IMHO
Bullet Points:
** Black Hawk Down Remake: to be filmed in Minneapolis, MN. “I was shocked when I heard human beings still live there.” – Jerry Bruckheimer
** A discussion of Taiwan’s gangs – well put together. (h/t Claudio)
** The Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA) grants the U.S. government jurisdiction over drug offenses committed on board any vessel subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, regardless of the vessel’s location or nationality. It grants the power to detain and arrest traffickers, prosecute them in accordance with the law, and confiscate and destroy their contraband. It does not give the government the power or authority to execute them summarily. That authority comes with the designation of a terrorist organization.
** Do you care about suffering people?
** Should you buy Russian War Bonds? Maybe think about it before you send your money. Or you can send Gold care of the White Wolf Mine, and I’ll see to it that your money is invested in the appropriate financial instrument in Albania, Communist China, or the failing Democratic National Committee (all about the same in reliability). It’s like an IOU – just as good as cash (Dumb & Dumber).
At the end of last week, another high-profile default loomed in Russia: Domodedovo Airport, which Russia had recently seized from its owners, pleased bondholders by announcing that it wanted to postpone the redemption of its bonds for a year. The airport has bonds worth 15 billion rubles and $360 million in circulation. In principle, these are insignificant amounts for the Russian market. However, the very fact of default on bonds of a state-owned aviation company has already caused fear in the market. The issue here is not the amounts, but the schemes: the airport has effectively become state-owned, and its management company has decided to “postpone redemption.” In the language of Russian officials, “postpone” means holding a meeting of bondholders and promising problems to anyone who opposes the postponement of bond redemption. What a “great” idea. This way, bonds don’t have to be repaid at all, especially since there have already been similar stories on the Russian market with Rosgeologia. And the more Russia wages war, the worse the business climate in Russia becomes, and the faster it returns to the 1990s. Speaking generally about airports in Russia, the situation is dire for almost all of them due to the decline in air traffic, which has fallen due to sanctions against Russian aviation. Not to mention the numerous accidents involving air transport in Russia; anyone who wants to can quickly find a long list of them.
** Riders needed – Job Opportunity for the hardcore unemployed.
** (Gateway Pundit) The FBI on Friday morning raided the home of a high-ranking DEA official under Barack Obama and charged him with conspiring to launder millions of dollars for a Mexican drug cartel. The Feds charged former DEA Deputy Chief of the Office of Financial Operations Paul Campo and friend Robert Sensi for conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Paul Campo and Robert Sensi were charged with narcoterrorism, terrorism, narcotics distribution, and money laundering charges. Campo and Sensi were arrested on Thursday afternoon in New York, according to the DOJ. Campo and Sensi agreed to launder $12 million and participate in narcotics trafficking for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a/k/a Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion or CJNG.
** Left – honk if you like technicals.
** Does your blade sing? Longbow or horsebow? What do you think, Lord High Executioner? A discussion here of Romans vs Celts.
** (WSJ) Remember when the University of California kicked off a trend by eliminating the SAT as an admissions requirement five years ago? Now arrives the dispiriting result: Many freshmen at one of its top public universities can’t do middle-school math.
** Will everyone wear armor around all day in the future?
** Not that I believed it to begin with, but the NYT (no friend to the Trump Administration!!) has debunked the WaPo story that Sec Hegseth ordered a second strike on a Venezuelan drug boat, specifically to kill survivors of the first strike.
** A discussion of Big Mike Obama’s podcast, Big MIC…everybody gets it. Even Barack gets the ‘rod of power’ one would expect.
** Guys: Is your car flashy or is it a real piece of rolling junk? There is still hope for you.
Can Iran Control their Creatures?
Likely not. (h/t Claudio) The Jews pulled the Imam’s pants down – ok, would if he wore pants instead of a dish-dash. Do you want to follow a Muslim leader who is humiliated by the Hebrews? Not if you’re a terrorist.
Iran has lost control of the Houthis in Yemen and is struggling to hold together what is left of its “axis of resistance” forces around the Middle East, Iranian officials say.
The officials have described how the rebels in Yemen, who regularly attack global shipping lanes, have stopped taking orders from Tehran.
“The Houthis have gone rogue for a while and are now really rebels,” a senior Iranian official told The Telegraph from Tehran. “They do not listen to Tehran as much as they used to.”
