Dracula Unchained…
“Our government, like an MC Escher drawing, is an endless maze of dead ends and black holes.
It’s a vampiric organism that siphons money from taxpayer pockets, infinitely churning, embezzling, and feeding until nothing is left. It will not stop until we make it stop.
The bureaucratic state needs to be reined in. Period. It has become a law unto itself, anonymous and unaccountable to the electorate. I feel the same about the usurpation of legislative authority by the executive branch at the top. For the last sixty years, the Presidency has assumed increasing “legislative” authority, often by executive orders, from congresses more than willing to shift the burden of taking responsibility for tough or even mundane legislative decisions. As the scope of government grows, so does the proliferation of government bureaucracies to manage that broadening net of authority. All too often, it is the agencies that create the regulations and enforce them without barely an iota of review from the legislature that granted the agencies that power in the first place. This situation needs to be recognized and reversed.
More Popcorn!
I would have suggested Mad Maxine Waters (who desperately needs a better wig) as their new party chairperson, but AOC and Jiz/Jaz Crocket are a great fallback.
(zerohedge) “I don’t know how Democrats appointed Jasmine Crockett as the unquestioned leader of your party, but thank God.
And I think what she should do is go on TV twice as much—maybe three times as much—because every time she appears, she makes these mistakes and says something radical, which only further divides her party from the other 80% of America who can’t stand this. But the problem is, there’s an audience for this.
I heard Jimmy Kimmel’s audience cheering on Tesla vandalism; I hear that The Daily Show’s audience on a tax on Elon Musk; I hear the Human Right’s audience cheering on an attack on a man in a wheelchair.
And I realize this is what the left has become: an angry mob of people who are cheering on attacks on a guy in a wheelchair and vandalism against people who bought people … it’s pathetic.”
Democrats believe communist revolutionary tactics of firebombing Tesla showrooms and cars are socially acceptable in the era of Trump’s law and order to win back votes – yet the imploding party is oblivious and tone deaf that the Overton Window shifted last year – and BLM-style color revolutions are no longer socially acceptable.
Another Ceasefire in Gaza?
The Mongols had a solution for situations like this. Depending on the opposing force, they’d send a tumen** of cavalry—maybe two. When they left, one stone didn’t stand on another, nothing lived, and they’d salted the Earth. Rome (SPQR) dealt the same fate to Carthage. It had the benefit of ending the war for all time.
** Tumen, or tümen, was a decimal measurement used by the Turkic and Mongol peoples to quantify and organize their societies in groups of 10,000.
The Hajj is Coming
With the end of Ramadan, it’s time to worship the black meteorite.
And that is your sermonette.
More Shooters at Hooters?
Praise the Lord – And Pass the 155mm Arty Rounds
The UK Ministry of Defense has enough 155mm artillery ammunition for one week of sustained combat. An order went out to increase the production of artillery ammunition eightfold. (x8) a 155mm artillery shell can vary significantly based on its type, with unguided shells costing around $3,000**, while advanced, GPS-guided shells like the M982 Excalibur can cost as much as $100,000 per round.
**The U.S. M795 high-explosive shell costs around $3,000 in the US; in Europe, because of the baked-in costs of environmentalism, the same round costs around $5,000. Think of it as a weather tax.
All told, Ukrainian artillery fired 5,000 or more 155-millimeter rounds every day for an annual total of around 2 million shells.
It sounds as if making artillery rounds would be a great business to get into.
The Steak Matrix
Identify the Ships
Normally, I don’t do warships, but these share a historical context…
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2
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4
Parting Shot
End
A Gladstone Qld gunshop that grew from a hobby ( Bill was an electrician who liked to shoot) in the 1970’s into Nioa Trading is now making 155mm shells in regional qld in partnership with Rheinmetall.
Production is planned to be 100 000 rounds a year. That target was set prior to Ukraine war. Can probably make more but the federal government can’t seem to make up it’s mind on stockpiles and exports so Nioa’s are not expanding so far.
