Bullet Points:
** Legalize recreational plutonium.
** Israel’s Gaza City Occupation Plan Forces: 5 divisions (3 regular) operating in Gaza. Phase 1 is underway with strikes on tunnels at the city outskirts. Objective: Encircle Gaza City, push inside, seize Hamas strongholds. Troops to enter areas untouched since the war began. Civilians: IDF to move ~800K residents south; aid centers and field hospitals being set up with UN/NGO support. Timeline: To last 4–6 months. Reserves: 60K new call-ups, extending service for 70K already deployed.
** BRM discusses fertilizing the moron farm here. What to do about it?
** Recalling the Old Country.
** MSNBC has been cut adrift by its parent company and is now on a slow dance to destruction. Without the resources of NBC News, the left-wing network will have to compete independently. MS has an aging audience of urban leftists who never left the hippie bubble of the 1960s. A few minorities tune in to get a daily dose of grievance, but that’s about it. It’s tough to sit through “your country is awful” every day. CNN will inherit some MS refugees, but it won’t nearly be enough to save that operation. It’s not as raw as its counterpart, so the crack high is diminished.
** The Lebanese government and the World Bank will reportedly sign a 250 million USD loan agreement early next week that seeks to support Lebanon’s reconstruction. This loan agreement is likely part of the Lebanese government’s efforts to use reconstruction fronts to weaken Hezbollah’s ability to maintain its domestic support base.
** The United States conducted an operation reportedly targeting senior Iraqi ISIS leader Salah Noman in Atmeh, Idlib Province, on August 20. The US ground operation in Atmeh occurs amid ongoing counter-ISIS efforts in northern Syria near the Turkish border, including a recent ground operation in al Bab in July 2025.
** The Salvation Game – the second oldest profession. Maybe the oldest, depending on how you figure it.
** The most French Man in the world – stay thirsty, my friends. Watching a French movie is simply watching two depressed people in a bar, drinking cheap wine, smoking Gauloises or Gitanes, and saying, “life is shit.”
** Don’t call me Mr. Vegas – because the place holds no appeal for me. Tourism is off 11% and the democrats there blame President Trump. Of course they do. Maybe it’s the $35.00 hamburgers and $40.00 slices of cheese pizza that are keeping the tourists away. It went from a tourist trap to a tourist slaughterhouse, and the Las Vegans are angry that the sheep have learned that they’re being killed, not sheared, and are staying away.
** The New York Stock Exchange has a new Texas home. Texas is now the financial capital of America, employing more financial services workers than the state of New York – over 384,000.
** Walmart sold radioactive shrimp (see below). I expect that there will be thousands of people who turn into superhero shrimp people. It will be confusing to have everyone claiming to be “ShrimpMan” or “ShrimpWoman” but life can be like that.
Drug Cartels – What to do?
Article by Austin Bay (h/t Claudio) Sometime after 2002, Communist China began subtly transforming organized Latin American drug trafficking syndicates. The gangs, the biggest with the hired guns, money, and political connections to rate as cartels, continued their usual felony and smuggling operations but added a line of operation: hybrid warfare entities, shape-shifting cousins to Iranian proxy armies and classic guerrilla cadres. The goal of this Chinese-induced transformation: waging plausibly deniable disintegrative, chemical, and anarchic war against America on America’s soil. Chemical war? Killer drugs are chemicals.
VM: I don’t have an issue with Bay’s article, but it’s more complicated than that. By 2000, the US was on a path to legalize marijuana and grow it domestically. Yes, the cartels could be investors if they wanted to be, but the profit margin for legal marijuana was far below what they were making from the drug when it was illegal. The cartels started ramping up opium production in Central America and parts of Mexico because the use of heroin had fallen precipitously. Heroin is very profitable. It’s very addictive.
War story: I was running a joint agency task force in Southern California targeting Asian Organized Crime (MikeW is well aware) and at one point I tasked a source to find Asian White Heroin (#4 Heroin). He vanished, returning 60 days later with an ounce of China White. I asked him where he got it. He said, “New York City, I couldn’t find it anywhere else, and it was tough to get there.” I was looking for China White closer to my area of operation (West Coast or even Vancouver, Canada). The point here is that what was once available was then scarce. The same was true of Mexican tar heroin (#3 heroin). You didn’t see it anymore. Then came Chinese Fentanyl (an opiate) and the resurgence of Mexican #3 Heroin being dumped on the street at bargain basement prices.
