Caption: Own it, Frank!
Bullet Points:
** African, Arab, and Atlantic Slave Trade are analyzed.
** (see right) He says he’s Cisgender; go ahead, look it up. He’s a man, and the WNBA knows it, and he’s not the only one. They will have to get rid of about 10 people if they don’t let Freedom play ball. They are stuck and can’t figure out how to fix it. Here is the real reason the WNBA is struggling to define what it means to be a woman. They already have men playing in their league. Brittney Griner is just one of them.
** Today, Liberia agreed to accept 1,200 third-country deportees from the United States. I wonder what it cost us?
** Bahrain issued a 200 million dinar ($530 million) two-year bond at 7% interest. It was only just covered by investors, who bid 208 million dinars. The kingdom is paying some of the highest rates in the Gulf to borrow during the war. Moody’s cut the outlook on the country’s credit rating to negative in April.
** In Arizona (link), The Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation abuts the US/Mexican border. They didn’t want the US border wall to transect their treaty land allotment. Indian Tribes are legally defined as “domestic dependent nations.” Congress holds ultimate legislative authority over tribal lands. This gives the federal government the power to override tribal autonomy, limit land rights, or enforce federal rules on reservation land whenever it deems necessary for national security or public interest. Seeing as tribal lands are primary smuggling corridors into the US, mostly human trafficking and drugs, the need to stop that far outweighs the needs of the tribe. The judge saw the matter the same way. (VM Sidebar – How much did the cartels pay the tribe for access?)
** Is LSP becoming domesticated? Even he admits it.
** (Reuters) – The oil market is increasingly behaving as though disruptions to Middle East energy supplies are not a temporary shock but a new reality. We need to wipe Kharg Island from the map to underscore the new reality.
** BRM is gathering memes.
** CW always has something new at the Daily Timewaster.
** Mindsets among oil sheikhdoms don’t always follow along with those of the United States. There is a tradition of appeasement and “buying people off” rather than confronting them. It goes back to Sharia, where the penalty for murder is a monetary value more often than an execution. No, I’m not saying that the US doesn’t buy people off too, but the mindset behind the act is usually different. President Donald Trump’s new warning to Oman comes as the country continues talks with Iran on access to the Strait of Hormuz — though not necessarily on terms the US would welcome. Trump threatened “bomb the sh*t out of” Oman if it gets in the way of a deal with Iran; in fact, Oman remains active as a mediator between the two warring countries. A US official told Semafor there’s concern that “Oman and Iran may cut a deal where there’s a tolling scheme” for the strait, and that any such deal could bypass the US. “Most countries in the region would be fine with that,” the official said. “But Trump really wants to say he opened up the strait without a direct toll.” Freedom of navigation without paying mordida. (Think back to the Barbary Pirates – different Arabs and a different age – but the same concept of pay to play).
** Chatty and verbose John Kiriakou discusses the Iran War, possibly useful to your understanding.
** (CDRSAL) The PRC still has deep penetration in Congress, our economy, and academia. In the West, the U.S.A. has, more than others, woken up to the threat…but we are in the lead. The stragglers are the issue. Amongst many of our allies and friends, the PRC is still conducting its full-spectrum campaign. In some places like Canada, it is even encouraged. Chinese economic and financial incentives are just too seductive, and most Western political systems are even more immune to accountability than ours… and are unquestionably more opaque. Just like many of the self-loathing Left during the Cold War were more than happy to make excuses for and cuddle up to the Soviet Union, we are seeing that pattern again with the West’s self-loathing Left and the PRC. More here.
** (left) From the VM wayback machine archive from a decade ago.
** In Northern Arizona – A Verde Valley woman lost more than $4.3 million to scammers posing as FBI agents and New York police officers, Yavapai County deputies said. Deputies say the scammers used spoofed numbers, forged documents that mirrored FBI records, and camera-off online conferences to convince the woman that she faced a federal money-laundering probe. Told the money needed to be “scanned” to prove her innocence, she transferred the money in Bitcoin over the course of two months. She reported the fraud on June 26.
** Walls work.
** The Port of Los Angeles handled nearly 1 million containers in July, extending a run of historically strong cargo volumes even as an early peak shipping season begins to wind down. The nation’s busiest container port processed 960,464 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) last month, its second-highest July on record. Volume was down 6% from the all-time July record set last year but remained 7.5% above the port’s five-year average for the month. How does that bode for Christmas shopping? Are the displays up in Costco yet?
