You can celebrate the Battle of Puebla today (the Mexicans don’t, but you can), or you can go and eat tacos with the certain knowledge that they are culturally appropriate (for one day only) to your heart’s content.
Black Gold
Oil prices are expected to crash today as OPEC increases production to flood the market. It might be great news for drivers and users, but it’s tough news for the US oil business as the small guys go out of business. When it’s no longer profitable for US refineries to operate, they lay off workers and stop production. It will result in much higher natural gas prices this coming winter. Some are predicting that oil will drop below $50/barrel.
OPEC+ decided to increase oil production in June by 411,000 barrels per day. This is happening against falling prices due to fears of surplus and a weak economy. Eight OPEC+ member states, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, announced a second consecutive monthly increase in oil production of 411,000 barrels per day in June, despite oil prices falling due to concerns about oversupply and weak economic activity. The Financial Times reported this.
Bullet Points:
** If the Border Patrol K-9 thinks you smell like you just emerged from the river, it won’t go well for you. And they don’t celebrate Cinco de Mayo…
** What’s going on with Iran? The next moonless night is May 26th – Memorial Day.
** This is funny. The freaks and trannys splashing coffee into a cup for a living are unhappy with a dress code.
** (right) Harken back to those days of yesteryear when elephants left piles of dung twenty feet deep. Back when men were men.
** What happens to the pike? It might not have kept you awake at night, but figuring out how to dispose of your pike when in a pike formation and you want to close with the enemy had to be worked out. The presenter doesn’t discuss the presence of handgunners in later pike formations, but since they didn’t carry pikes, they didn’t have to figure it out. Elephants (right) didn’t like pikes, and the way to discourage an elephant’s charge (besides getting out of its way) required pikes that you didn’t drop if you knew what was good for you.
** Money – I once had a very wealthy boss who started at the bottom and worked his way to the top. He said, “I’ve been rich and poor, and rich is better.” Rogan weighs in.
** Income inequality has nothing to do with race. Some people are offended by the fact.
** If Republicans are serious about saving America, we should get rid of the 60-vote rule in the Senate, immediately call for a census counting ONLY American citizens, redraw House district lines based on a population count of American citizens only, and require proof of U.S. citizenship to vote. This would end uniparty control and put the power back in the hands of the American people. Then we need to have a serious discussion about term limits.
** If you go boating with EdB. Then there is portage with EdB – when you need to get around the damn dam. Did Ed forget about the tide coming in?
** Shawn Ryan – Russian Wagner Group vs US Special Forces – FAFO.
** Sen. Kennedy: “God gave her a Billy goat brain and a mockingbird mouth, you know?” The Lord has a sense of humor. He gave us the platypus, the sloth, and AOC.
** “A high-ranking official at the U.S. State Department has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $650,000 in taxpayer money—and the media is barely covering it. “Levita Almuete Ferrer, 64, (right) of Montgomery Village, Maryland—also known by her alias Levita Brezovic—admitted in federal court today to looting $657,347.50 from the State Department over two years while working as a Senior Budget Analyst in the Office of the Chief of Protocol.” You’ll note from the photo, she self-identifies as a “war hero”, a negro and a woman.
** Roadside sobriety checkpoints are getting out of hand. Last night I had to fold a fitted sheet.
** Rep. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) says she doesn’t have to explain why her family has been cashing their dead grandmother’s Social Security checks since 2004. “Our family business is our family business.” Sure. Until your family business is defrauding the taxpayer, DOGE has already fixed the problem and promised to claw back as much as possible.
** 48 million adults in the U.S. read at or below the third-grade level—the demographic points toward illegal aliens and the inner city as making up the bulk of that number.
** I didn’t know that USGOV paid illegal aliens (wetbacks) who claimed to be disabled. When they claimed to have a back problem, the Social Security Administration issued them an SSN. Rogan explains the scam. We must deport disabled aliens, too, and take them off the rolls.
Are you Lonely Tonight?
In Oregon
There is nothing humane about letting mentally ill, addicted, disabled, or criminally inclined people live in squalor on government property. Leftists who support this are either themselves unbalanced or their real agenda is to destabilize America, one community at a time.
The Associated Press once again framed a simple news report as a “Trump is heartless” story. This time, the issue is the illegal homeless encampment in the Deschutes National Forest outside of Bend, Oregon. The people living there are not friendly, and they shouldn’t be making this national forest a dirty, unsafe environment for the taxpayers.