By the time heroin came back, I was working on other projects that didn’t directly involve drugs.
China entered the game intending to degrade the USA through the supply of cheap fentanyl – you are here.
The question of what to do about Mexican cartels is not an easy one. Cutting the supply at the point of production in China is a good first step, and President Trump is attempting to do so.
Sealab
My father worked on Sealab a long time ago.
SEALAB II was launched in 1965. It was nearly twice as large as SEALAB I, with heating coils installed in the deck to ward off the constant helium-induced chill, and air conditioning to reduce the oppressive humidity. Facilities included hot showers, a built-in toilet, laboratory equipment, eleven viewing ports, two exits, and refrigeration. It was placed in the La Jolla Canyon off the coast of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, in La Jolla, California, at a depth of 205 feet (62 m). On August 28, 1965, the first of three teams of divers moved into what became known as the “Tilton Hilton” (Tiltin’ Hilton, because of the slope of the landing site). The support ship Berkone hovered on the surface above, within sight of Scripps Pier. The helium atmosphere conducted heat away from the divers’ bodies so quickly that temperatures were raised to 30 °C (86 °F) to ward off chill.
Each team spent 15 days in the habitat, but aquanaut/former astronaut Scott Carpenter remained below for a record 30 days. In addition to physiological testing, the 28 divers tested new tools, methods of salvage, and an electrically heated drysuit. They were aided by a bottlenose dolphin named Tuffy from the United States Navy Marine Mammal Program. Aquanauts and Navy trainers attempted, with mixed results, to teach Tuffy to ferry supplies from the surface to SEALAB or from one diver to another, and to come to the rescue of an aquanaut in distress. When the SEALAB II mission ended on October 10, 1965, plans were also in place for Tuffy to participate in SEALAB III.
In 2002, a group of researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network boarded the MV Kellie Chouest. It used a Scorpio ROV to find the site of the SEALAB habitat. This expedition was the first return to the site since the habitat was moved.
Primitive War
I think I’ll wait two weeks until they put it on Netflix. Full Metal Jacket meets Jurassic Park. Fake Marines kill CGI dinosaurs. I’m not saying it won’t be entertaining, but it would be better if there were real dinosaurs. As it is, no dinosaurs were injured during the filming of the movie.
Identify the Armor
1
2
Identify the Aircraft
3
Yes, it’s a tri-motor
4
5
Parting Shot
The Iranian frigate IRIS Sahand (F74) has unexpectedly capsized while in the port of Bandar Abbas.
What was the cause? I’m going with climate change.
End
3 is de Havilland DH.66 Hercules
If you ever go through Brisbane International Airport the Fokker tri motor that did the first USA to Australia flight is on display there.
BRM & Morons: The comments cover the solution(s) pretty well.
***
Vegas: Flew in there once in the early 90’s to support a client at Comdex. Leaving the airport the Glitter Gulch hawkers and their other establishment counterparts were handing out free tickets to their…uhh…venues. Never went back (to Vegas, that is), never plan to either. The thing about the desert, once the power quits, most people leave.
***
Jumbo Shrimp Panic: So Walmart has now breached “truck stop Sushi” territory. Yet people have very short memories these days, give it a week for the next media MAGA deflection nonsense over, say, Twinkies and they’ll fall right back to buying shrimp again. Media went hyper yesterday with an “active shooter” at Villanova…a Mass-ive hoax.
Parting Shot: Anyone check with Rep. Hank “Guam” Johnson to get his take? …I’m guessing
OpError: *…I’m guessing someone in the engine room said, “Hey, what’s this chain for?”…while yanking on it…and out popped the plug.
:-)
“Hey, can we do better than North Korea?”
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“Yes we can!!!!”
Vegas. As you might remember LL, I live there now. The fact is they don’t want to acknowledge the over price issue.
In the past, I used to call it the “Miami Gouge Mentality” as during “the season”, prices would more than quadruple
Then you have morons like the CEO of MGM saying in effect “We’ll charge what we want until they stop paying”
Surprise! The folks have finally caught on
Vegas
A place to drive past while cursing the traffic on I-15. If I need to RON I choose Mesquite.