** Fort Verde, AZ – hat collection. Question of the day – do you have a hat collection?
** The Mongols knew you couldn’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
From the Mailbag:
Q – How many grandchildren do you have, LL?
A – Ten on the runway and two in the hangar. Age range is >0 to 17.
~~~
As a matter of practice/rule of thumb, I give the grandchildren regular birthday presents (items) until they’re about 12, then they get $50.00 on their birthday since they prefer money to items. That’s not a hard-and-fast rule, but it is more often the case. I get more creative at Christmas, and creative means expensive. But you can’t take it with you. No hearses with luggage racks.
I am doing my bit to keep the American demographic strong and vital.
Vengeance and Retribution – the novel – coming this Friday!
Welcome to 1865. The Southern Rebellion is exhausting itself as Wilmington, North Carolina, fell to the Union in February after Fort Fisher was captured in January, a month earlier. Galveston remained in Confederate hands, but the armies of Lee and Johnston could not be resupplied from Texas. The conspiracy to kidnap President Lincoln and hold him to ransom the Southern States has taken on new urgency. But will it meet with success?
Writing historical novels allows me, the writer, to explore history through a lens not often used by traditional historians, given the gaps that documentation can’t fill. European banking and commercial interests had a stake in the South, though they sent Emperor Maximilian to Mexico, backed by French troops, to craft it into something the American South might have been if the rebellion had failed.
Britain carefully supported the commissioning and supply of Confederate commerce raiders. The Confederates sank most of the Union’s merchant fleet, and Britain had a monopoly on Atlantic trade for the following thirty years. How convenient. It explains why the British government allowed the Confederates to build privateers in British yards. Simple commercial advantage – always a damned good motivation for any government!
The vast majority of captured Union merchant ships were stripped of provisions, valuables, and coal, and then immediately burned or sunk at sea. If a captured ship was carrying passengers or neutral cargo that the raider couldn’t accommodate, the Confederate captain would release the ship under a bonded certificate. This was a written contract in which the ship’s owners promised to pay a hefty ransom to the Confederate government after the war ended. Occasionally, an exceptionally fast or useful captured vessel would be kept, outfitted with guns, and converted into an auxiliary Confederate raider. (rinse/repeat)
In 1863, the French bank Erlanger et Cie (based in Paris) sold a massive $15 million bond (about £3 million) for the Confederacy. Buyers in Europe could use these bonds to buy Southern cotton. Who backed Erlanger? The British merchant banking firm Fraser, Trenholm & Co., based in Liverpool, acted as the unofficial European bank for the South. They managed Confederate funds, financed blockade runners, and helped pay for Confederate warships built in British shipyards. Who backed them, or did they act alone?
From a strictly historical point of view, the banks that backed the banks which supported the Confederacy from Europe and funded the Imperial invasion and (French) conquest of Mexico were hanging on a limb as 1865 began. Would the Golden Circle (which had morphed into the Sons of Liberty – Copperheads) by that time be able to pull off a miracle and save their bacon at the eleventh hour?
The duelist series enters a new phase in the era’s political intrigue. No matter how things ended for the Confederacy, the British, a maritime power, came out ahead. In Mexico, there was every indication that France, a land power, would also come out ahead. The bankers who pulled the strings would rule the world. Names are named.
How different are things today in 2026 than they were in the 1860s? Who pulls the strings? You be the judge. As always in history, unlikely characters are brought together by fate. How will a soiled dove, an educated Indian, and an improbable cast of characters imprint themselves in the tides of men and empires?
Identify the Ship
1
2
Identify the Aircraft
3
4
5
Parting Shot
End
Identify the Ship
1 – HMS Richmond
2 – German Navy S69 Habicht
Identify the Aircraft
3 – Piper PA-42 Cheyenne
4 – Cessna 441 Conquest II
5 – Beechcraft King Air 350
Eight minutes? I have to make this harder, ML…. Outstanding.
I picked up on the Cheyenne and Conquest and I know little about various aircraft. I did fly single engine years ago before it became stupid expensive to fly.
Sorry to be a pest. I must have different photos on todays VM to ML Thomas. When I look at the one that comes up for me 1 and 2 are warships, 3 and 4 are aircraft, and 5 is a warship with two helicopters.
Maybe because it’s tomorrow already in Australia and you are a VM post ahead? 😉
There was a software glitch – some of you see the Beech and some see the ship. It was intended to be the King Air.
2 is the Habicht German Type 143 Albatros class later sold to Tunisia and renamed.
3 is Piper PA-42 Cheyenne.
Very good.
.
