’s called “spousal support”. In my situation, after dealing with a wife that allowed her mental problems to escalate with abandon, our divorce allowed her spousal support for four years after 30 years total time married. If I had left it up to the judge, and she had balked at the offer, it would have been ten years, and the possibility of an extension after that time passed. After divvying the assets, and the four years passed, she had enough money to piss off for a long time. It was expensive, but it was worth it. As it turned out, her boyfriends weren’t there after the divorce. I wasn’t surprised.
Women can be an expensive hobby, Jess.
Regarding the water-Herc, I’m surprised they didn’t use a bent wing like on the PB5-Y Mariner to place the engines up higher from the water. Thus the existing Herc wings and engines in the existing positions could be used and only the wing root section would need to have been changed.
–
We lost a lot of capability (and expense, yes, as amphibs are maintenance hogs) by going away from flying boats. So, well, our military is seriously looking at Japan’s flying boats.