Here’s how the AP report on the clearance opens:
Dozens of homeless people who have been living in a national forest in central Oregon for years were being evicted Thursday by the U.S. Forest Service, as it closed the area for a wildfire prevention project that will involve removing smaller trees, clearing debris and setting controlled burns over thousands of acres. (Emphasis mine.)
The key to the AP’s framing is the phrase “being evicted,” which implies that, at least in the past, the homeless people in the encampment had a right to be there. However, such a right never existed. Instead, there was no political will to remove them once they set up shop.
Nor did their being there illegally create a right. Among ordinary citizens, there is an ancient doctrine known as “adverse possession.” When a property owner fails to assert control over trespassers’ continued and long-standing land use, the trespasser can claim title. However, asserting an adverse possession claim against the federal government is impossible.
In any event, the government doesn’t seem to be permanently repossessing the encampment. Instead, it describes what it’s doing as a small-scale relocation for temporary maintenance, with the implication being that the homeless can move back again once the maintenance is concluded:
“The closure does not target any specific user group and will restrict all access, including day use and overnight camping, while crews operate heavy machinery, conduct prescribed burns, and clean up hazardous materials,” Webb said. “It’s not safe for the public to be in the area while heavy machinery is operating, trees are being felled, mowing operations are active, and prescribed burning is occurring.”
Who would have thought that Oregon would grow a spine? Well done, Oregon – now take on Portland.
GRU’s Storm Z
(h/t Claudio) (link to RFE/RL) The Russian military intelligence agency (GRU) oversaw the recruitment of prisoners into assault units known as “Storm Z.” It also funded the units and collected of information about casualties, RFE/RL’s Systema reports in its investigative documentary The Slaughter Of Ghosts: How Russian Prisoners Fight In Ukraine.
The project to recruit prisoners for the war in Ukraine began in the summer of 2022, when the private mercenary organization Wagner Group started enlisting inmates. But by February 2023, the Russian Defense Ministry had become the sole entity responsible for bringing convicts to the front lines. Units within Russia’s Southern Military District handled part of Storm Z’s operational management.
Two military units from the 8th Guards Combined Arms Army, along with the Training and Deployment Center for Assault and Reinforcement Units, were responsible for training the fighters and managing documentation, including financial records.
The center, which developed the tactics used by the convict assault units, was created within the Unified Group of Forces, which serves as the command hub for Russia’s war in Ukraine. General Sergey Surovikin initially led it, but it is now headed by Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who can skim funds directly. (more at the Radio Liberty article)
Is a Purchase in the Cards?
Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, thank-you cards, get-well cards, birthday cards—a card for every occasion can be yours to send and share your love, joy, congratulations, or condolences.
1
Can you live with the hint?
2
3
199 built – a single-seat, supersonic carrier-based fighter. It held multiple world records for most of its lifetime, with a record altitude of 76,939ft.
Parting Shot
Start your children young – prepare them for Cinco de Mayo
End
1 is Martin XB-51
2 ?
3 is Grumman F-11/F11F Tiger
Yes!
The single black female ad had me rolling . I raised two kids successfully , and will admit to trying a taste or two of Gerbers , that street taco flavor I would sample , might be good with chips , maybe . I like stopping by here in the morning , fun spot . I also like the smell of tire store , they should can that in a spray air freshener , Yeah I’m weird . Thanks Mr. L L .
Yes, I agree. What is there about tire stores? It’s like a comfort scent.
When hitting Tractor Supply or Murdoch’s MrsPaulM would hang out in the tire aisle, “I love that smell!”. Still haven’t found a ‘new tire smell’ cologne.
Probably toxic.
Might be.
I don’t care. I like it, too!
Police murder dogs are so adorable! Possibly the best thing about watching cop
shows is when they let the dogs go, and they get to bite people.
*
Un-ID-ed plane looks like an AN-26.
*
When the bums build bandit camps, it’s time to deal with them in the longstanding manner
for dealing with bandit camps.
– Kle.
Correct on all counts.
Nice big Cat loader does wonders, can clean up illegal camps in about two minutes. Efficiency matters to tight local budgets.
Cat loader has to back and fill. Use one of these instead ” M1271 Mine Clearing Vehicle”. Clear a path, personal belongings, undergrowth, and buried mines all at the same time. Bonus: protestors can’t hurt it or the operator.
Heheh…or for tight areas a mini-ex with thumb, loading an 18hp woodchipper.
A Sherman Crab (outfitted with a powered flail system) would work, too.
“Senior Budget Analyst in the Office of the Chief of Protocol”: Only in a government smoke-n-mirrors outfit could one come up with a title like that. No wonder she went sideways with that gobblygook, longer the title the less important…no one was watching.