The Re-Ordering of the Free World
The US, South Korea, and Japan are tightly integrating to support the entire First Island Chain. I’d add the Philippines to the list. They are not the industrial powerhouses of the US, ROK, or Japan, but they see the threat posed by Red China, which seeks to take their territory, and they are stepping up to be a stakeholder and to purge the Mainland Chinese threat to the extent they are able.
The CCP will not be amused. Again. They are having a horrible week.
“On security, burden-sharing with Japan and Korea is emphasized repeatedly. Protection of the First Island Chain is framed as a shared responsibility. While no systems are specified, the direction is clear: stronger strike capabilities, ISR coordination, missile defense, and maritime denial. The alliance is shifting from peninsula defense toward regional deterrence.”
The United States has released its 2025 National Security Strategy, and although it has generated debate, the core message is simple. Let’s focus on South Korea for today’s blog. In short, the message is this: “America no longer seeks to dominate the world, but it will not allow itself to be challenged—and it will no longer carry the cost alone.”
One of the strongest elements of the strategy is its self-criticism. Since the Cold War, the US has pursued global primacy at enormous cost. Globalization weakened parts of the American industry and the middle class. Allies grew accustomed to US protection, and international organizations drifted away from nation-state priorities. Trump’s first term is portrayed as a corrective phase, and the second as its consolidation. Domestically, national security is now defined broadly. Borders, immigration, espionage, narcotics, and influence operations are treated as part of a single security framework. Military power is inseparable from technology and industrial strength.
For Korea, the implications are direct. Economically, Korea is expected to become a core partner in restructuring supply chains away from China. The strategy argues that China’s export-driven model cannot change without coordinated pressure from advanced economies such as Korea, Japan, and Europe. Korea is no longer expected to function merely as a China-centered production base, but as part of a tightly integrated allied supply network.
Korea is also envisioned as part of a US-led global investment bloc. Europe, Japan, and South Korea together hold roughly $7 trillion in overseas assets. Washington wants this capital directed toward infrastructure, energy, and resource development across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, in competition with China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
This document is less a vision than a warning. The United States is redefining alliances in more transactional terms; the real question is how clearly Korea recognizes the message—and how decisively it responds.
A friend asked me yesterday, “Is China at war with the United States?” I replied, “They have been for decades, and we ignored it. We’re not ignoring it anymore.”
Vietnam Era IDs
Yes, they’re very easy, but a request was made, and I’m delivering here. VM is getting to be more and more like Burger King – you have it your way.
Identify the Vehicle
1
2
It’s a hulk at this point, but there’s a big hint.
3
Identify the Famous Sniper (Gunnery Sgt)
4
Identify the Boat
5
Parting Shot
End
3 is M48A3 Patton operated by the Marines in early in Vietnam war.
4 is Carlos Norman Hathcock II
5 is Patrol Craft Fast (PCF), also known as the Swift Boat
Very good!
(1) M-274 Mule.
(2) M-106 4.2″ mortar carrier.
(3) M-48.
(4) Carlos Hathcock? ID: Human always stretches my limits.
(5) Patrol Craft, Fast “swift boat”.
– Kle.
Excellent!
1 – M274 Truck, Platform, Utility, 1/2 Ton, 4×4 Mule
2 – M106 mortar carrier,
3 – M48 Patton
4 – Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Norman Hathcock II
5 – U.S. Navy Patrol Craft Fast Swift Boat
Nailed it.
Eliminating SAT scores as an admission requirement – Institutions of “Higher education” no longer care about the product they turn out, their goal is to bring in as much money as possible in exchange for a worthless piece of paper that was formerly known as a degree. The left complains about “Greed” in capitalism but they are proud that to embrace it when it suits their purpose.
X2
They don’t check on it, they don’t care. Sign of the times…
Truth – depending on your demographic and protected species category. Even whites and Asians are lumped into the protected classes if they’re sexual deviates.
And for state schools, it matters not whether the student can pass but how loud the parents can shout in the ears of state legislators and force the schools to pass the offending piles of scholastic poop anyways.
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I know this because my wife was an adjunct professor for a state school and one of her ‘students’ basically no-showed and got his parents to sic the state rep on the school and the douchnozzle got given an ‘A’ (for asshole.)
Particularly junior colleges, HE Beans. It’s true at all of the state schools but you need more leverage at the universities to get the same result.
My wife and I have found much better teachers at the junior college/community college level.