Joetote – There seems to be a mentality wherein the general public (viewed as “mooches”) owes the Las Vegas Entertainment/Gambling interests a living.
From what I’ve seen on the interwebs, the 13% have discovered bigly both Vegas and the Cruise industry. Daily chimp-outs and ghetto-brawls, wasted food, disease everywhere.
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I thought about Vegas one time. Go see the shows and such. But, really, no. Just no. I hate crowds that I’m not allowed to wear armor around.
Never go full retard dinosaur.
Identify the Armor:
1. Chinese PLL-09 122mm self-propelled howitzer
2. Merkava Mk. IV
Identify the Aircraft:
3. Armstrong Whitworth Argosy
4. Consolidated PB2Y Coronado
5. North American P-64
Surly, I think that IDA 5 is the Curtis P-36 Hawk. Take a close look at the fuselage and glazing immediately behind the pilot. The P-36 has a cut out for rear view whereas the P-64 cockpit is entirely different.
It’s good you know the armor as I look at it and say tank or fighting vehicle.
Well done, Surly, but Dave nailed the Hawk.
I wasn’t confident about that. Kudos to Dave.
**Breaking sidebar**: Patel is moving, FBI raided Bolton’s MD house this morning.
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Who’s next?
You wouldn’t find much joy going through John Bolton’s underwear. The question of “who ratted Bolton out” will be found in the sealed S/W Affidavit. I’m not a John Bolton fan. Time for him to pay up for his goofy B. S.
Hazard pay being forced to go thru his tighty-whitey’s.
FBI agents are RAIDING the DC-area home of President Trump’s former national security adviser JOHN BOLTON this Friday morning in a high-profile national security probe.
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Federal agents went to Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., at 7 a.m. in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel.
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“NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” Kash Patel said in a cryptic post to X shortly after the raid began.
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Bolton was home at the time of the 7:00 a.m. raid on his D.C.-area house, according to a source familiar with the situation.
The probe — which is said to involve classified documents — was first launched years ago, but the Biden administration shut it down “for political reasons,” according to a senior US official.
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The searches are focused on potential classified documents agents believe Bolton may still possess, according to another source.
via NYP
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https://nypost.com/…/patels-fbi-raids-john-boltons…/
If you’re going to obtain a search warrant, the information about the presence of contraband that is the subject of the search has to be “fresh.” You can’t allege it was there two years ago and obtain a warrant. Someone had to have seen the classified information (one document is sufficient in this case) and reported Bolton to the FBI.
Why Boulton, and not Clapper or Brennan?
Unless they want to turn him?
The “potential” adder was to a avoid media lawsuits….playing not to lose. There was probable cause. Same with Clapper and Brennan, those two are “in process”…PDJT and the A-Team don’t project their next moves.
Ed, they’re taking Clapper, Brannon, and friends down a grand jury route. I’m sure that if somebody provided them with credible probable cause, they’d search Brennan, Clapper, Comey, the Clintons, Schiff, AOC, etc.
From Elsa Kurt: Well, this isn’t something you see every day… unless you happen to live in a Hallmark movie where the sheriff also happens to be the president.
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On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced he planned to personally patrol the streets of Washington, D.C., alongside police officers and members of the National Guard. No photo ops, no press parade. Just Trump, boots on the ground.
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“I’m going to be going out tonight. I’m going to keep it a secret. But I’m going to go, and you’re the only one who knows,” Trump told radio host Todd Starnes. “I’m going to be going out tonight, I think, with the police and with the military, of course. We’re going to do a job. The National Guard is great. They’ve done a fantastic job.”
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This comes on the heels of a rapid shift in D.C.’s crime stats since Trump’s temporary takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department (a move that sent the left into hysterics and the mainstream media into overtime spin mode.) But here are the numbers the narrative can’t hide: violent crime is down 22 percent, carjackings have dropped 83 percent, and robberies are down nearly 46 percent in just over a week.
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Vice President J.D. Vance summed it up over burgers with National Guard members at Union Station: “If you look at what’s happened in Washington, D.C., in just the past nine days, we’ve seen a 35 percent reduction in violent crime… You can actually bring law and order to communities. You’ve just gotta have the political willpower to do it.”
