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A Perspective
Writing From the Road this past week...
As some of you know, I used to teach a course at the People's Public Security University in Beijing on Chinese Money Laundering. Yes, it's odd that a wretched westerner would be invited to be an adjunct professor to teach that sort of class at the police university. That would not be possible...
The Beat Goes On
For Beans
For RIVERRIDER
It's shark week...
Now and Then
Health Insurance/Uninsurance
Is there a basement?
Trollybus?
It works where there is high-density housing without parking lots for cars. In Russia, you need som...
Weekend Edition
This might be the perfect breakfast sandwich:
Food from China
I avoid it. They've been far more clever lately, "truth in advertising" on the package is stretched to the limit. Food originating somewhere else and processed in China is food from China. I always suspect its purity.
Despite my careful inspection...
When the Wall Fell
An Interesting Purchase
When the Soviet Union fell, the US took possession of the KGB's archives. Some of you may be aware of that, some may not, but we "bought" them in their entirety and learned a great deal from that purchase.
Here are a few things that we learned:
(A) Biopreparat, the Soviet agency that ran a massive clan...
Just That
Captioned Photo: Coming article on China - partially plagiarised, I think. It's difficult for me to recall who told me what, when, and under what circumstances over the past twenty years. Coming Sunday, instead of the sermonette. Ok, it's a sermonette (but not really a polemic). Yes, the photo is from Blade Runner.
...
Open Forum
It's time for another blank slate for you to use to spout off as if you were standing in London at Hyde Park on the Speaker's Corner.
George Orwell once described the place as “one of the minor wonders of the world.” Orwell wrote that at Speakers’ Corner he’d listened to “Indian nationalists, temperance reformers, Communi...
Thoughts
There's a lot of this going on today. Far more than I've ever seen in the US and the elites and their minions do it because it's working.
Corporate America
Masks
I don’t want to hear "listen to science" and then in the same breath, "this mask IS a political statement, and not wearing it ...
You asked for Maps
At Virtual Mirage, we bend to the demands of those who visit the blog more often than you'd think. You want more maps, you get more maps. It's just that simple.
Don't blame me (totally), look inwardly, or outwardly, toward those who insist on a map blog. You know who you are.
Meme-of-the-Day
He terrified Corn Po...
Friend or Foe
Turkey
The question of whether Turkey is a "friend" of Western Nations or an adversary has filled many pages. Yes, they're a full member of NATO. And at the same time, they almost never behave as if they are. I characterize them as friends of convenience. Is that too kind? They have a militant sultan running their country, b...
The PRC – Embarrassed
The Defection
Vice Minister of State Security, Dong Jingwei, defected from China to the United States in mid-February, flying from Hong Kong to the United States with his daughter, Dong Yang.”
Dong Jingwei gave the U.S. information about the Wuhan Institute of Virology that changed the stance of the Biden administration concerning t...
Eye in the Sky
Whatever Happened to USA-247?
cue music
Also known as National Reconnaissance Office Launch 39 or NROL-39, its monopulse radar 3-D imaging technique uses 1-D range image and monopulse angle measurement to get the real coordinates of each scatterer. Using this technique, the image doesn't vary with the change of the target's movement. Mo...
After the Fireworks
S.Kelly's Thoughts
If Brittany has a Conservator, why not Slow Joe?
Flag
Most Americans know what the stars and stripes of the American flag symbolize. The stars in the blue union represent the 50 United States, and the 13 stripes represent the 13 American colonies. However, originally the US fl...
A Day of Celebration
Happy Independence Day!
Embrace freedom in all its forms, promote smaller government, and lower the decision-making to the lowest possible common denominator. Make representatives accountable to those that they represent. We are not their servants. They are ours. It is only this way that we can be independent.
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On July 4, 1776, the D...
Another Rant
The Cursing Cheerleader
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the case of the cursing cheerleader, the Supreme Court notched a victory for the free speech rights of students Wednesday, siding with a high school student whose vulgar social media post got her kicked off the junior varsity squad.
The court voted 8-1 in favor of Brandi Levy, who w...
Movie Review: Tomorrow War
Tomorrow War (Review)
The Tomorrow War is a 2021 American military science fiction action film. The film stars Chris Pratt (who also executively produced), Yvonne Strahovski, J. K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, and follows a group of present-day soldiers who are sent into the future to fight an alien army.
In December 2022, biolo...
Observations
Mines (captioned photo)
In recent years, the US Navy has been pursuing multiple types of new mines, including two air-dropped versions of the Quickstrike family of mines that offer game-changing capabilities such as the ability to be dropped from any altitude and be launched from up to 40 miles away. With their precision guid...
The Holiday Weekend
Courage
The Independence Day Weekend is upon us. Are you going out of town or staying home? Whatever you decide to do, I hope that you do it safely.
The question of whether we have managed to keep our Constitutional freedoms and rights or not can be debated endlessly, but there is no question but what they are under concer...
Politics
55th Speaker of the House - up for grabs?
It’s unclear if former President Trump will again run for the Oval Office in 2024.
But another question is whether Mr. Trump may care to be Speaker of the House when the new Congress begins on Jan. 3, 2023.
Some of that conjecture started to churn again over the weekend when the former presid...
Impressions
True Crime
The Television Series, BOSCH (Amazon Prime) is one that I have followed over seven seasons. Finding a police series where I didn't cringe most of the time was difficult. I only cringed from time to time watching Bosch. Based on the best-selling novels by Michael Connelly, the tag line is: Every murder tells the tale of a cit...
Martian Reflections
Much more liquid water may lie beneath the south pole of Mars than scientists had thought — or there may be something going on down there that they don't fully understand. It all has to do with interpreting the feedback from instruments.
The planetary scientists at Cal Tech have been certain that there was a dee...