Uncle Joe reminds you to remain calm. It’s all going according to plan. 81 million people voted for him, the most popular president in US history. His staff reminds you that the economy is the best economy in US history. Inflation is only an illusion created by the Orange Man to deceive you and distract you from the grand globalist vision.

94 major food processing facilities have been destroyed within the past year, and tens of millions of poultry and other farm animals killed, don’t worry about it. The FBI is investigating. Arrests are imminent. Shortages and massive price spikes are figments of your imagination.

“The Biden administration has previously provided Ukraine with over $5.3 billion in military assistance, of which $4.6 billion has come since February 24,. The $1 billion announced Wednesday is on top of these numbers.”

Biden’s announcement comes after his rant about reckless spending on Tuesday. Joe Biden began screaming out of nowhere and scolded critics for claiming his reckless spending caused inflation rates to spike.

“I don’t wanna hear any more of these lies about reckless spending!” Biden shouted.

We now return to our regular blogging.

What will the Bitcoin Billionaires do?

Bitcoin fell again on Wednesday to yet another 18-month low, spurring a sharp drop in crypto markets, made even worse by crypto lending giant Celsius freezing all customer withdrawals.

The FDA appears to see the drug industry, not the public, as its Deep Pockets Client because drug industry user fees provide a substantial portion of the agency’s budget.

Is there a correlation between mass shootings and these medications? Here are some thoughts on the matter.

The Most Popular Vice President in History — has a problem

(Breitbart) Nobody wants to have dinner with her.

I can’t blame them. The Democrat National Committee (DNC) reportedly had to reschedule its Woman’s Leadership Forum fundraiser on May 25 and 26 with Vice President Kamala Harris for lack of ticket sales.

It would be like JEB! (do you remember him) at a JEB! for president rally and two people showed up for the snacks offered. Even snacks are not enough to induce progs to go to a fundraiser. Maybe they need to lower the price of the tickets or pay child actors to show up and adore her.

Geo RR Martin

The issue Martin ran into with ASOIAF [A Song of Ice and Fire] is, ironically, one of his own makings. He spent five books subverting expectations, killing key characters, torturing and scattering the survivors to the ends of creation… and only now realized that there’s no way in hell he can actually bring them all back in one place and piece together a story that makes sense in just two books. The problem with endless deconstruction is that, eventually, you have nothing left to build with.

I tired of his books because every time I liked a character, Martin killed that character off.

Yes, I realize that Game of Thrones is popular and that a new season is coming. That’s sort of why I wrote what I did.

Brandon’s Legacy

U.S. stock futures looked set to break below the lows of May, as financial markets continue to reel from a surprise acceleration in inflation just days ahead of a Federal Reserve interest-rate decision.

On Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 880 points, or 2.73%, to 31393, the S&P 500 declined 117 points, or 2.91%, to 3901, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 414 points, or 3.52%, to 11340.

The S&P 500 ended Friday only fractionally above the May closing low of 3900.79. The Dow and the Nasdaq also are in danger of falling below May’s lows.

The Federal Government will not allow interest rates to match or exceed the inflation rate, but that’s what is necessary to bring the death spiral under control.

On This Day

A New Panther

EUROSATORY 2022: It’s not often that a new tank, with tracks and all, appears on the market. Hence, Rheinmetall’s unveiling of the KF51 Panther on the first day of the Eurosatory show in Paris was quite an event.

The German company said the Panther KF51 (KF is short for Kettenfahrzeug, or tracked vehicle;  the number indicates it falls into the 50-ton plus class) “is destined to be a game changer on the battlefields of the future.” It sets “new standards” in “lethality, protection, reconnaissance, networking, and mobility,” the company boasted in a statement.

It is designed for the export market.

All-in-all, it’s a brick in the Wall…

I’m sure that the FBI is on the case and that arrests are imminent.

And in a shocking development

Peaky Blinders Series Review – Season Six

The series begins in 1919 Britain, a mixture of despair and hedonism in the aftermath of the Great War. Returning soldiers, newly minted revolutions, and criminal gangs are fighting for survival in a nation rocked by economic upheaval. One of the most powerful gangs of the time is the Peaky Blinders in Birmingham, run by returning war hero Thomas Shelby and his family.

Thomas has bigger ambitions than just running the streets. When a crate of guns goes missing, he recognizes an opportunity to advance in the world because crime may pay but legitimate business pays better. Trying to rid Britain of its crime is Inspector Chester Campbell, who arrives from Belfast to try to achieve that goal.

The series ends with Tommy Shelby, who has been a gangster, an entrepreneur, a captain of industry, a spy, and ultimately a Member of Parliament and OBE. In the course of this odyssey, he has taken on numerous criminal organizations, business adversaries, foreign insurgents, and the British Establishment itself. Now, in the 1930s, as the clouds of the coming storm gather, he faces the consequences of his experiences and his actions.

It should have been a good closing season, but it was a disappointment. The whining music and dark mood may have been where the show-runner wanted to take it, but whereas I enjoyed the series, I didn’t enjoy the last season. The acting was good, and the plot line was average but it really didn’t work the way the first three seasons in particular did.

Gimme Shelter

(Memorable movie soundtrack)

Consider Putin

Claudio brought this RFE/RL interview to my attention. It’s a very good take on the situation in regard the war in Ukraine and a possible pathway to ending the war, allowing face saving. There are elements to the interview that could have been expanded upon. Edward Luttwak’s take on Putin as a man is 100% spot on in my opinion.

Party politics in America today is a race to the boxcars. The first team there gets to make the other team ride.

How Many Biolabs did USGOV fund in Ukraine?

Even though the mainstream media is closely focused on Pride Month and the necessity of disarming honest citizens, the question remains. Does Uncle Joe have a personal financial stake (10% for the Big Guy) in any of them? I can’t give you clear answers but I’m just this guy who lives in Arizona.

Ok, I can give you a few clear answers because they come from the US Department of Defense (June 9 statement) “The United States has also worked collaboratively to improve Ukraine’s biological safety, security, and disease surveillance for both human and animal health, providing support to 46 peaceful Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and disease diagnostic sites over the last two decades. The collaborative programs have focused on improving public health and agricultural safety measures at the nexus of nonproliferation.”

The framework is open for your discussion today. Pick your topic. I’ll throw out a few thoughts.

Food Storage

The question of whether being a “prepper” is overkill and a waste of money or a prudent investment is a fair one and frankly, I struggle with it at times. To me, storage means that I plan to keep it for a rainy day and not rotate it. There are a number of companies and organizations that sell food staples that are packaged with a shelf life of twenty years or more.