Disclosure – Nioa used to sponsor me as a clay target shooter back in the early 1980’s
It’s a growing business now that some government people are running the abbicus on how many rounds are expended in even a short conflict. Of course, the military knows artillery is the king of the battlefield, and the 155 mm is the king of artillery. I don’t know how drones will impact counterbattery activities, but at the moment, they’re too slow to match counterbattery fire from other artillery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-battery_radar
Thanks for the plane pics the other day , nice . Had a family member worked for LTV in Grand Prairie Tx growing up , was bought or moved over somehow to Raytheon and retired . Had great stories about working there and the retired pilots and such who were bosses . There was also … I think a Bell helicopter place over near Arlington , as a kid we would drive by and helos would be buzzing around . DFW area was smaller then and the burbs were separated by wheat fields , great place to grow up in the 70’s and 80’s . Even blue collar men could hold down a nice house , buy a toy or two , and send the smart child to college , and pensions were a reality for many . Jobs were good , T.I. was a big employer in my little town. Dallas is a mess now , it starts at the Red River pretty much now . Oh , and Thanks for the ship pictures today . Went to see the USS Alabama couple of summers ago , got a weird chill , and teared up standing on the weather decks , just the ship smell whatever …had a moment , my wife just gave me a few steps away , it was weird , but recomposed and we had a great time in Gulf Shores. Thanks for the blog , it is a joy to visit . Best Regards, Boats
Ha!
1. HMS Hood
2. Bismark
3. Prinz Eugen (I actually touched her hull, upside down stern up in air and bow in deep water right off of the lagoon side of Carlson Island in Kwajalein Atoll, just west of Kwajalein Island. And that picture is the USS Prinz Eugen, before she was nuked at Bikini Atoll, of where afterwards she was towed to Kwajalein Atoll and she broke loose and sunk herself.
4. HMS… Rodney, or Nelson. I think it’s Rodney, but…
Yes, it’s HMS Rodney.
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Prinz Eugen was one of those well-designed battle cruisers from an age when engineers knew what worked in combat. Even an atomic bomb didn’t sink her outright.
Besides being cool looking while showing the adversary it means business.
Prinz Eugen looks like trouble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiULhIKbxE4
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This is from something called “Azur Lane” which I didn’t know existed until about a week ago. Y’all can read Wikipedia as well as I can, but apparently it’s a video game set in alternate WW2 where ships are anthropomorphized as top-grade waifus. (So much for the “Japan: Nuked too much or not enough?” meme. It’s Chinese.)
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HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales have the best costumes.
https://www.youtube DOT com/shorts/g4IzQBlMuy8
The US crew that served on her got along well with the German crew that was on her. Wait, what? Yeah, everything was in German, duh, and the USN needed the experienced German crew to make it run.
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Even so, the US naval architects really liked her. But the one-of-ness and the new upcoming jet age after the carrier war in the Pacific meant, sadly, she was deemed useless.
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Sigh.
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She just looks good. A very pretty ship. Form and fashion.
Regarding Gaza, there is no real ceasefire by Hamas, Hezbollah, the PLO or any other terrorist organization. It’s just a period of resupply and of aiming (as much as missiles made of garbage can be considered aiming.)
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And the Hajj? Gee, imagine how’d they scream and holler and commit violence if someone ran over a bunch of their savage arses during one of their Hajjs or set of a bomb or decided to turn money into smoke by shooting a bunch of them (admittedly, unless you’re firing Norma ammo, cheap Russian/Soviet crap is cheap in comparison to US ammo prices.
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As to artillery shells, yes, it would be a good job to get into, unless you factor in the graft and outright corruption it takes to get either a DOD contract or the export licenses and permits to ship even the empty shells overseas. That graft and corruption eats up the profit margin rather quickly. Then there’s finding a functioning ironworks to cast and enough functioning machine equipment to machine the shells. With the accompanying local and state graft and corruption, even before the labor unions come into the picture.
The Mongol solution is the correct one.
It was a Khan at the time that said “I will make a desert and call it peace” in response to the Iran/Iraq area getting overly frisky after being conquered. And the Mongols did. Killed everything and everyone, destroyed wells and water works, smothered oases with sand, the whole scorched earth thing.
Tamerlane was the Khan. Afterwards, his name was used to scare people who moved into the region.
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Now that’s a legacy!
Identify the Ships:
1. HMS Hood
2, KM Bismarck
3. KM Prinz Eugen
4. HMS Rodney
Absolutely.