***
Natural Selection Swimmers- One look at the bobber guy being towed…how he managed to get out there? And, ahem, Ms. Floss bikini is with him? Gotta be money.
***
Has anyone thought of stocking up on Gerber food as a proper prepper supply? Gotta be better than MRE’s, especially with the new flavors. A single high caloric jar takes up a lot less space on the shelf, requires no cooking-meal prep is a snap, and lasts damn near forever if kept in a cool and dry place. Gerber needs to make a bulk supply bucket…with spoons…and maybe Chiclets.
The Somalians of Minnesota laugh at the Senior Budget Analyst’s attempts at enrichment at taxpayers expense. What a nube.
OPEC: so much for peak oil.
Peak Oil sounded good… but we didn’t run out, but oil is not from dinosaurs and they found a moon around Saturn that has…let me quote the google AI…
“Saturn’s moon Titan is known as a “hydrocarbon moon” because it features a thick, dense atmosphere composed primarily of nitrogen and methane, and its surface displays large lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons”
Re: Baby Food as emergency rats. Shelf life is horrible on bottled baby food. Much better to have cans of Dinty Moore or Chef-Boy-r-D and eat them cold as their shelf life is much better.
Good to know…figured it had a decent shelf life, but what do I know about baby food these days, pretty much nothing. Niw, if they come out with a Philly cheesesteak flavor I’m stocking up.
Chef Boy-r-D ravioli and spaghetti Os have the same shelf life as a Twinkie – something like the half life of Thorium.
…or carbon fiber wind turbine blades. At least you can eat the Twinkie in a pinch.
I… occasionally eat CBYD canned ravioli, cold. And those canned tamales, cold. It’s a comfort thing. A weird comfort thing, but at least I don’t eat things that aren’t food. They remind me of C-Rats, which, yes, I have eaten way back in time, and they weren’t bad, weren’t good but weren’t bad.
–
Canned tomatoes are also good straight out of the can. Same with canned asperagas and canned beets and Le Seur peas.
–
I have seen people spend incredible amounts of money on ‘survival food caches’ without ever tasting the crap. Which most of it is. Crap. Soy proteins mascarading as ‘meat’ flavors, weird textures and such. Better is to buy canned goods you can eat normally and just rotate your stock. Or buy some freeze-dried veggies and meats and learn how to cook with them before going whole hog on buying lots to stash away.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Martin XB-51. We don’t need no stinking hints!
2. Antonov An-24 Coke
3. Grumman F-11 Tiger
IDA-
1. XB-51, a prototype ground-attack bomber from the late 1940s.
2. Antonov An-26 or An-30, Soviet-era military and civilian transport aircraft.
3. Grumman F-11F Tiger, a supersonic, single-seat, carrier-based fighter aircraft used by the U.S. Navy in the 1950s and 1960s.
Cop: Fold the fitted sheet and you can go.
Me: Hell, I can’t even fold them when I’m sober.
** Rep. Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) says she doesn’t have to explain why her family has been cashing their dead grandmother’s Social Security checks since 2004. “Our family business is our family business.”
Sounds like the same line of work as the Biden Crime family.. crime.
21 years of cashing a dead person’s SS check and she says it’s none of your business…
In Oregon
Seems the USFS is the prime mover and the state has no say. Another take on the issue by a local tow truck owner. The last sentence is a fine summary.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/whylKiZo0tk
My brother and I took our dad on a boat ride, before he passed, on the Monongahela which he was raised on as a youth.
He had not been on it in at least 50 years.
We got to a bend and he remarked as to how they must have moved the Brownsville Lock.
We were looking at pristine embankments with no hint of construction.
A while downriver we ran into the lock and he again wondered when they had moved it.
We attributed it to memory issues. Who would move a huge lock? How could it not leave a mark?
The next day, we went upriver towards Pittsburgh and stopped at a lock. When we got to the top, my dad asks the lockmaster when did they move the lock.
We cringed.
The lockmaster said, “About 40 years ago.”
Shifting sediment causes depths to change necessitating moving the locks.
“The Brownsville area on the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania has several historically significant locks and dams, including Maxwell Locks and Dam which is located 5 miles south of Brownsville. This dam and lock system was constructed to aid navigation and also provides a constant water level for various uses. Additionally, older locks and dams, like the original Lock 5 at Denbo and Lock 5 at Brownsville, are no longer operational,”
Great anecdote Ed…
“tough news for the US oil business as the small guys go out of business”
Then the price goes back up.
PDJT won’t let that happen.
“Levita Almuete Ferrer, 64 […] wrote 60 checks to herself and three checks to someone else she had a personal relationship with, prosecutors said.