Those blog readers who know me, know that I live in one of the more remote areas in the US, have access to fresh water off-the-grid, and while I don’t consider myself to be a “prepper”, I also choose to be prepared. So back to food. Figure out what you need for a rainy day and hope that over the next twenty years or so that it doesn’t rain. (Noah built the ark before the flood)

Part of smart food storage is storage against an absence of food but also the capacity to insert storage items into your daily uptake if things become outrageously expensive.

One Adult Portion for one year – guideline

Grains—400 pounds (181 kg); includes wheat, flour, rice, corn, oatmeal, and pasta

Legumes—60 pounds (27 kg); includes dry beans, split peas, lentils, etc.

Powdered Milk—16 pounds (7 kg)

Cooking Oil—10 quarts (9 l)

Sugar or Honey—60 pounds (27 kg)

Salt—8 pounds (3.6 kg)

Water (2 weeks*)—14 gallons (53 l)

*

Arms and Ammunition

Everyone reading this blog will have a different take on the basics – what do you think a baseline number for self-defense and hunting would be if you were giving advice to a novice?

A Definition

Slow Joe (caption)

Democrat insiders say that Creepy old Joe Brandon fully intends to run for president in 2024 if he lives that long. (old father time might stop the clock on the geezer at any moment) He reasons that he received 81 million votes in 2020, the most popular president in American history and all he did was cower in his basement. Who knows how he’ll do if he campaigns? He may get more votes than America has voters!

And it’s summer – vacation time.

Why hasn’t Hooters started a home delivery service called Knockers? I call it a big missed opportunity.

The Coming Black Sea Conflict (h/t Claudio)

NATO has been preparing a plan, that would establish a safe corridor from Odessa via coastal waters of NATO members Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey to the Turkish straits so that grain shipments can make it to market. Russia is expected to oppose the move with the four conventionally powered submarines that it has in the Black Sea.

For this NATO plan to work, Ukraine must have the weapons to keep Russian surface ships and submarines out of that corridor until it reaches Romanian waters. That means Snake Island must be retaken. If Russia tries to attack the grain ships off the coasts of Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey, NATO can fight back. The Ukraine/NATO “humanitarian corridor” is seen as a lifesaver for millions of people worldwide.

In the next few months, there will be a battle for control of that coastal corridor and Russia will have to send its Black Sea Fleet ships to sea to do it, which means those must get close enough to make them more vulnerable to anti-ship missiles.

Submarines are another issue. The Romanian Navy is small, and its ASW capacity rests with 2 old British frigates and three helicopters. It might be possible to flag grain ships with British colors and have them send their newly acquired (US-built) P-8 Poseidon ASW aircraft into the area to escort “their” ships through the maritime corridor. The British have already provided the Ukrainians with anti-shipping missiles.

Sinking Russian submarines in the Black Sea (flagged grain ships notwithstanding) is a risky matter and could lead to an expanded war that would lead to World War III.

We live in interesting times.

Eggs meet the Sunrise in Finnland

Ice eggs form because of wave action on pieces of sea ice that formed. Once washed ashore they have their own look, don’t they?

Can THEY pull it off?

Facing what should be a catastrophic political defeat in November, Team Biden is “plotting to transform federal agencies into corrupt ballot harvesting operations. And much worse–all while hiding their plans from the American people.” He has the backing of the media and the J6 made-for-TV drama.

Katie Britt – in Alabama

“I’m thankful to have President Trump’s endorsement and strong support,” Britt in a statement. “President Trump knows that Alabamians are sick and tired of failed, do-nothing career politicians. It’s time for the next generation of conservatives to step up and shake things up in Washington to save the country we know and love for our children and our children’s children. In the Senate, I will fight to defend Alabama’s Christian conservative values, advance the America First agenda, and preserve the American Dream for generations to come.”

I think that President Trump’s endorsement of Katie Britt for the US Senate, representing Alabama, was a good one.

Nationalist China

Taiwan has been home to the Nationalist Chinese people (Kuomintang) since the Chinese civil war in the 1940’s. The PRC claims Taiwan but they claim almost everything on the planet in their secret hearts. As Celestials, it’s theirs and you are subject to them (whoever “you” happen to be). It’s an interesting take on the world. Keep it in mind when thinking of the Communist Chinese.

(BBC). Chinese Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said yesterday, “If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will have no choice but fight at any cost and crush any attempt of ‘Taiwan independence’ and safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Ah, the British

Paratroops of the 22nd Independent Parachute Company, British 6th Airborne Division, with their plush toy mascot ‘Pegasus’ at RAF Harwell, 5 June 1944. At least it wasn’t a rainbow unicorn…

This is WSF, throwing his cracker in the soup…

The Canadian Gold Standard

Guns are for hunting and target practice, but never for self-defense, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said this week, continuing his crusade against firearms.

Trudeau, who is pushing a sweeping measure aimed at freezing the sale, purchase, or transfer of handguns in Canada, said that his country takes a completely different view of firearms than its southern neighbor. No one in Canada has a right to defend themselves, their family, or their property with a firearm, Trudeau declared.

“We have a culture where the difference is: Guns can be used for hunting or for sport shooting in Canada – and there are lots of gun owners, and they’re mostly law-respecting and law-abiding – but you can’t use a gun for self-protection in Canada,” Trudeau said. “That’s not a right that you have in the Constitution or anywhere else.”

Ukraine War Update

Ukraine Army forces are pushing the Russians back in the Kherson area on the Black Sea Coast. It has been confirmed that Tavrijs’ke is under Ukraine’s control (see map).

Overall Situation

In Ukraine, the Russians have been lobbing Kh-22 (AS-4) anti-shipping missiles into Ukrainian territory. In their anti-shipping role, the radar acquisition process is thought to be generally accurate, in the land attack role, it is not.

It carries a 1,000 lbs warhead. The Kh-22 were replaced by the updated Kh-32, but they still had some in inventory and while obsolete and decommissioned in their anti-shipping role, they could still be fired at Ukraine in the general direction of something that they wanted to hit. From a Russian perspective, why not shoot them in lieu of decommissioning?

Wear the Patch Proudly

Historic Photo

Wouls you have been able to identify the Luftwaffe Bücker Bü 181 Bestmann light trainer armed with Panzerfaust antitank rocket launchers (in the last days of the Battle for Berlin, Apr 1945) pictured above?

These units saw very limited use in the final days of the war due to the war situation. However, some anti-tank missions were carried out, achieving moderate success but at the price of severe losses. One restored Bestmann on the tank buster configuration is on display at the Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin.

Melitta Schenk Gräfin von Stauffenberg, a highly decorated German test pilot of some renown and sister-in-law to Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg – the key figure in the 1944 “20 July plot” to assassinate Adolf Hitler. was shot down on April 8, 1945, by a US fighter over Germany while flying an unarmed Bü 181.

I’m sure that the pilot saw a low-flying German aircraft and shot it down – pro forma.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have been with a loose girl.”