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She, being the brains of the family, actually took and passed the whole Honors Calculus series with a professor who had a doctorate in mathematics from Moskva University, you know, the one in Mother Russia. The guy could have been teaching at UF but he liked the students and the non-socialist attitude of the local community college on the outskirts of Gainesville. She also had a serious big-brained physics teacher and a couple other excellent teachers that didn’t want to play at UF.
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Me? Two of the best history teachers I ever encountered were at the local comm-college. Again, both had the doctorates but both didn’t want to play the politics.
As Saigon was falling, a friend of mine and his crew who were in the South Vietnamese Navy, loaded a lot of additional fuel onto their swift boat. Then they navigated to Singapore before he eventually immigrated to the United States to go to school and become an outstanding electrical engineer.
Good. But. It’s too damn bad they didn’t have the range to navigate themselves to Washington to shoot up the Congress that cut off their supplies.
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Some time back, DOD was giving out little pins to Vietnam veterans that were supposed to have the names of our allies engraved on them. I sent in a copy of my DD-214 and in the fullness of time, received one. They’d left off the South Vietnamese, the schmucks. It went straight into the trash.
I sense bitterness, WWW.
“Schmucks” demonstrates a lot of self-control.
No, Ed, I just can’t properly describe in words how I really feel about it.
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Correct, L-L. I was no MichaelW by any stretch, but I did work with some people who mostly likely didn’t survive the collapse of the Central Highlands or if they did, the re-education camps that followed. They deserved better by us.
Don’t forget that the majority of our politicians, along with Kissinger, were not interested in the well being of POWs. The POWs had a high probability of dying in North Vietnam until Bud Day’s wife and other POW wives stood on the Capital steps demanding information and reasons why the US didn’t push to have the POWs returned. Even at the Paris Peace Talks, Kissinger wasn’t willing to recover POWs. The Christmas bombings made the Vietnamese envoys ready to make huge concessions and Kissinger let it all go away.
*****
Inside Hanoi’s Secret Archives is an extremely detailed book and I highly recommend getting a copy to read. If you get upset reading it, put it aside until you can read a bit more. When you read this book, it obvious that the author had backchannel assistance from both sides.
I would like to visit in a similar manner both in Hanoi and in China but haven’t been able to get very far.
Kissinger was trash. Thanks, Dave. I’ll add that one to the stack soon.
SAT’s: Hated standardized tests, especially this one. What did it definitively prove, especially with all the test-prep places? “Spend thousands so your kid can do well and get into a good school.” no longer holds water. Define ‘good school’. Yet, how else can you determine the aptitude of a potential student when the system has become so corrupted by the very people selling the pens and paper? I feel sorry for kids these days being indoctrinated by a Marxist educational system that now works to the lowest common denominator so to not make any ‘less than’ student feel bad, even if they don’t speak English. Home Schooling and Charter Schools are the answer, plus eliminating government run indoctrination centers disguised as schools.
***
Movement Graph: Curious how those move ‘to and from’ states will look in ten years. Hopefully the ‘move to’ states will not turn into Lefty strongholds from the migration, while I’m guessing the ‘move from’ states will continue their slide into the 3rd world abyss as the tax base erodes like a burned up Palisades hillside after a heavy Spring rain because the deranged TIPS ™ (Those In Power Structures) can’t help themselves in ruining everything in their purvey.
My oldest granddaughter sat for ACTs last week. We don’t have the results yet.
Department of War (like the name) requires ASVAB to determine both eligibility and placement in the military. Too low a score, either given a low-trust position or are denied entry. It sets a minimum standard for entry. Not perfect, some still get washed out for reasons.
Colleges have decided that they are accepting any applicant regardless of IQ and abilities, even if they have no bodies (ghost students) or are an AI. Just be able to get a Student Loan and you’re in like Flynn. IOW, no standards.
I remember having to do ACT, SAT, and eventually ASVAB. College really wasn’t for me but it took a few years to realize it. No debts though – worked in the college bookstore. USAF scratched the itch to learn and do technical stuff.
I scored in the 98th percentile on the ASVAB and lower on the ACT (proportionally). Which was more valid? It doesn’t matter now.