3 is not the KMS Prinz Eugen. She’s sporting various aerials and sensors that were put on her after she was brought into US service. Scratch out KMS and put in USS and it’s right.
I never cease to be amazed at how bad some of these AI picture generators are at hands and fingers. The face of the featured girl in the picture is beautiful. Perfect. Her left hand’s ring finger and pinky are monstrous. Unlike the girl in the blue, she has a right arm, though. Does the AI mess up toes and feet?
It’s worse at toes and feet.
That is a great picture none the less!
is there any particular reason why AI is unable to “picture” fingers (ankles, as well)? it does so beautifully with the finer facial features, though I haven’t yet seen what it can do with teeth.
It’s not bad with teeth. Dentists are now using AI creatively to create 3D modeling on crowns, etc. It’s very space-age in a dental way. I was the recent recipient of such a creation when a molar cracked. (no root canal required)
Read some comments elsewhere about a guy’s struggle to keep AI constrained. Without tight control, while using the correct terms(found via trial and error), you can end up with a writhing of snakes.
“”the Presidency has assumed increasing “legislative” authority, often by executive orders, from congresses more than willing to shift the burden of taking responsibility for tough or even mundane legislative decisions.””
As it turns out the people in the Congress (many of them) were making money hand over fist through under the table (NGOs), insider trading and political contributions. They look to have been well paid to just sit and make the usual noises.
x2
“”All told, Ukrainian artillery fired 5,000 or more 155-millimeter rounds every day for an annual total of around 2 million shells.””
If those were all the cheap rounds and they were all bought in the US, that is $6 billion dollars a year. I’ll admit that since DOGE started letting us know what was happening in our government I thought a billion dollars was a lot of money… but if we can give 2 billion dollars to Stacey Abrams in Georgia to buy appliances for people, well that adjusts my thinking on these big numbers…
Congress isn’t particularly offended at $40 trillion in debt. A trillion is a thousand billion and they throw those numbers around like a burger flipper is earning that much.
Just the advent of easy to use artillery computers tied in with infantry and vehicle spotters and GPS makes even ‘dumb’ artillery fired out of a not-shot-out barrel far more accurate than during WWII or Korea or even Vietnam.
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Of course, sometimes long range sniping with a cannon just isn’t enough. Removing a grid square from existence needs lots of tubes or lots of bombs, like a MOAB or an Arc Light from some BUFFs.
That was meant for the comments below about 155mm cannon.
The Willy P shells are more fun than the M795 high-explosive shell.
Indeed they are. They’re napalm of artillery shells.
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The old Composition B HE shells are basic, but they are still impressive, particularly when used in a time-on-target attack.
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There are a number of creative 155mm artillery shells, including the new tungsten shrapnel rounds (air burst) and the long-range guided Excaliber rounds. The The M712 Copperhead (laser guided arty) rounds go for $70K per round, but they hit what you laze. If you’re ammo-sexual, you pay close attention to that sort of thing.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl5Neqgyfxk
“It’s a vampiric organism that siphons money from taxpayer pockets, infinitely churning, embezzling, and feeding until nothing is left. It will not stop until we make it stop”
Graft, corruption, favoritism and insider trading becomes the norm.
There is only one solution that has ever proven to work (and even then, only for a limited time.)
Many seem to believe the election of DJT will spare us that fate. It seems obvious to me that this is a misguided belief. This has always been an existential crisis; It seems that more people are coming to realize that. I hope our side is up to surviving it.
“Judgment Day is inevitable, you only postponed it.” – T101
Concur on the Mongol response to Gaza… time to put an end to that nonsense!
The Federal government is like a virus that morphs each year, growing larger and more diluted, yet tends to kill the host. “Reigning in” is in process…and happening at warp speed Scotty…and We The People who love our country are very happy to see these cleaning house operations.
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Mad Maxine…the latest Hollywood dystopian movie series where we see our intrepid leader screaming at everyone to fight while she gets her hair done…that doesn’t erase the face that sunk a thousand ships. Yes Virginia, evil does rot from the head down.
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The detail in your header picture is astounding. Yes, as others have pointed out, hands are critical in capturing the human form…but not easy to draw.
As a kid I knew every word to Johnny Hortens song “sink the Bismarck” still remember most of it. Don’t know how accurate it is ,but it was a great song .