The priest asks, “Is that you, little Joey Pagano?”

“Yes, Father, it is.”

“And who was the girl you were with?”

“I can’t tell you, Father. I don’t want to ruin her reputation.”

“Well, Joey, I’m sure to find out her name sooner or later so you may as well tell me now. Was it Tina Minetti?”

“I cannot say.”

“Was it Teresa Mazzarelli?”

“I’ll never tell.”

“Was it Nina Capelli?”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot name her.”

“Was it Cathy Piriano?”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Was it Rosa DiAngelo, then?”

“Please, Father! I cannot tell you.”

The priest sighs in frustration. “You’re very tight-lipped, and I admire that. But you’ve sinned and have to atone. You cannot be an altar boy now for 4 months. Now you go and behave yourself.”

Joey walks back to his pew, and his friend Franco slides over and whispers, “What’d you get?”

“Four months vacation and five good leads…

Yes, I know that it’s an old one, well circulated, but I couldn’t resist posting it one more time for the sake of a sermonette.

Most sermonettes are well-worn, but since people keep making the same mistakes, they can be remorselessly recycled.

*

The Saga of Self-Driving Electric Cars

I watch government meddling in the oil supply with the intent of raising gasoline prices with the intent of forcing people to buy electric cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (propelled through the use of large, toxic batteries) while pushing that nation into a depression.

There are a lot of tech companies that are working on small, self-driving, electric cars. They’re all the rage in tech professional circles where highly paid employees can buy one or two outrageously expensive electric cars. The grid that will power them is fragile – frail – underdeveloped – and prone to failure during periods of high demand and building more unsightly windmills or toxic solar collectors can’t begin to address the problem. Building hybrid automobiles would make more sense, but they’re not nearly as woke.

*

A Review of the Facts – The Ashli McEntee Babbit Murder

In every police shooting and in every police action that I have been involved with or personally reviewed, a report was written by the officer involved. It was interesting to me that U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, “did not create a police report or documents” related to the shooting of Babbitt. Byrd, who is black, was cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the killing of Babbitt, who was white and unarmed during the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol political demonstration.

The prosecution declination memorandum justifying the decision not to prosecute Byrd for the shooting death of Babbitt on January 6 is an interesting read.

In a section of the memo titled “USCP Lieutenant Michael Byrd,” the memo notes: “He [Byrd] did not create any police reports or documents relating to the incident, and did not provide an official statement regarding use of force” though he did provide a voluntary “debrief” and walk-through of the scene with his lawyer. A footnote details that: “During the debrief of Lieutenant Byrd, he did recall writing a few sentences on an evidence bag the evening of January 6, 2021, at the request of a crime scene officer. To date, the bag has not been located by USCP or MPD.”

The records include a draft version of the April 14, 2021, Justice Department press release announcing their decision not to prosecute Byrd for the killing of Babbitt, the authors replaced the word “crowd” with the word “mob” five times in describing the January 6 protestors.

The documents also include charts of January 6 investigations and targets. For one of the investigations, it is noted that a New York Times reporter is a “CW” [confidential witness]. Another notation tied to “pipe bombs” notes that a “geo fence” request was made to Google.

Records from the DC Metropolitan Police showed that multiple officers claimed they didn’t see a weapon in Babbitt’s hand before Byrd shot her, and that Byrd was visibly distraught afterward. One officer attested that he didn’t recall hearing any verbal commands before Byrd shot Babbitt. The records include internal communications about Byrd’s case and a crime scene examination report. Investigators who wrote the January 6, 2021, Metro PD Death Report for Babbitt (identified as Ashli Elizabeth McEntee-Babbitt Pamatian) note that the possible Manner of Death was “Homicide (Police Involved Shooting).”

The Speaker’s Lobby, where the shooting/murder took place is covered completely by CCTV cameras and microphones, which were reported to be active at the time. The footage from those cameras was refused to DC Metro PD and has never been released.

Was it a justifiable shooting or was it a murder? I leave it to you to decide.

*

Women Aboard (in the days of Fighting Sail)

*

Conspiracy

If Truth in Advertising was a Requirement

h/t Frank

From the Days of Fighting Sail

According to USDA

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), there are currently no nationwide food shortages.

“There are currently no nationwide shortages of food, although in some cases the inventory of certain foods at your grocery store might be temporarily low before stores can restock,” the agency said on their website. “Food production and manufacturing are widely dispersed throughout the U.S. and there are currently no widespread disruptions reported in the supply chain.”

That’s good to know. You need to rely on your government for advice because who loves you more?

Below is the list of America’s 94 plants that have been destroyed, damaged or impacted by “accidental fires”, disease or general causes.