My brother dang near got a 1600 on his SAT’s. Me?…taking the test I was annoyed to have to do it – on a Saturday no less (had a ballgame later). Halfway through the test I realized I mixed up a bubble (did I mention I hated standardized tests)…ruined my “score”. Didn’t matter to Penn State engineering admissions…and as you say, doesn’t matter now. What matters is aptitude and showing up (to name only two attributes of a self-directed productive member of society). In contrast, MrsPaulM never looked at her vet school grades, said they’d leave a note in her mailbox if a problem came up…ended up graduating Cum Laude. It’s not something she talks about, wasn’t important to her as she preferred being in the equine barn learning while working on horses, versus the classroom. Tests are only one metric for a persons capability, whether for a degree or technical field, whereas the world of academia – especially college level – think it’s the only metric (except for maybe malleability). Oh, and how does the SAT’s indicate to a prospective college that their ‘Woman’s Studies” prospect is a good fit?
> taking the [SAT] I was annoyed to have to do it
https://youtu.be/9Xc-WxSoYp4?si=BbrmexXT3FGMxFnx
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That was my attitude too, and I think it [1] helped, because it took the pressure off. Frankly, I didn’t know how important the SAT was to “your life” which of course isn’t Life at all, if you take my meaning. I took the PSAT, SAT, ACT and GRE all in the 1980’s. Took the GMAT too for the hell of it, though I had zero desire to go to MBA school. I was really good at standardized tests [2] until the MCAT. I took the MCAT seriously (not that I really studied for it, I just worried about it) and I went from the usual >=98th percentile to, er, lower than that. The really sad thing is that many of us (friends and not-exactly friends but at least friendly colleagues) each remember our SAT scores, MCAT scores, and so forth, even decades later. Sigh. I don’t know if that’s a commentary on how absurdly important those rather silly tests are, or about our personalities. Prolly both.
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[1] As Duke Thomas Beaufort said to the Dauphin: Scorn and defiance; slight regard, contempt (Henry V, Act 2, Scene 4)
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[2] No. I did not do any test prep for SAT, etc. Just walked in and took them. And I had the opposite of a Tiger Mom. (Or she was a really good actress, which I doubt because she was painfully straightforward.) Anyway, a bunch of mostly-horrible Chinese moms were going on about SATs and what their progeny were doing to prepare. They asked my mom what she had lined up for me. “Nothing. Uh, is this SAT thing important? I think he took it already.” I really disliked those Chinese moms who made a point of knowing everyone’s test scores, grade points, and so forth. Not that I didn’t “succeed” by their (dreadfully narrow minded) metrics, but because It Was None Of Their Business.
I know I sat for the SAT but don’t remember how I did.
I did not expect to afford college and my grades had tanked my final semester related to my parent’s divorce and moving in with my sister.
I was surprised to get a letter at my mom’s house from the Dean of the College of Engineering at Michigan asking where I was.
I went to see him, we spoke and he admitted me. And bypassed most of my freshmen classes.
Still ran out of money. Draft number of 36.
99% on the ASVAB and I chose Microwave Communications. Oops.
EdB – Your lucky number.
They knew an engineering rockstar when they saw one Ed.
I have a friend who works at a MEPS administering the ASVAB. Some of the stories he can tell about the kids who wash out are… dumbfounding. Especially during the Tapioca-In-Chief years, when recruiters were not only scraping the bottom of the barrel, but the bottom of the dumpster nearby.
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On the other hand, the DoW and the recruits both have skin in the game when it comes to outcomes. Colleges do not, because the students are the product: the customer is the Department of Education that issues the loans, and the processors who handle it. They’ll take anything the Dept of Ed requests and requires, as long as the customer keeps paying and only being picky about the process (moar DEI!). No matter how terrible the outcome in product quality, if neither the customer nor the producer care, it’s not going to get better. And the more money that gets offered in loans, the more the cost of the degree goes up, the fewer people who are also customers (paying out of pocket) and demanding accountability of outcome.
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Once upon a time, I needed a class to graduate that wasn’t offered but once a year. The department decided there wasn’t enough interest, so they weren’t going to offer it that year. Being motivated, cranky, and wise to the system, I shook the departmental tree and got it in writing that if I could round up X many students, who would sign up and pay for the class despite no listed professor, classroom, or time, then they would hold it. (X being the minimum tuition to pay for the adjunct and space rental from facilities.) I got the requisite number of students – and more, after the masses were alerted that this was a 1/yr class and not every year. Ah, the implied urgency of scarcity… the department was not pleased with me, but I had them in writing. Unfortunately, due to the unorthodox nature and timing, I had to pay cash out of pocket for the class.
.