She printed and signed each check before depositing all 63 checks into her personal bank accounts.” per the New York Post.
—
Really? To HERSELF? No shell corporation, fake charity, or whatever? I’m more offended by the low effort (or stupidity, I don’t know which — though of course it could be both) than by the actual thefts. Have y’all noticed this? Deeply stupid people don’t know they’re stupid, and they think they’re being sly and clever despite their intentions and actions being more obvious than, well, something really really obvious. “Mwuhahaha! My diabolical plan is so clever it would fool even me!” This from a person with the mental acuity of a (cold-blooded) reptile at below 40-deg F. But wait! There’s more! It. Gets. Better.
—
“As part of her plea agreement, Ferrer agreed to pay the stolen amount in restitution to the US government and be liable for a forfeiture money judgment in that same amount.”
Okay, great. But how? Over $1.3 million? I could promise to win the New York Marathon, or a Fields Medal, but that ain’t gonna happen either.
C’mon Mike, she “puh-rom-esstt”….and we know when a Dem Admin person is tried for embezzlement and theft, ALL the remorseless perp has to so is pinky swear promise to pay it back and they are good to go. (Pilate washing hands comes to mind.) BUT….if you or me were to accidentally bring home a stapler or coffee mug from the same office (or pay back a properly valued construction loan with interest)…it’s the reprobate gulag in a nanosecond for you! (Roman crucifixion comes to mind.)
+1
she “puh-rom-esstt”
Careful, Paul M. That’s African-American Vernacular English. AAVE is as legitimate a dialect as Cantabrigian is a speech pattern, only without the sins of imperialism, having a triple-digit IQ [1], impulse control, and above all, the sin of Whiteness. Just now I was listening to Minister Dominique Alexander (the convicted-felon child-abuser, thief, forger, and above all man of Gaw-duh who is serving as Karmelo Anthony’s spokesman) mangling the English language. But that’s clown world [2]. In my personal real world, I’m enduring a person who speaks perfectly standard educated English, apart from pronouncing “asked” as “axed”. He was born and raised in a majority black country, to upper-class parents, but has managed to collect a series of unfortunate incidents of suffering bias that stem from “being a young black man in America” after immigrating here. Apparently people looked at him all racist for wearing a hoody. (Maybe so for those other cases [3], but I look funny at anyone who wears a hoody because it’s shitty fashion sense. The hoody is to the head as Crocs are to the feet. Both are aesthetically uncouth, appalling, even.) Anyway, I refer to the “axed” business as “performative blackness.” I can’t imagine I came up with that term (which I am quite proud of) first, but I can’t think of where I heard or read it previously.
—
[1] The “elites” really DO want a miscegenated mass of 80-IQ dimwits to rule over.
[2] Clown world: Tick tock, MFers. The whole Shiloh Hendrix thing is a sign of how sick normal people are of it all.
[3] I am not those men. Channeling “I am Salahudin. Sala Hu Din!”
Now that was perfectamundo. I imagine it’s double secret probation for anyone wearing a hoodie AND Crocs, which is an excellent yellow-alert pro-tip to stay away.
She’ll pay it back just the same way people pay back student loans.
You can’t possibly argue with the equivalent of one of the most
time-honored and legitimate scams ins American society, right?
*
I think the Eloi want something more like a 60 IQ peasantry, since
the vast majority of Eloi aren’t above 75, themself.
– Kle.
Sigh… She had two cards and played both of them, maybe a third one. She was ‘untouchable’ for sure…until a new broom came in.
The XB-51 featured prominently in “Toward The Unknown” with William Holden.
Ah, the Pike. A wonderful weapon, and a bitch to deal with.
–
Elephants and horses really don’t like walls of sharp pointy sticks pointing at them. A single dude or a few, different matter. Which is why pikes work well in groups.
–
If it is so bad that the enemy is in your pike formation, you drop your pike and grab your short-bladed falchion or axe. And you’re dead. Because the safety of pikemen relies on the power of the pike formation. And because the halberdiers and two-handed-swordsmen that are in between your pikes (to entangle and crush enemy pikes) and the light infantry behind you (to help stop the enemy coming through your lines) are really the ones that provide close protection against enemies. Bust a hole in a pike line is a job for, as we call it in the SCA, Sword and Board (shieldmen) or halberdiers or zweihanders or warhammers or, well, you get it. Summary: If you’re a piker and they’re in your lines, you’re dead man walking. Sorry, it’s the way it happens.
–
Otherwise there are two times it is very acceptable to drop ones pike. And, curiously, both are related to The Rout (as in one side running away.)