1. 4/30/21 A fire ignited inside the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Monmouth, IL
2. 7/25/21 Three-alarm fire at Kellogg plant in Memphis, 170 emergency personnel responded to the call
3. 7/30/21 Firefighters on Friday battled a large fire at Tyson’s River Valley Ingredients plant in Hanceville, Alabama
4. 8/23/21 Fire crews were called to the Patak Meat Production company on Ewing Road in Austell
5. 9/13/21 A fire at the JBS beef plant in Grand Island, Neb., on Sunday night forced a halt to slaughter and fabrication lines
6.  10/13/21 A five-alarm fire ripped through the Darigold butter production plant in Caldwell, ID
7. 11/15/21  A woman is in custody following a fire at the Garrard County Food Pantry
8. 11/29/21  A fire broke out around 5:30 p.m. at the Maid-Rite Steak Company meat processing plant
9. 12/13/21 West Side food processing plant in San Antonio left with smoke damage after a fire
10. 1/7/22 Damage to a poultry processing plant on Hamilton’s Mountain following an overnight fire
11. 1/11/22 A fire that destroyed 75,000-square-foot processing plant in Fayetteville
12. 1/13/22 Firefighters worked for 12 hours to put a fire out at the Cargill-Nutrena plant in Lecompte, LA
13. 1/31/22 a fertilizer plant with 600 tons of ammonium nitrate inside caught on fire on Cherry Street in Winston-Salem
14. 2/3/22 A massive fire swept through Wisconsin River Meats in Mauston
15. 2/3/22 At least 130 cows were killed in a fire at Percy Farm in Stowe
16. 2/15/22 Bonanza Meat Company goes up in flames in El Paso, Texas
17. 2/15/22 Nearly a week after the fire destroyed most of the Shearer’s Foods plant in Hermiston
18. 2/16/22 A fire had broken at US largest soybean processing and biodiesel plant in Claypool, Indiana
19. 2/18/22 An early morning fire tore through the milk parlor at Bess View Farm
20. 2/19/22 Three people were injured, and one was hospitalized, after an ammonia leak at Lincoln Premium Poultry in Fremont
21. 2/22/22 The Shearer’s Foods plant in Hermiston caught fire after a propane boiler exploded
22. 2/28/22 A smoldering pile of sulfur quickly became a raging chemical fire at Nutrien Ag Solutions
23. 2/28/22 A man was hurt after a fire broke out at the Shadow Brook Farm and Dutch Girl Creamery
24. 3/4/22 294,800 chickens destroyed at farm in Stoddard, Missouri
25. 3/4/22 644,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
26. 3/8/22 243,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in New Castle, Delaware
27. 3/10/22 663,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, MD
28. 3/10/22 915,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Taylor, IA
29. 3/14/22 The blaze at 244 Meadow Drive was discovered shortly after 5 p.m. by farm owner Wayne Hoover
30. 3/14/22 2,750,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Jefferson, Wisconsin
31. 3/16/22 A fire at a Walmart warehouse distribution center has cast a large plume of smoke visible throughout Indianapolis.
32. 3/16/22 Nestle Food Plant extensively damaged in fire and new production destroyed Jonesboro, Arkansas
33. 3/17/22 5,347,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Buena Vista, Iowa
34. 3/17/22 147,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Kent, Delaware
35. 3/18/22 315,400 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Cecil, Maryland
36. 3/22/22 172,000 Turkeys destroyed on farms in South Dakota
37. 3/22/22 570,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
38. 3/24/22 Fire fighters from numerous towns are battling a major fire at the McCrum potato processing facility in Belfast.
39. 3/24/22 418,500 chickens destroyed at farm in Butler, Nebraska
40. 3/25/22 250,300 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Franklin, Iowa
41. 3/26/22 311,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
42. 3/27/22 126,300 Turkeys destroyed in South Dakota
43. 3/28/22 1,460,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Guthrie, Iowa
44. 3/29/22 A massive fire burned 40,000 pounds of food meant to feed people in a food desert near Maricopa
45. 3/31/22 A structure fire caused significant damage to a large portion of key fresh onion packing facilities in south Texas
46. 3/31/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Osceola, Iowa
47. 3/31/22 5,011,700 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Osceola, Iowa
48. 4/6/22 281,600 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
49. 4/9/22 76,400 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
50. 4/9/22 208,900 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
51. 4/12/22 89,700 chickens destroyed at farm in Wayne, North Carolina
52. 4/12/22 1,746,900 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Dixon, Nebraska
53. 4/12/22 259,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Minnesota
54. 4/13/22 Fire destroys East Conway Beef & Pork Meat Market in Conway, New Hampshire
55. 4/13/22 Plane crashes into Gem State Processing, Idaho potato and food processing plant
56. 4/13/22 77,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
57. 4/14/22 Taylor Farms Food Processing plant burns down Salinas, California.
58. 4/14/22 99,600 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
59. 4/15/22 1,380,500 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Lancaster, Minnesota
60. 4/19/22 Azure Standard nation’s premier independent distributor of organic and healthy food, was destroyed by fire in Dufur, Oregon
61. 4/19/22 339,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
62. 4/19/22 58,000 chickens destroyed at farm in Montrose, Color
63. 4/20/22 2,000,000 chickens destroyed at egg farm in Minnesota
64. 4/21/22 A small plane crashed in the lot of a General Mills plant in Georgia
65. 4/22/22 197,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
66. 4/23/22 200,000 Turkeys destroyed in Minnesota
67. 4/25/22 1,501,200 chickens destroyed at egg farm Cache, Utah
68. 4/26/22 307,400 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
69. 4/27/22 2,118,000 chickens destroyed at farm Knox, Nebraska
70. 4/28/22 Egg-laying facility in Iowa kills 5.3 million chickens, fires 200-plus workers
71. 4/28/22 Allen Harim Foods processing plant killed nearly 2M chickens in Delaware
72. 4/2822 110,700 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
73. 4/29/22 1,366,200 chickens destroyed at farm Weld Colorado
74. 4/30/22 13,800 chickens destroyed at farm Sequoia Oklahoma
75. 5/3/22 58,000 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
76. 5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Beadle S Dakota
77. 5/3/22 114,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
78. 5/3/22 118,900 Turkeys destroyed Lyon Minnesota
79. 5/7/22 20,100 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
80. 5/10/22 72,300 chickens destroyed at farm Lancaster Pennsylvania
81. 5/10/22 61,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
82. 5/10/22 35,100 Turkeys destroyed Muskegon, Michigan
83. 5/13/22 10,500 Turkeys destroyed Barron Wisconsin
84. 5/14/22 83,400 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
85. 5/17/22 79,00 chickens destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
86. 5/18/22 7,200 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
87. 5/19/22 Train carrying limestone derailed Jensen Beach FL
88. 5/21/22 57,000 Turkeys destroyed on farm in Dakota Minnesota
89. 5/23/22 4,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
90. 5/29/22 A Saturday night fire destroyed a poultry building at Forsman Farms
91. 5/31/22 3,000,000 chickens destroyed by fire at Forsman facility in Stockholm Township, Minnesota
92. 6/2/22 30,000 ducks destroyed at Duck farm Berks Pennsylvania
93. 6/7/22 A fire occurred Tuesday evening at the JBS meat packing plant in Green Bay.
94. 6/9/22 Irrigation water was canceled in California (the #1 producer of food in the US) and storage water flushed directly out to the delta.

Response Times

The SWAT Team showed up a lot faster to crush the podcast than they would have to a school shooting.

The Big Guy’s 10%

(Gateway Pundit) Why are US strategic oil reserves going to Europe? Is it because they paid the standard vig and Amerian consumers didn’t?

Biden tapped into the US Strategic Oil Reserves in an attempt to bring down oil prices. Now we know that at least one ship, the Suezmax ship Advantage Spring, is sailing for Rotterdam filled with US oil.

Don’t worry, America, Uncle Joe has your back.

Alexander – This day in History

Plague Vaccinations

(Epoch) h/t Claudio “The myocardial injury seen in these post-vaccine hearts is different from typical myocarditis and has an appearance most closely resembling catecholamine-mediated stress (toxic) cardiomyopathy. Understanding that these instances are different from typical myocarditis and that cytokine storm has a known feedback loop with catecholamines may help guide screening and therapy.”

It’s a good thing that the plague drug mages who are peddling these cures have full immunity from prosecution, isn’t it?

Paths of Glory

A film by Stanley Kubrick, starring Kirk Douglas

Imagine that you are in a trench somewhere, waiting for your commander-in-chief, creepy Joe Brandon to order you over the top into wire, pre-sighted artillery, land mines, and enemy machineguns for the glory of the regime.

And then ask yourself why the US military is falling way short on enlistment quotas.

It’s not just the tranny thing or the “let’s all be queer” mantras that the generals and admirals chant.