The adjunct prof wasn’t terribly good, prepared, or motivated. The third class in, he was… still being utterly ineffective at teaching the material, so I stood up and read him the riot act, starting with “By the time you work out tuition, books, and fees, I’m paying $XXX/day for you to be teaching me this subject. You have failed to be worth the money I am paying for you!” …Apparently, nobody had ever dared critique his performance in quite that way before, or that openly demand some semblance of academic rigor. But I had skin in the game, and a strong desire to learn the material and to graduate on my intended timeline, and I wasn’t going to let him stop me.
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…I also had eight GI Bill guys forming a wall of disapproving muscle who were similarly not “enjoying the college experience” and motivated. Cooperate to graduate, eh?
I don’t recall learning THAT much in university systems that I’d pitch a gripe so long as I got the mark and moved on. The GI Bill guys can create havoc (and let slip the dogs of war) and are useful backup.
That should be a movie, if not a YouTube Short.
The SATs used to be a good standardized test but that was before the test prep books and classes. One of my high school buddies aced it, finished college in three years and was hired as a Russian specialist after graduation. Now, the SAT and ACT are decrepit, worthless tests and like NATO and other Cold War avenues need to be closed with all the trimmings cleaned into the trash can.
*****
The AFOQT has also suffered. When I took it, there was the basic AFOQT and also a pilot test and a navigator test.
Blackhawk Down | Minneapolis: Watched a program on Somali Pirates (eg. Captain Phillips), held a fishing boat crew of 26 captive (would be 28 but they shot the captain and one died along the way) after dragging them inland when the boat beached itself. K&R was difficult as the Somali “leader” was…let’s just say…beyond rabidly stupid but bent on getting his money. This went on for almost 5 years. (If this happened to American’s I believe PDJT/Hegseth would send in a Special Forces team to eradicate the criminal element in short order.)
Maybe it has happened already, it is past time for maritime rules to change, quit playing the Somali game…need armed security on board every vessel, minimally to shoot out the motor and put holes in the boat, leave these ‘high on Khat’ criminals stranded for the sharks. Enough of them disappear into Davey Jones then maybe the local Somali ‘lords’ will rethink their approach (probably not but worth a go at it).
Minneapolis will take a long time to ‘fix the problem’ intentionally created by Biden and Walz with their importation of so-called “refugees”.
If I were SECDEF, I’d use every pretext possible to eradicate pirates and their associates along the Somali coast. Pour a little Clorox into the gene pool.
Letters of Marque with PPV.
I’m old (thankfully not as old as Old NFO), so remind me what some of the reasons and first combat application of the USMC? The reasons for the lyrics of the USMC Hymn?
Old NFO helped Noah build the Ark and then stowed away. I’m only an observer of history.
I swear I saw him in ‘The Ten Commandments’ leading the Israelite’s out of bondage…could have been a Doppelganger.
Ooh! Ooh! I know. Pick me!
Something about pirates threatening our commerce at sea.
and killing them.
Blackhawk Down would have been prevented if one airborne officer had simply keyed his mike and said which direction to turn. No call sign needed, just the direction.
*****
Concerning the Horn of Africa. Sinking the pirates is a prime idea, but it would take centuries for any positive change. That is based on reports from British ships of the line and merchant ships in the 1600s which all said avoid the Horn of Africa because of piracy. The equipment has changed, but the culture hasn’t.
If the Somalis were removed, then piracy wouldn’t be a problem anymore. Send them to Red China to pollute the gene pool there. The idea is incredibly woke.
“beyond rabidly stupid but bent on getting his money.” Heh.
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My Calmer Half has this to say of the inhabitants of that area of Africa: “The lower the intelligence, the greater the arrogance.”
It’s true in the American Democrat Party too. I mean, who is more arrogant than the low-IQ tranny, Big Mike? Who is more entitled? And apparently, he’s so insufferable that even Barack is distancing himself.
Managed to snag a hard copy of “Marine Sniper” autographed by Hathcock back when they were first offered. Copyright date is 1990. IIRC (and that’s a big if) they were advertised in the long defunct magazine “Precision Shooting”. You can still find his interviews on YouTube.
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In my MOS, I used to repair 4.2-inch mortars, occasionally on site in the APC’s along the Iron Curtain in West Germany.
A 4.2-inch mortar is approximately 107 mm (M2 model) or 106.7 mm (M30 model), often referred to by the nickname “Four-deuce”. The difference is due to variations in barrel rifling measurements (107 mm is frequently the nominal caliber, 106.7 mm the specific bore dimension).