–
As a defeated pikeman, you drop your pike as you turn, leaving it jumbled on top of the dead bodies and other dropped pikes. This serves as a tripping hazard and can gain you a few moments while you run and drop your armor and anything else that will slow you down.
–
As part of the non-routed side and a pikeman, you and your buddies will receive the order to “Drop Pikes!” Which means you drop it to the right of you, point first, and everyone behind or in front of you drops them on the same line. And everyone else in your formation does the same thing. This leaves lanes of cleared paths for you and your mates to move forward while drawing your backup weapons, like said short-bladed falchion or short broadsword or axe or whatever and you and yours, once clear of the pike forest, now can go running after the enemy running away. Actually, you and yours won’t make it to the running away enemy, unless they get trapped in a terrain feature like a marsh or river (like the Battle of Towton.) Instead what you and yours are running to is all the plunder and loot being discarded by said runaways as they try desperately to run faster than the victors.
–
A single pikeman, alone, in a field battle, is toast, especially the longer the pikes are.
–
There are some exceptions, of course. One of the things pikemen could potentially do is ‘toss’ their pikes like a spear into the enemy formation. Which, unless you are either really winning or really losing, is a completely dumbass thing to do because your pike is your friend and a pike-less pikeman is a dead man in a melee. And a dumbass thing to do because, well, just try tossing a 14-16′ long ash pole with a metal point on the end. Pikes aren’t spears, usually the shaft is heavier, more like a lance than a 5-7′ long spear meant for throwing and stabbing.
–
Oh, sure, a reasonable portion of pikemen were decent in open combat, but that’s really the purview of the halberd or glaive or sword-armed non-pike troops in your formation.
–
An example of sharp pointy poles ruling the field comes from pre-Pike days at Hastings Field. The Anglo-Saxon shield wall, armed with spears (some swords, but mostly single-handed spears) held off the Norman cavalry very well. Because said cavalry mounts, as I said before, don’t like walls of sharp pointy sticks.
As a defeated pikeman, you drop your pike as you turn, leaving it jumbled on top of the dead bodies and other dropped pikes. This serves as a tripping hazard and can gain you a few moments while you run and drop your armor and anything else that will slow you down.
.
Unless enemy cavalry are on the field that day and you stand out in the green heather wearing your colorful uniform as you run.
Which is the reason for light cavalry, to run over the enemy runners. Heavy cavalry is too busy pushing against other cavalry and the infantry, Medium cavalry (not as big horses but decent amounts of armor) is busy taking care of the flanks and protecting the rear.
–
An excellent example of how to use cavalry correctly is the British Plan 1919, which was the final plan to punch through the German lines and break out into the backfields and run amok amongst the supply areas and command areas. Said plan had Heavy tanks up the middle, Medium tanks holding the flanks and attacking mobile units, Light tanks going through the breakout and then splitting off to the sides, or attacking the flanks of the line being attacked in order to pin down enemy units, any strongpoints being left for Medium tanks and later mop-up by infantry.
–
Run when enemy cavalry can run the field, well, you gotta die some time and maybe you can run faster than those around you.
I almost feel like I need to pay tuition for your excellent overview on a subject few truly know or understand.
Thanks. Most people these days don’t understand how dynamic and chaotic a non-modern battlefield was. Modern command and control systems make it much easier for fighters to function.
–
There’s a reason heraldry, standards and banners were so important back in the day. Everyone pretty much looked like everyone else. Troops rallied around their flags and standards or their leaders as identified by said heraldry. The fields became crowded and nasty quickly, even the dryest ground becoming wet mud or swampy from all the blood and other fluids everywhere. If the battle wasn’t over in 10 minutes it meant it was going to pretty much settle down into a nasty slugfest that would take all day or even multiple days.
–
I enjoyed my time doing ‘wars’ in the SCA. It’s fun when you can walk away from it bruised and battered but alive no matter whether your side won or lost. And do it multiple times in a day or a week. Do it for real? Fugedaboutit, unless I absolutely had to and by then I’d be dead for other reasons.
The hubs and I had a spat this evening (he was being a real tool, I might add). I had to remind myself as I walked away from the line of fire that murder is against the law.
Then again if he keeps this up, I might need bail money.
They may not grant you bail.
If she were a Dem with a really long job title, a simple promise not to do it again would suffice, no bail or sentence issued.
Yes, of course, the aggrieved status would render her immune from prosecution no matter the crime.
Loved the singles advert! Brilliant!
Thanks for the promo, LL!
I’m only trying to boost the signal.
Love them, need to order a few.