The problem runs much deeper.

Mike_C’s Suppertime Discussion

Mike_C discussed a dinner conversation that he shared with an international crowd. I won’t bother to quote him but this diverse group marveled that the US could have tumbled so quickly, headed for third-world problems like food shortages, a potential famine, a financial depression, etc. The answer of course is that there is a shadow government in charge in the White House, supported by a kleptocracy with party apparatchiks who are defended against any outrage by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It’s the swamp that calls the shots, not America. Look at the last election if you have a question or the peaceful January 6 protest, called an insurrection by the mainstream media.

As if there weren’t enough follies during the course of a regular week, we’re exploring them on a Friday. Some are saying that the voter repudiation of Chesa Boudin is homophobic, and that would clearly fly if the voters who booted the Soros guy were not overwhelmingly democrat and homosexually oriented in one of the 36 gender arrangements (kama sutra complex) that I can’t and won’t begin to discuss here. The Soros crew is very active further south in Orange County where they’re shelling out money to oust conservative, law-and-order district attorney Todd Spitzer. As a 21-year alumnus of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, I do understand the changing inner-city demographic in Orange County, California that they are playing on. Wait for it…the cry is that Todd Spitzer (white, heterosexual) is a racist. It’s a tedious rant. I worked with Spitzer’s three predecessors and Todd fell into political traps that are common. Will he survive the financial onslaught?

Would you have Identified the SPG?

It’s a Nork M1978 Koksan 170mm SPG discovered in an Iraqi boneyard during the 2003 invasion. Likely captured from Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. Difficult to ID in working order.

Oh, Hunter

No Friday Follies post would be complete without a Hunter Biden update.

(Breitbart) Hunter Biden’s Las Vegas call girl, Cheryl Deboves (you can follow her on Facebook, just as Hunter does), won a $20,207 Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) check under a “female owned sole proprietorship” designation.

Deboves’s check reportedly was doled out to her under the criteria of “Independent Artists, Writers, and Performers.” The check was reportedly sent to her person instead of a business because she alleged her work was performed under a sole proprietorship, the Daily Wire reported.

Deboves also asked Hunter for help combating a drug dealer on August 23, 2018:

“Eric keeps threatening me, and now he has someone named Keaton threatening me too who just got out of prison or whatever… Can you please help me? Like he scares me a lot. I hate it when men threaten women,” she wrote.

…

“Hi beautiful how are you been too long,” Biden wrote, also asking her to FaceTime naked. He arranged to pay her to ensure her phone plan would have data for the call. On March 1, he sent her $500 through Venmo, according to emails on his laptop.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the PPP loans were ripe for fraud. According to CBS News, “a total of $813 billion in PPP loans went out in all, and a new report shows ‘more than 70,000 loans totaling over $4.6 billion in potentially fraudulent PPP loans’ are now being called into question.”

Population Control (Great Reset)

A Code of Morals

There was a brief discussion of heliographs on Wednesday. By way of follow-up, I thought to add this brief piece by Rudyard Kipling to the discussion. A Code of Morals has been one of my Kipling favorites, right up there with The Post that Fitted.

Now Jones had left his new-wed bride to keep his house in order,

And hied away to the Hurrum Hills above the Afghan border,

To sit on a rock with a heliograph; but ere he left he taught

His wife the working of the Code that sets the miles at naught…

You should read the whole thing. 

[At dawn, across the Hurrum Hills, he flashed her counsel wise —

But, howsoever Love be blind, the world at large hath eyes.]

Blogging and Stuff

I looked at the calendar and it took a moment to figure out that yes, it is actually Thursday and the week is escaping. Today will be taken up with writing position papers (sort of pitch material for my consulting business) and catching up. Such is life. I may also rewrite my resume. Writing a resume is an art. For example, I had to change a lightbulb this morning. If I included it on the resume, it would read something like this: Single-handedly managed the successful upgrade and deployment of a new environmental illumination system with no cost overruns and no safety incidents. I was supported in this collaborative effort by a co-worker of Czech extraction who supported and rotated the aluminum elevating device thus facilitating and expediting the aforementioned task and illustrating the value of international teamwork.

Yeah, like that. It’s sort of like a medicine show where I’m offering bottles of water from the fountain of youth, guaranteed to slow the aging process. Give your money to the lady with the tambourine, folks, buy two bottles if you’re feeling a little older than you’re comfortable with. I’ll be in town all day.

Scooter Tramps

The issue of motorcycle gangs came up the other day when I was talking with old friends. Now, it’s just a framed curiosity, but there was a time when it was more than that.

In law enforcement circles, there are not many people who worked undercover, earned a cut and managed to stay sane. I did it for two years and when I think about those days, I just shake my head. MikeW is writing memoirs of his time in Vietnam and he’s almost finished with them. Friends suggested that I do the same but I don’t have much motivation to do so.

Every Friday I met with a US District Court Judge who received my report and gave me transactional immunity for the upcoming week, which was the US equivalent of a license to do anything on US soil. I never abused trust, but it’s nice to have something to show if things go sideways and you end up killing somebody – even needlessly.

Nuclear Power

Yes, it’s part of my business, but would be interesting to see if Texas might be interested in installing small nuclear reactors to forestall these inevitable blackouts (a racist term, sorry) problems. The Rolls Royce of SMR’s.

A-4 Nuclear Mission

I had a discussion with a friend about the Skyhawk’s nuclear delivery mission. The A-4 was a light attack aircraft but if you could get the aircraft carrier close enough to the target, you could load up the A-4 squadron and send it out on what was essentially a one-way trip.

above: A photo of an A-4 Skyhawk carrying a Mark 7 atomic bomb, the largest of a wide range of weaponry the A-4 was capable of carrying. The Mark 7 had a variable yield from 8 to 61 kilotons depending on which core was installed.

Are  Bees Fish?

Legally, yes – but only in California…

A California appeals court has ruled that four species of bees are now legally considered fish, KTLA sister station WJW reports.

The issue was whether the bumble bee, a terrestrial invertebrate, falls within the definition of fish – a division in the list of endangered species and threatened species in the California Endangered Species Act.

The act identifies the protected species, in separate divisions, as “bird, mammal, fish, amphibian, reptile, or plant.”

I’m not a biologist…so my opinion doesn’t count.

Last Night

Anaheim Stadium – Angels v Redsox

Redsox won, the bottom of the tenth 6-5. I like baseball. When the kids and grandkids say, “take me out to the ball game” – I do.

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Heliograph Peak

The Pinaleno Mountains, near Safford, Arizona

In 1886, one of the most innovative approaches General Nelson Miles enacted in the final campaign against the small band of Apaches led by Geronimo was a system of heliographs. Atop mountain peaks throughout southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, signal officers and soldiers manned stations using mirrors, or heliographs, to flash coded messages to military camps beyond the reach of telegraphs. However, contrary to a number of published accounts, Heliograph Peak was not part of the 1886 Geromino campaign heliograph network.