Beck was discussing the 2025 National Security Strategy this morning.
Good news.
We need to keep the midterms!
From the NSS (2025) “Our elites badly miscalculated America’s willingness to shoulder forever global burdens to which the American people saw no connection to the national interest. They overestimated America’s ability to fund, simultaneously, a massive welfare-regulatory-administrative state alongside a massive military, diplomatic, intelligence, and foreign aid complex. They placed hugely misguided and destructive bets on globalism and so-called “free trade” that hollowed out the very middle class and industrial base on which American economic and military preeminence depend. They allowed allies and partners to offload the cost of their defense onto the American people, and sometimes to suck us into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to our own. And they lashed American policy to a network of international institutions, some of which are driven by outright anti-Americanism and many by a transnationalism that explicitly seeks to dissolve individual state sovereignty. In sum, not only did our elites pursue a fundamentally undesirable and impossible goal, but in doing so, they undermined the very means necessary to achieve that goal: the character of our nation upon which its power, wealth, and decency were built.”
>sometimes to suck us into conflicts and controversies central to their interests but peripheral or irrelevant to our own
Wow. That’s dangerously close to Noticing.
I have high hopes but scant expectations that US policy will correct this decades-long disastrous series of policies and actions.
👍
It’s a little spooky when somebody gets it right. There’s a broad gulf between getting it right and doing it. Pity.
Saw something on Facebook about the International Laws of the Sea about any vessel not flying a national flag has no rights nor expectations they won’t be interfered with. Any clarification?
There is fine print involved and I’m not a sea lawyer. A DOCUMENTED SHIP – flying a national flag, etc. A documented ship is a vessel registered federally with the U.S. Coast Guard, providing national proof of nationality, chain of title, and enabling access to specific trades and easier financing via preferred mortgages. It serves as an alternative to state titling/registration, generally required for vessels of five net tons or more in commercial or large recreational use. The speedboats don’t qualify.
I wonder what special brand of stupidity thought importing thousands of Somalians was a good idea. Their country is an indicator of their morals, and culture. Send them all back, including Omar…especially Omar. Don’t waste any money on trying to prosecute her, unless you can guarantee capital punishment.
X2
X3…Intentionally done to undermine our Constitutional Republic, one 7th Century 3rd-worlder throwback at a time. Over the weekend Ilhan Omar just called Steven Miller a Nazi on live TV. This piece of human debris married her brother, now she’s worth something like $30M. Toss her out…tomorrow.
>what special brand of stupidity thought importing thousands of Somalians was a good idea
It’s a premium blend of multiple kinds of stupidities.
So this is one type [altruism using other people’s stuff]: I know some of the persons central to the importation of Somalis into Maine, specifically the Lewiston-Auburn metro area. The ones I know personally are Muslim. They were part of the public face of the campaign, as “successful Muslim immigrants” from Africa (they are not negroes, they came to the US via Africa). The actual legal and fundraising brains behind the operation were mostly from New York City, and the key players are not Muslim. Far from it. I don’t know for sure what the NYC motivation was, but the “face” people said to me, “Maine has been so good to us. We wanted to share that with others.” I hit the F-ing roof. “So if I take you into my home because you are poor and I feel pity for you, then you thank me by bringing violent, shiftless, low-IQ savages into my house? Because you wanted to SHARE? You have no right to share OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF.” We had quite the argument. I would have laughed at some of the pathetic stereotypical counter-arguments had I not been so furious. Yes, the “but they’ve opened ethnic restaurants” thing even got dragged out. Speaking of ethnic food, I personally HATE green-bean casserole (an abomination; no idea why it got left out of Leviticus), but I would gladly eat GBC daily for the rest of my life if it would get rid of all the garbage.
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Another flavor is the whole [misplaced altruism] of various evangelical groups, the Lutheran Church, and probably Jewish Family Services. In addition to the genuine desire to “help” and the dopamine hits of being able to feel good about yourself [despite that you’re screwing your neighbors, your own posterity, and your very Civilization], there is of course also all that sweet, sweet government grant money.
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The stupidity I don’t get is why persons such as Mayor Jacob Frey are so pro-Muslim immigration. (Now I probably have less against Muslims in general than the average commenter here, but freaking Somalis? That’s a whole different ball of intestinal parasites.) Mayor Frey, you are Jewish [1]! Do you think you personally are exempt from their hatred? Of course the votes and the money laundering and other fraud are big motivators, but the actions of Frey and persons like him seem remarkably stupid to me. (c.f. “New York Lawyers” from Maine story above)
[1] By matrilineal descent, no less, and I don’t CARE if he follows all the dietary restrictions or not. You know why I don’t care? Because the people who want him dead for his Jewishness don’t care about whether Frey will eat a cheeseburger.