Imagine that. Political willpower. Something blue-run cities have been allergic to for decades.
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Of course, The Washington Post tried its best to twist Vance’s comments into some nefarious “test case” narrative, implying the administration wants to “take over” blue cities across America. What Vance actually said was straightforward: set a standard in D.C., prove law and order works, and maybe other cities will follow suit.
Naturally, protesters were expected to swarm the city Thursday night, yelling about “freeing D.C.” But as Vance put it: “Let’s free D.C. from lawlessness. Let’s free Washington, D.C., from one of the highest murder rates in the entire world. That’s what we’re trying to free D.C. from.”
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Trump framed it even more bluntly last week when he announced the temporary takeover:
“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youths, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people, and we’re not going to let it happen anymore.”
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This is unprecedented. Not since Teddy Roosevelt walked late-night police beats in the 1890s has a president even considered something like this. But then again, unprecedented is sort of Trump’s brand. And if the early numbers are any indication, it’s working.
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Annnnd cue leftist outrage…
Far too many politicians think leading consists of a roundtable discussion consisting of endless repetitions of “What do you think we should do” & “I dunno, what do you think”; all while holding a wet finger up to see which way the wind is blowing.
Pity, sort of, the Left. Every day the Trump administration hits a new target. Reminds me of Eric Esch, aka Butterbean. Hard to hurt and the incoming punches are relentless.
Las Vegas and food. Yeah, no stuffing, Sherlock. Can’t speak to Las Vegas as I have only driven through there once, in the early 80’s at night, returning from Texas to California. On that same excursion to Texas, I stopped at the Ormsby House in Carson City for dinner. Full spread prime rib dinner with live entertainment and complimentary glass of Cabernet for about $8. I have always like their logo–
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https://aroundcarson.com/2008/06/08/ormsby_house_logo/
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Some years later I had a layover at the Reno airport. Several casinos ran free shuttles to and from the airport on about a 15 minute rotation. I picked one (don’t recall which now) rode over, picked out a buffet for lunch, then rode back to catch my flight.
I just called a friend who said that a common price for a buffet at the nicer hotels in Las Vegas is $70 per person. Higher-end buffets like the Bacchanal at Caesars Palace often have the highest prices, while some off-Strip or older buffets offer lower-cost options. (See Vegas Vacation) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lvhkfCBwxQ
I just searched Google for the price of a meal at Golden Corral (buffet): Golden Corral buffet prices vary by location, mealtime, and age, but generally, breakfast costs around $9-$11, lunch is roughly $11-$13, and dinner is approximately $16-$18 I think they cry when the Tongans show up.
Cry indeed.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRo6DCvJWIU
The Hungry Heifer, aka Golden Corral…their over 55 discount (I refuse to say “senior”) makes it $11 here in the Fort Collins one…and you can sit for hours testing all manner of good comfort food in volume. I like it…once in a while.
Another fun music video has appeared:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAK5VH8WIt0&t=55s
Good one
that wm shrimp was contaminated by the shipping container which at some time held cesium 127. the containers have now been tracked to the five largest u.s. ports at some point. wtf, over?
Yeah, the Chinese.
Upper their nefarious lousy Qual Control, went from melamine to cesium. Pretty big leap.
VDH is not wrong… dammit… Re Sealab testing, I ‘believe’ that is what caused Scott Carpenter to lose his astronaut rating, as he had an issue that prevented him from requalifying…
He lost flight status before moving to Sealab – motorcycle crash.
I’ve watched some VDH videos about WWII and, sadly, he gets way too many things wrong way too often.
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Like calling the battleships, especially the old ones, useless and a waste. Tell that to every soldier and marine that those ships provided excellent fire support. Tell that to the troops on Guadalcanal who watched the Tokyo Express get blown out of the water regularly.
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The one on the Sherman, well, he talked about how easy it was to fix. So? That was all the US equipment, from jeeps to trucks to armor, all of it. Built with an eye to easy repair or replace or salvage. Like the M18 Hellcat. The ability to remove the powerpack easily and quickly because the designers put the darned powerpac on rails and bing-bang-boom, there you go.
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Little things like that, just painting everything with too wide a brush. It annoys me. Makes me grumpy. He could do better, can do better, should do better.