A few years after the Geronimo campaign, the US Army undertook testing of a much larger heliograph network, to evaluate the effectiveness of a heliograph communications system. In December of 1889, a party led by Lt. Eggleston of the 10th Cavalry visited the prominent mountaintop that later became known as Heliograph Peak and found that was a good point to connect nearby Fort Grant, located 6 miles to the west and more than 5000 feet lower in elevation, with a heliograph station near Fort Bowie, more than 40 miles to the southeast.

Within a few years, the Army decided heliography was not going to be an effective means of communication and developed other methods. In the 1910s, the Forest Service explored the use of heliographs to communicate between different locations in the Pinaleno and Galiuro Mountains. In 1933, a 100-foot fire lookout tower was erected by the Civilian Conservation Corps and is still used by Forest Service personnel during peak fire season in early summer.

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DM22 – weapons that wait

High Ground

Cold Water Reefs (Scotland)

Got Meat?

The first casualty of a famine.

Drink Drank Drunk

Largest product sold in the manufacturing of beverages per country in Europe, 2017.

Roman Empire – Comparative Prosperity

The Surreal – all Sci-Fi is Fact now…

H/T WSF

What is Modern Journalism?

Covering important stories — with a pillow until they stop moving.

Deciding which facts that the public should not know because they reflect poorly on Democrats.

…complete the list if you’d like.

USGOV controls the leasing, permitting, drilling, shipping, storing, refining, buying, selling, trading, and taxing of oil. At the same time, they assert to the public through media stooges that they don’t control oil prices.

Cocaine Use By Country (UNODC).

Matthew Walker Knot

The Matthew Walker, the first knot to bear a man’s name, is used to keep the end of a rope from fraying. It is tied by unraveling the strands of a piece of rope, knotting the strands together, then laying up the strands together again. It may also be used for tying several separate cords, in order to keep them together in a bundle.

There are a number of different legends about the identity of Matthew Walker. One plausible account has it that he was a ship’s rigger in the Royal Navy working on Tyneside in the mid-18th century.

Another more dramatic theory is that Matthew Walker was a boatswain ( or just a sailor) in the Royal Navy who found himself sentenced to death by a judge who had once been a sailor himself. For some reason, the judge offered Walker a full pardon if he could show him a knot that he could neither tie nor untie. Walker called for 10 fathoms of line and retired to his cell, unlaid the rope halfway, put in a special knot, and then laid up the rope again to the end. The judge was unable to undo the rope and Matthew Walker happily secured his freedom.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which is building a $12 billion plant in north Phoenix, released the first look of what their new facility will look like.

I’ve watched the site since they broke ground from time to time, passing on the freeway.

How Neighborhood Deer & Elk Train

Let’s Go Brandon!

Tell me you voted for Biden without telling me you voted for Biden.

Another Rule?

Potash = Potassium

Potassium chloride (Muriate of potash)     (KCl; 0-0-60)

Potassium sulfate (Sulfate of potash)    (K2SO4; 0-0-50-18S)

Potassium-magnesium sulfate     (K2SO4-2MgSO4; 0-0-22-22S-11Mg)

Potassium thiosulfate     (K2S2O3; 0-0-25-17S)

Potassium nitrate     (KNO3; 13-0-44)

The potassium in all these fertilizers is identical and this nutrient will be rapidly available to the plant regardless of the source. The primary difference is in the companion nutrients that come along with potassium. (link for a primer)

The world’s largest producer of fertilizer potassium is the Canadian company, Nutrien, Ltd. Russia is the second largest producer and Belarus is third. Russia and Belarus account for more than 40% of global potash exports. Their potash is less expensive to produce than Canadian or American potash. A lot of American potash (potassium) is extracted from salts in the Great Salt Lake (Utah). Because the cost of potash has gone up, the Canadians have increased their production from 1 million tons per year to about 15 million tons to maximize their shareholder’s profit as they try not to let a good crisis go to waste.

Compared to September 2020 prices, ammonia has increased over 210%, liquid nitrogen has increased over 159%, urea (carbamide, the diamide of carbonic acid. Its formula is H2NCONH2.) is up 155%, MAP (monoammonium phosphate) has increased 125%, while DAP (diammonium phosphate) is up over 100% and potash has risen above 134% and it will go higher.

There are Canadian and American companies that stand to make a significant profit (Mosaic and Nutrien) from their own production of potash. I don’t know that there will be scarcity in the US and Canada but the cost increases will result in food prices doubling or more. Worldwide, and in Europe, the situation is more dire since they relied heavily on the supply from Russia and Belarus.

The US has used its considerable influence over Lithuania to prevent the export of potash from the Port of Klaipėda. There is no embargo on potash, but it hasn’t been reaching the ships, so the world supply has been choked off.

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum will take place in a couple of weeks (June 15-22) and among the participants in the forum,  there will be about 200 US and Canadian companies. The log jam on fertilizer coming from Russia will be broken at this conference and sure, it will mean that you may pay $10.00 for a loaf of bread and $30 for a chicken but once the price is high enough, everything can be worked out.

India’s Energy Strategy

India is buying up cheap sanctioned Russian oil, refining it, then selling it to the US and EU for huge profits, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The Brandon Administration has reluctantly given India permission to buy Russian oil because India has threatened to ditch their alliance with America and ally with China if the US dares to sanction them. 10% to the Big Guy? It’s a wicked game, isn’t it?

The War in Ukraine

Ukraine undertook a counterattack to retake Kherson. The map reflects as closely as is possible, the situation with contested areas in pink. Snihurivka will fall to Ukraine. Maybe today, maybe it will be cut off and it will fall later this week.

Kherson was an important port on the Black Sea and on the Dnieper River, and the home of major ship-building industry. activity. Ukraine began to undertake the effort to retake the Black Sea coast.

Fried Chicken & Egg Sandwich

The FC&E is underappreciated for breakfast. Leftover friend chicken from the day before, crack an egg, a little basil for flavor and you are ready for the day.

Matilda

British Matilda 1, knocked out in France. It was useless in an attacking sense, as its weak armament made it toothless in combat against enemy armor. The tank was obsolete before it even came into service, yet they sent men forward in them.

From Hillary

Top Gun: Maverick – Review

Bloggers here, primarily PaulM, have reviewed the film and did a very good job. I recently saw it too, so I’ll throw my cracker in the soup as well.