If you’re looking for a particularly nasty group of skinny Africans, I think that the Yemenis are the worst. Somalis are the next rung up in the shit show.
My wife was greatly amused by the crappy car video. She is not very excited to ride in my 83 ElCamino, but is more than happy to let me rocket down the road in it.
Imagine having a Rat Rod…..
Then there are rat bikes. Pacau frames and knuckleheads with suicide shifter transmissions make the best IMHO.
Looks like Campo and Sensi got themselves in a bit of trouble. Two down.
And yes, I want a technical.
It’s not just that you want your own Technical, you need one.
A blade that doesn’t ‘sing’ but has a dull tone to it is a bad blade. Seriously, the proper selection of metals (hard edges, softer middles) and tempering (springy but stiff, seriously the blade has to be able to bend a bit and come back, but not bend too much, and not be too stiff) and all that gives a good blade a ‘ring’ or ‘voice’ and the blade will sing when struck or slid across another metal. The movies and tv overdo it a bit, but it’s there. The longer the blade the more the voice. Even daggers and knives have voices, but the shorter blades will have higher ones.
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And you can feel it when you have the blade in your hand. Take a crappy piece of metal and strike it, dull tones, bleh vibrations. Now take a good aluminum bat and strike a ball with it. ‘Ting’ and you can feel the solidness of the hit even with all that rubbery stuff wrapped around the handle. Same with a good golf club, ‘whack’ and you know from your hands it’s a good shot. Bad club and the sound is hollow and flat and feels like crap.
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Same with armor. Good plate armor or helmets ring (lightly) and bounce the weapon back while spreading the force of the blow. Bad armor will concentrate the energy of the blow and will hurt more. Good armor blows the force off and out. It’s a real thing.
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Same even with shields, made of wood or leather or metal or a combo. Good shields bounce the weapon away, suck up what energy it can and spreads the force across the whole shield. Bad shields catch all the force and energy at the point of impact, and thus fail.
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And it’s not just swords and such. It pertains to all tools. That one hammer? You’ll drag my Estwing framing hammer from my cold dead hands because that hammer just feels right in my hands and I don’t miss where with a crappy hammer I’ll bend nails and miss and such. Same with guns, you all have guns that just feel right and sing when you fire them and others that you’ve handled that feel like you’re holding a 2×4 of lead and it’s crap and you might get ‘mile-of-accuracy’ out of it and even if it works right you hate it because it doesn’t feel or sound right.
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Good tools are ‘alive’ and ‘have voices.’ Bad tools are ‘dead’ and are ‘dull.’ It is the way of any craftsman.
>It pertains to all tools. That one hammer? You’ll drag my Estwing framing hammer from my cold dead hands ….
This is why I continue to use this one wired mouse that I’ve had for about 10 years. At this point stolen from [cough cough] Medical Center that I no longer work for.
I’m not sure how much I am joking about this mouse thing, honestly.
As to ‘Longbows vs Horsebows,’ a lot of that has to do with lots of factors. Like materials available, who’s using the bow, the weather (yes) and tradition.
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Materials. England and France, both places where short to longbows made of wood of good power were to be traditionally found, had stands upon stands of good bow wood. Thus wooden bows were to be found. Go to ‘horsebow’ territory where the bows are made of some wood or no wood and bone, ivory, tendons and other stretchy things, that’s what’s found in that area. Yes, the Horse people went to woods and such, but wood was uncommon, thus rare, thus used for special things. Thus horsebows made of composite materials available.
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Users: Foot archers can get away with long bows and medium length self-bows and recurves. Because they’re firing while standing. And they can carry long sticks unstrung easily. Horse archers need shorter bows, thus composite recurves are found throught the mounted archer world. Yes, there are outliers like the Japanese who have that daikyu, a bow that 2/3rds is above the handle, because it’s meant to be fired while mounted so the shorter lower limb doesn’t get in the way of the rider or horse, but that’s more due to the limitations of the materials the Japanese made their bows out of, as if they had better materials they’d have been able to make more powerful bows shorter (and, of course, much more powerful bows by using the better materials to make a much-more-powerful daikyu bow.)