Every time I see the Piper Cheyennes, I want one. I’m not saying that I want YOURS – no specific coveting. But just to fly one would be amazing.
Damn good lookin’ airplane!
>African, Arab, and Atlantic Slave Trade are analyzed.
That was a good presentation by Mr Fitzgerald (I am assuming his voice is not annoying — I had it on mute, reading the subtitles). That said, I pretty much don’t care any longer about the origins of the African slave trade. I’m done pretending that the incivility and dysfunction can be justified, or even excused, because of what happened to their ancestors generations ago. This principle applies to other peoples as well. (“Epigenetic encoding of trauma” my skinny yellow butt.)
—
In related news, apparently fake Cambridge professor Jason Arday offed himself. Maybe so. But how convenient. Because suddenly he’s a poor martyr, and all decent people should leave the dead in peace and not speak ill of them, much less look into how many OTHER outright frauds, or clearly DEI-jumped up underachieving minorities there are in Academia (and industry, and government, etc etc etc).
Tip of the proverbial iceberg with these grifters. Did everyone a favor of a short news cycle instead of getting offers to do et another fawning podcast or Lefty MSM show. Sad really there can be so many with the mindset. Similarly, watched a guy who freely admitted he cheered to his friend when told about Kirk’s assassination…until the friend said, “Have you ever watched any of his YT videos?” Guy was miffed, then watched later…then apologized to the world on his IG channel, realized he was being given clipped bits pieced together to present the opposite truth about CK, seeing he was only parroting what others wanted him to believe. That side of the chasm is a nefarious game by scumbags to warp perceptions, like this now dead fake prof. So many liars, and getting harder to discern who is who as the slickness of snake-oil sales is so refined.
On the African, Arab, and Atlantic Slave Trade analysis.
I’ve often jumped to the conclusion that the vast majority of the people who harp on this are influenced by the reparations thread and simply want to get their share. The alternative explanation is that they’re simply historically illiterate, because the odds are overwhelming that somewhere in the family tree of everyone alive today we have relatives who were slaves, and some probably have relatives that were slaves and slave owners. Slavery was a common way of paying back debt. My mother’s side were Ashkenazi Jews so I know we had slaves on that side of the family. My father’s side was in the Roman Empire, so we could have been either on that side. Modern Christian Western Civilization is the first major movement to end slavery, so it’s extremely bizarre to blame everything on us.
For the record, I blame YOU (for nearly everything) SiG. I also blame Mike_C. Victimhood is a warm blanket that protects my virtue. (HAHAHA)
>I also blame Mike_C
As the Brits would say, “It’s a fair cop.”
“it’s extremely bizarre to blame everything on us”
Unless your purpose is to destroy us.
X2
X3
Cisgender: The fact anyone, let alone the ‘WOMAN’s’ ( that’s a hint) basketball league is even discussing this means some parts of societal foundations are hanging over the abyss of absurdity. Beyond stupid. Me, I’m a ‘cismillionaire’…now where’s my money!
***
“Ten on the runway and two in the hangar. Age range is >0 to 17.” 🤣🤣 As Jules – being a Brit – might say, ‘Brilliant’.
Identify the Ship:
1. HMS Richmond
2. Former German Type 143 FAC Habicht
Identify the Aircraft:
3. Piper Cheyenne 400
4. Beech Queen Air?
5. Beech King Air 350i
4 is a Cessna 441. A friend and I were speaking about them the other day, thus the inclusion.
Sorry for my absence. Big storm last week. Day nine still no power, no internet, no cell. Drove out of the chaos to get supplies, cell service today.
*
Emergency preps all worked but will need a future generator with fuel and better food for breakfast as refrigerator has no power.
*
Looks forward to the book LL.
Good to hear you are okay…9 days without power is a modern zombie apocalypse for most folks unprepared. Look at Dell juniors new battery house backup system, something like Musk’s Powerwall but larger I believe. No secondary fuel required to run, charges from grid or panels…and quiet.
X2
I’ve had a Generac since moving to the White Wolf Mine – powered by 500 gallons of propane. It kicks on automatically. Not cheap, but it beats the alternative when the power goes out, particularly in winter. My primary electric power draws from the grid and APS is excellent in keeping the power on in my experience, but there are times being rural when it all goes south and the generator kicks on.
no internet, no cell, yet you commented…..
Cell maybe, which have backup gensets. We have an EcoFlow battery with a second battery, plus a small generator. Solar charging of the EcoFlow offsets refilling the gen. tank, maintain both batteries with grid power. No cell at our place, Starlink instead with eero mesh…cell tower is 8 miles down the valley, installed a WeBoost Cabin cell booster…pulls cell in nicely.