The feature film has been “in the can” for quite some time now as theaters were shuttered because of the plague, etc. It’s now available for your viewing pleasure and it’s a commercial and artistic success. It’s no more “authentic Navy” than Top Gun was, but it’s fun, it’s true to the franchise, and it’s worth watching. I’m sure that you’ve read other reviews that outline the plot and I’m not going to delve there. The casting was excellent, the acting was good, the flight sequences were engaging, and though there wasn’t much character development of Maverick’s proteges, there didn’t have to be. You have to tell the story in two hours. The addition of Jennifer Connelly was a good move. She was a credible, beautiful addition to the story.

If you haven’t seen the film, June 6, the Longest Day, might be a good time to go and do it. Highly Recommended Film

A Letter from the Front

Moscow, 25 September 1812.

Second Amendment

Constitutional Amendments

Since Constitutional Amendments are no longer absolute, maybe we should ignore the 16th and stop paying federal income tax.

The presence of armed groups has been detected in all of the 131 municipalities of Colombia that face electoral risk.

How many counties in the USA face electoral risk from democrat operatives (mules)? There are always academic studies on places like Columbia, but not many are done in the US and on the US situation. The installation of a demented fool and a cackling whore should be of international concern.

For Riverrider

Cartoon-of-the-Day

Stringshot sent this over:

I stumbled across this link at https://theferalirishman.blogspot.com/

The day of the Uvalde shooting, a US Army MC-12W recon plane left FortHood/Killeen at 10:15am CT. It approached the Uvalde area ~ 11:02 and flew over KUVA; entered a pattern at 11:16, & landed at 11:25. At 12:48pm, the plane took off and returned to Ft Hood.

The MC-12W is designed to intensify data collection operations through intelligence-collection capabilities in-theatre, allowing real-time full-motion video and signals intelligence for battlefield decisions of military troop leaders.

Reports are that Ramos entered the school at 11:28am and was taken out at 12:50pm. Why would a military recon plane like this, that had never been to Uvalde, land and leave there within a few minutes of those same times? Did it drop someone off and/or pick someone up? Did they need to monitor or jam cell phone activity in the area, to ensure the narrative doesn’t collapse under a kid with some video footage that shows a different set of facts?

I reply – Normally the MC-12W wouldn’t be dropping off and picking up. There’s not much room to squish a fourth person into the back of the aircraft, but I would be intensely interested in what it collected. I could have vacuumed all of the SIGINT out of the air during those critical minutes. Naturally, such a collection would be illegal (collecting against domestic communications) and at the same time, classified. Did the 4th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron “Crows” relocate to Ft. Hood post-Afghan adventure?

I’ll ID the Tanks for you…

Finnish Army StuG III Ausf. G in Vuosalmi, July 1944

Russian ISU-152 and a Valentine tank in Latvia, 1944

A captured Russian OT-133 flame-tank in Finnish service during the burning of Petrozavodsk, Karelia.

Cartoon-of-the-Day

Identify the Aircraft

(hint: no, it’s not a B-29)

Navigation

Abomination

At London’s ThundCrit cycling event:

Two men kiss as they celebrate stealing 1st & 2nd place in a women’s race…a woman takes care of her child as she stands in the 3rd place she has been relegated to due to male cheats. This pic tells the story of gender ideology perfectly. Men first, women & children’s needs last.

The third place finisher, who is a birthing person claims to be a woman,  but I’m not a biologist.

Today We Reach Back…

…To Hallowed Antiquity, on this, the 600th anniversary of the Ottoman Siege of Constantinople by Sultan Murad II.

The siege of 1422, which lasted from June 10 to September 6, was the penultimate of four attempts on the city by the Ottomans and has received far less attention than that of 1453. According to the short Chronique breve mereote de 1423, “on 10 June, Wednesday, at the fourth hour after midday, Mihaloğlu Mehmed Bey attacked Constantinople” with a vanguard of 10,000 men, thus beginning the siege of the city. Byzantine historian Ioanis Kananos wrote a vivid eyewitness account of the siege of Constantinople by the Ottomans. Kananos describes how the vanguard under Mihaloğlu ravaged the city’s suburbs, before Murad II himself arrived on June 20 and the siege began in earnest. The 200,000 men Ottoman army encamped all along the Theodosian walls. Primitive bombards and mangonels open fired at the walls with little effect.

In order to create a diversion to save their capital, the Byzantines backed the rebellion of Murad’s younger brother, Küçük Mustafa, in Anatolia. The rebellion was supported by some Anatolian beys who feared the revival of Ottoman power after the crushing Ottoman defeat at Ankara against Timur two decades earlier and the civil war that had followed. Mustafa was able to gather a significant army, and in late August or early September, he laid siege to Bursa. When Murad learned of these events, he was forced to call off the siege of Constantinople, and Mihaloğlu led the army of Rumelia to Anatolia. Küçük Mustafa did not resist long, fleeing to Constantinople on 30 September, whence he seized İznik, which he continued to rule until defeated by Murad’s forces in January 1423. The Sultan had his young brother strangled.

Both Kananos and Giorgios Sphrantzes actually attribute the survival of the Byzantine capital to the miraculous intervention of the Mother of God on August 24, when the Sultan had ordered a general assault on the walls with ladders and grappling hooks, and Kananos goes on to say that even the Ottomans saw her on the ramparts:

“Every company of the Turks bore witness on oath and they told everyone how at the hour of the battle when they arrived at the walls, daring and unrestrainedly eager and intending to scale them, hunt down the Romans and capture the city, at that very moment they saw a woman, wearing violet robes, who was walking on the ramparts of the outer fortifications. When they saw her, darkness and faintness, quaking and fear suddenly entered all their minds, and they looked to flight and not at all to war… so they fled, and the city was saved.”

-Read more about the topic: Margaret Purdie, An account by John Cananus of the siege of Constantinople in 1422 (Master’s Thesis), 2009 (https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/…/Purdie…), Andrea Massimo Cuomo, Ioannis Canani de Constantinopolitana obsidione relatio: A Critical Edition, 2016 and (in Greek): Antonios Athanasopoulos, “Divine protection of Constantinople: the role of the Theotokos in the Ottoman sieges of the City.” Byzantina Symmeikta, 32,2022.

Rise and Decline

Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Russia took a huge blow from the battlefield this past week when the Moscow branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church cut ties with Moscow. I realize that it may seem like a small thing to many of this blog’s readers but it is the death of a thousand cuts as resistance to the war mounts in Russia.

The War in Ukraine

Putin’s Dilemma

Russian President Vladimir Putin has landed in an unenviable position. His country has the resources to inflict damage on Ukraine in perpetuity. But because the first phase of the war has been so costly for Russia and because Ukraine’s military is mounting such stiff resistance, Russia faces serious difficulty achieving anything meaningful on the battlefield without committing much more manpower than it currently has available.