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Weather: You can do bows made of wood in wet environments, which England and coastal France, and most rainforests, qualify as. And the wood bows will work at sea (the longbows found on the Mary Rose.) And even in dryer environments, but require some maintenance over and above normal ‘wet environment’ maintenance. Whereas composite horsebows, made using various animal products like tendons and hoof-glue, tend to be hydroscopic and thus get funny when in wet areas. Same with bowstrings. The famous ‘English’ bowstrings of waxed linen vs Swiss crossbows of waxed catgut, waxed linen handles wet better than catgut. (It’s why old-school tennis, before nylon and modern strings, stopped when it started raining or was foggy.)
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Tradition: Yes, of course, even when England was running out of bow-wood trees (see Robin Hood and staves of Spanish Yew) they adhered to wood bows. While after Agincourt the French stood up bow-corps armed with a new tempered steel recurve longbow that was as powerful in the release as the English longbows but required less strength to pull and thus cut training down bigly. No, seriously, much easier to pull a bow that has a lower pull poundage than a release poundage, it’s the theory and fact behind compound wheel or cam assist bows, takes less strength to pull than an equivalent straight pulled bow in the same release poundage. Recurves do this to, to an extent, it’s why recurves are superior overall to straight-limbed bows. Compound bows also have a lower pull and higher release.
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It’s all very technical and full of conflicting emotions. But it matters as to usage, materials, weather and traditions (and what you can get your hands in.)
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Modern bowhunters have a multiple number of choices. Straight-limbed traditional doesn’t work well in a blind or tree stand or on horseback. Actual composite natural material bows don’t work in wet weather, while modern composite materials bows work in a wide environment but tend to be more thermally reactive than natural materials (plastics and resins can shatter in cold weather and get ‘soft’ and lose power in hot weather.) This style bow looks cooler to me, that style bow looks ugly.
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Yes, it can be that simple. What looks and feels cooler and better to you. Just like the discussion of swords and singing, your bow is a tool. Good tools just feel right.
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I know one serious archer who will travel to a ‘traditional’ archery competition with 4-5 bows, each almost the same but this one works better in warm and sunlight areas, that one does better on cloudy days, this one is for high humidity, that one is for low humidity, and such.
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There is no ‘perfect’ bow. Just like there are no perfect racing horses. Some horses do better in warm weather, some in cold, some in dry and some are known as ‘mudders’ as they run well in wet and muddy conditions.
Release mechanics enter in as well – thumb rings became important with high draw weight horse bows.
As to Romans-vs-Celts, Cunk kinda got it right. I mean, after the Romans, outnumbered, beat the dog-piss out of the naked locals, the survivors had to look at the Romans and go… “Huh, you can wear armor? And it works? Look at that Vespacian dude over there, he’s what, 5’3″ and he killed 7 of us and he’s bitching about how he’s got sword-elbow and here I am missing half my wonder-weasel? Where can I get some of that stuff? Screw this woad crap, I want metal, give me metal!!!”
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And it would explain why one of the first things the now semi-civilized Celts did after becoming semi-civilized (according to Rome’s standards) was to adopt armor.
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Of course part of it was differences in tactics. The Celts fought like warriors, everyone was an individual, so running around naked with your wonder-weasel painted blue was okay because you were supposed to be facing other naked warriors with their wonder-weasels swinging in the wind. Quite a shock when naked rugged-individualist-warriors ran up on actual soldiers in a fixed formation fighting as a unit.
And, of course, generally Celts won where their tactics worked and the Romans couldn’t use their tactics. Like Totenberg Flrest, where the Celts attacked upon a long front in a narrow area where the Romans couldn’t use their superior unit cohesion.
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I can’t believe I actually agree with Cunk.
And of course, all armor isn’t equal (as you pointed out earlier). It’s not just the physical armor but the armor system with the padding that spreads out the concussion. Chainmail vs boiled leather vs lamellar vs silk under the armor (so the arrows pull out of the flesh more easily), etc.
Articulated vs unarticulated infantry and the rise of combined arms changed the game. Combined arms remains the winning solution in almost all combat today. The crossbow was ok, but behind a pavaise, with time to reload without being spitted by longbows created a different dynamic, but having a pavaiseman hauling it around meant that you were slow to move and cavalry could ride you down. Pike formations were formidable if you attacked the pointy end. Slingers, light archers, later gunners, and videttes could give your pikes time to reposition. If not, it could go badly.