Dumb question for both you and LL – should you wish to respond
~ 20 years ago, when I was just beginning to consider leaving my then current place of employment (I had just turned 65 and was still at the apex of my skill set), I began looking closely at retirement states and rural, low-population areas within those states.
(the OL had been gushing about several areas of Sicily which we had come to know quite well, made quite a few friends, while on several vacations. Being the miserable person I am, I then reminded her of the various plumbing problems we had encountered – and the gush slowed to the merest trickle)
The outskirts of Portland (20-30 ESE), semi-rural as it were, where we lived, was totally out of the question as a location for retirement. Besides boasting of a nearly 10% income tax, the local teaching hospital ranked #25 on cancer tx and #50 in geriatrics; not a statistic that enthralls when looking towards retirement.
While all of the hospitals in the area took pride in having staff who spoke (and understood) a clear, unfettered English, I found physician response to various medical questions, the answers to which should have been immediate, abysmal (and I’m just a dentist with only dental school training who happened to be their patient).
The question (after all this): what do you expect to do should a chronic condition arise; how do you foresee dealing with the situation long-term?
PaulM – who is far nearer the reaper’s door than I am may be more qualified to answer that one than I am. However, I will explain my strategy. I live uphill from the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. I don’t have “Mayo Clinic insurance” but have looked into it. At some point, I may switch insurers and go that way. They have a good reputation and a professional staff. One of my former co-workers’ wives works there as a nurse.
.
My current insurance will allow treatment at the Mayo Clinic but I plan to enroll there at some point under their full umbrella.
Define ‘nearer’, classic definitions in this day can be like the Accountant joke, 2+2 equals anything you want…maybe it doesn’t mean what you imply, or, maybe worse, you have information I don’t have as ‘I feel fine’. Then there’s the ‘It’s not the age but the mileage’ (h/t Indiana Jones), and in three weeks I will have completed another trip around the sun despite dad telling me – with THAT dad smile – on the night of my 21st b-day, ‘quite a few didn’t think you’d make this far.’ But yeah, only(hahahah) 66. Anything could happen I suppose….which is another reason we moved from more rural to rural, 45 minutes from an excellent healthcare facility and the incidental services, 30 if you’re in a hurry. Ambulance service is readily available. Air Flight Ambulance Service Insurance is also an option, and very reasonable as compared to ground-based which is beholding to insurance companies therefore exponentially more expensive per ride. Even more novel to MrsPaulM and I – trash service, which could also be helpful if my demise occurs prematurely (like something with the two cinnamon black bears we watched this morning from the current hovel)…those Republic mondo trash ‘receptacles can easily hold a 6’2” frame, and they have wheels. (Note to MrsPaulM, pickup is Wednesday.)
–
Joking aside, there are always rural options on the medial side of things, but ingress/egress is always on the top of my list. Is the access road decent, especially in Winter? More than one-way in or out? Are there a lot of gates to fiddle with in an emergency. Potential roadblocks or wash-out hazards? All those require year round maintenance.
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We could have moved from our more rural setting in Colorado to St. Pete (a familiar area for us), but at our mid-sixties age we like being very active…and we [currently] don’t play pickleball or golf, or care to sit around the complex pool half the day with all the old folks. Maybe that will change when were 85…we’ll see.
Drove out of the area to get service Ed
👍
Gary IN is part of the outage. They were shooting at the power utility trucks. State Police now escorting them. If interested go to Nipsco.com the power utility to read about 500,000 customers initially no power.
Who is shooting the utility trucks?
Typical response of the ungrateful…unreal. If I were inside the trucks I’d give the order to turn around and go home, leave the zombie’s to their idiocy…see how long that lasts before they start blaming everyone one else for their predicament. We call those types ‘tire burners’, get stuck in some snow and instead of backing out and heading own the mountain they remove the tires and set them alight in the hopes someone comes to their rescue when all they had to do was go down the mountain from the wideout. A week goes by and they are dead or seriously hypothermic, putting others at risk for their rescue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z617jjbj1DY
I noticed the NFA map shows Oregon, rather than a golden orange, to be a rather sickly yellow. Having escaped Oregon some years ago, I can understand the reason.
Not all of Oregon is communist. It’s a beautiful state. But enough of it is communist that they drag you down with them. It’s a shame.
It’s not that they’re communist – though this is true to some degree in the larger western cities of the state.