Calling up large numbers of reservists while putting Russian society openly on a war footing solves the problem in theory. But it is something for which the Russian public is fundamentally unprepared. To date, Putin has referred to the war in Ukraine as a “special military operation” and held only one mass rally in support of the war. Full-out mobilization, which would make war an inescapable fact of Russian life, would revolutionize the regime Putin has constructed since coming to power in 2000. Putinism has been a formula: the government discouraged people from meddling in politics while leaving them mostly on their own, and the people readily surrendered their responsibility for decision making. In 2014, he could achieve his military aims in Ukraine without radically redefining Russian politics. That is no longer an option.

Tech

Russian regionalist Media «7×7. Horizontal Russia» compiled a map of attacks on the military commissariats (draft & recruiting stations) all over Russia from Feb 24 to May 31, 2022. Unlike most of what passes for “liberal Russian media” in the West, this one isn’t based in Moscow

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Countries mentioned in the old testament

parting shot

Food Blogging

I’ll start off by discussing last night’s snack. My grandsons wanted pizza and I didn’t want to go out and pay $30 for a pizza at the pizza restaurant, so I split french bread, slathered on some doctored up jar spaghetti sauce with tomato paste and some chopped fresh garlic, added ingredients in the house and they loved the french bread pizza.

I had to raid my daughter’s well-stocked refrigerator to make it happen but I’m guessing that it didn’t cost more than about $5 to make pizza for the boys and myself. Am I cheap? Definitely, but it also tasted good.

Breakfast? I made pancake tacos with bacon and eggs.

Please forgive me for not wanting to negotiate my firearms ownership rights with people who just a few months ago wanted me eliminated from society because I didn’t want a forced medical treatment.

Words

“You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken — unspeakable! — fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse — a little tiny mouse! — of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.”

Identify the Aircraft

Illegal? Why?

Don’t Believe your Lying Eyes!

President Joe Brandon and the Democratic Party finally have a plan to get inflation under control and address the economic anxiety felt by millions of Americans. It’s not a plan in the conventional sense, but rather a public relations campaign to convince the American people that “despite their current misgivings, the economy is actually doing quite well.”

Everything is going to plan. Be of good cheer. Famine coming? Just look the stats, it’s part of the new normal and we don’t call it a “famine”. We’ll use another name for it.

Inflation is soaring and gas prices are through the roof, but Americans are wrong to be concerned about the direction of the country, the president and his allies will argue this month. Politico reports that Brandon has assembled a team of experts and professional communicators to make the case that, actually, the economy is good. The White House effort to “communicate on our accomplishments” kicked off on Monday with a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which Biden touted his stewardship of “the most robust recovery in modern history” and cited a bunch of macroeconomic statistics to make his case.

The War in Ukraine

This is a Map of the Area where HIMARS MLRS M30/M31 Rockets with a range of up to 70 km can strike inside the Russian-held Territory when fired from the Ukrainian frontlines. I don’t think that these battlefield rockets will change the dynamics because there aren’t enough of them, but they will take out ammo, fuel and food dumps, headquarters units, and critical infrastructure. They will make Russian offensives difficult to put together.

Inflation

The greatest inflation in Germany’s history occurred mainly from 1919-1923, but it had already started in 1914, with the outbreak of WWI. When the war began, the German government increased the money supply in order to cover the soaring costs, initially of the war itself, and afterward, of the heavy reparations that the Allies had imposed on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles. One means of increasing the supply of money was the issue of war bonds purchased by many citizens. At the same time, it was decided to cut the linkage between the German mark and the price of gold. The result was an expanding gap between the value of a gold-based currency (the gold Mark, which was actually in use until the end of the days of the German Empire) and paper currency, which could be printed in almost unlimited quantities.

Flooding the market with printed money rapidly lowered its value, so that prices rose disproportionately, while the real wage of salaried workers fell sharply. On payday, employees hurried to reach the stores before the exchange rate of the mark vis-à-vis the dollar which was usually even lower than it had been a few days earlier. Prices rose to absurd sums: at the end of the period of hyperinflation, in the fall of 1923, a loaf of bread cost many billions, and to send a single postcard from Munich to Prague required stamps worth 36 billion marks; One dozen eggs cost 4 billion marks! It was not uncommon to see shoppers hauling buckets, bags, and even wheelbarrows full of banknotes.

In such a situation, the central bank ceased investing in the design of bills and in their printed elements since it was not worthwhile to produce counterfeit bills, all of the graphic markings that were meant to serve as obstacles to counterfeiting, and some bills were even only one-sided. By mid-1923 the nation’s central banks were using more than 30 paper factories, almost 1,800 banknote printing presses, and 133 companies to print and issue banknotes. The production of paper money, ironically enough, was one of Germany’s few profitable industries. The 1923 hyperinflation forced the Weimar government to confront its own extinction. Hyperinflation was finally tamed by the issuance of a new currency indirectly pegged to gold bonds. 

Breaking the Baltic

(Defense News) h/t Claudio It’s a good article on the transformative nature of thought in terms of the potential military blockade of Russian Baltic Ports with Finland and Sweden taking a very active role. What a difference the invasion of Ukraine has made in NATO, Finland and Sweden.

Mines and Countermines

“The way to defend a city does not rely upon the enemy not coming, but relies upon our own preparedness to receive them; it does not rely upon the enemy not attacking but relies upon what we have done to make ourselves unassailable.”-Sun Tzu.

Bianjing (modern Kaifeng), the capital of the Northern Song (960-1127) dynasty, boasted sophisticated siege defense installations, which were ultimately breached by the Jurchen invasion of 1126-1127. Due to the lack of experienced generals and personnel however the whole defense was disorganized.

“In the upper section of this plate, the Jin siege of Kaifeng in 1126 is helped along by mining. A heavy wooden head cart or ‘wooden donkey’ has been pushed up against the wall of Kaifeng to cover the entrance to the mine, but the attackers are by no means just passive victims of stones and rocks from the wall, and are firing back with a crossbow and hurling grenades. Concealed safely within the head cart, a soldier hauls on the winch that slowly pulls towards the walls the other cart in which waste soil has been taken back to the Jin lines. Meanwhile, in the lower section, we see the Song using very ancient countermining measures and equipment. These include a listening device made from skin stretched over a drum. The final vignette shows what happens when an enemy mine is located. The defenders blow poisonous smoke down the passage towards the attacker.”-Stephen Turnbull.

In January 1127, Kaifeng fell to Jin forces. Emperor Qinzong and his father, Emperor Huizong, were captured by the Jin army, and they would die in captivity. Thus, the Northern Song dynasty came to an end. Song princesses became palace slaves and others were taken as slaves by Jin princes. Some Song princesses became Jin princes’ concubines. Remnants of the Song imperial family retreated to southern China and eventually relocated to Lin’an (modern Hangzhou). The retreat divided the dynasty into two distinct periods, Northern Song and Southern Song.