It’s more that the very young woke in that N_S strip proceding East from the coast (’til it gets “rural” – that’s where kids start working when they’re old enough to hold a wrench or a dishcloth) saying (and honestly believing) “Been there, done that.” and not one of them even old enough to have grown hair in that cleft (apologize for being grossly descriptive).
They don’t even have an elderly “prophet” like Bernie Sanders leading them down along the pathway to Hell; they already know all there is to know, parroting (having been taught them from kindergarten onwards) the same slogans that their predecessors spouted at various periods extending from the late 19th century.
Rant over.
THANKS for the suppressor ruling map.
And yes, I do have a hat collection, A career in the oil industry mean lots of contractors giving away free stuff to potential decision maker.
I have more than a few hats. It’s not an obsession, but I still have them.
I have more hats than my wife has shoes. I think she has two pair.
And I’m talking fedoras, not ballcaps.
Some are emergency replacement hats of favorite designs.
Only one matches the trenchcoat.
You only need one that matches the trench coat.
“** Chatty and verbose John Kiriakou discusses the Iran War…”
If you’ll allow me, I’d like to offer a (partial) quote from Big Daddy in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”:
“What’s that smell in this room? Didn’t you notice it, Brick? Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room? There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity. You can smell it….”
Thanks, you beat me to it.
I don’t believe he has any more insight into this than you or I and his source might be Candace or Tucker.
He likes Tucker.
Could be worse. Could be Temu Jason Bourne. AKA CIA Sideshow Bob. The famous Andrew Bustamante, who provides tantalizing glimpses into the high-speed, low-drag world of Elite Operators, such as the following gem: “There’s a force more elite than Navy Seals: It’s the Army Delta Rangers.”
Breaking a few eggs. Only speculation; how many of those millions slaughtered lived in unarmed societies?
They were all armed, but not as well organized. The Mongols used a combined-arms force that employed foreign mercenaries to do what they (light-horse artillery and medium cavalry) could not.
LSP. Well, at least he is well armed.
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Hats. More a motley accumulation, including a few that were my dad’s. I’ve never been much of one to wear garments or hats with logo’s on them. Two of my hats are exceptions: 1) I ordered for myself. Stitched across the front is “Cold War Service – Germany”. 2) A freebie from Geissle Automatics, the same being stitched across the front of that one. The brim is extra thick, and stitched in tiny gold letters across the front edge of the brim is “GEISSLE AUTOMATICS TRIGGERS FOR THE WARFIGHTER AND COMPETITOR”.
I have a Geissle AR, but I don’t have a hat. I feel somewhat left out of the cool kids’ club.
My hat comes with a story, which, not coincidentally, is a plug for Geissle.
—
Back when I had my FFL, I was installing (another) Geissle National Match trigger for a customer/fellow NRA Highpower Rifle shooter. The 2nd stage pull weight adjustment screw on that trigger is TINY. The supplied Allen wrench is .050. And Geissle loctites them. It was really tight. Just at the moment I was thinking “Man, I don’t think I want to crank any harder…”…bink! The wrench stripped in the screw. Oh, joy.
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Next day I call Geissle. Bill Geissle himself picks up, and I explain. He asks if I have a way to apply heat. I reply yes, that I have a BenzOmatic torch. He tells me to try that to defeat the Loctite and then let him know how it went. Well, it didn’t went. A side note here: I have never billed myself as a gunsmith. I am a gun wrench. Not having the knowledge, applying serious heat to precision parts makes me nervous, so likely I was too gentle. Additionally, Geissle triggers come with all the necessary tools, a small bottle of lube, and hands down the most complete and intelligently written instructions.
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So I call Bill back and tell him no joy. “OK” he says. “We’ll send you replacement parts. Just return the trigger parts, and keep the rest of the stuff”. Then he transfers my call to his shop foreman.
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Shortly, a box arrives UPS. Inside is another box with a pre-paid shipping label. Inside that box are the replacement parts, which are still working to this day. Oh yeah, and my fee hat.
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I also like to point out that Bill did all that based solely on my say so over the phone. I no longer shoot competition, but the AR’s I do have run Geissle SSA triggers.
Thanks for the Silencer map. I’m a FFL/SOT and have fielded many questions from friends from all over country. The map answers many questions.
When I hear about theTohono O’odham I roll my eyes having arrested a few for alien and drug smuggling.
You can be sure the La Raza Congressman Adelita Grijalva doesn’t want the wall!
No, the Wall is bad for cartel business and for that particular family.