For those of you scratching your heads, asking, “What’s with the Ivy theme today?” I strive for randomness to the extent possible while keeping a cohesive blog. Today I thought, ‘What could be more random than ivy?” There should be a sci-fi title here where Ivy overwhelms the planet and becomes sentient, and only DRJIM, LSP, Old NFO, or BRM (alphabet people) can stop it.
STOP
Sometimes things happen because they aren’t stopped. Confusion on the right side of the fence rests in a few pretty common questions: Why are they so angry? Why do they hate me? Why do they want chaos and violence? Considering current and historical events, I think it is because they finally feel the futility of their failed ideology. Coercive collectivism has an unblemished record of 178 consecutive years of verified failure.
I can only begin to imagine devoting a large part of your life to believing in something like that, something that never works. I don’t know because I’m not one, but it sounds a lot like being a New York Jets fan. If you think about it, it is easy to understand why the anger, frustration, and lashing out set in. And when that doesn’t work, the force and murder begin.
We’re not quite there yet, but we are as close as we were in the late 60’s when the communist radicals in the Democrat Party tried to get rid of the “olds” (ala Mao’s Great Leap Forward) at the Democrat National Convention in Chicago and started murdering cops and thought bombing military installations and police stations was a smart thing to do.
How does it stop? It stops when we stop allowing it. I’m coming to believe that I have invented a corollary to Herb Stein’s Law, which says that when something can’t continue, it will stop. My corollary is that sometimes things happen simply because nobody stops them. I think about that every time I see something happening that shouldn’t be allowed to happen (someone getting attacked, a mob fight, etc.), and the event or situation is surrounded by ten times more people with their phones out recording it (or simply sitting passively) than it would take to intervene and stop it.
The Abilene Paradox is a form of “groupthink” that results in the worst possible option being chosen and no member of the group getting anything that they want. The Abilene Paradox is an example of how a lack of care or concern can trigger a cascade of events in which everyone ends up engaged in something they never really agreed to. These situations arise from a lack of will to decide (or to just say “no”), and from a low level of concern or interest that allows things to evolve toward an action nobody anticipated or desires. In short, the entire world of progressive activists exists because nobody stopped it. Nobody spoke out about it because it seemed insignificant at the time; we just didn’t care, or we were afraid to care, and as the stupid grew and began to move, it dragged the rest of the uninterested and ambivalent along behind. It is that way with these ridiculous and illogical ideas, beliefs, concepts, and ideologies.
They persist because the people who could have just called bullshit and stopped them didn’t. The left is trying to shut us down; the problem is that they are the ones fighting reality with illogical ideas, beliefs, concepts, and ideology. While they may win a few small victories, they can’t win the war.
Bullet Points:
** ICE ICE Baby – California’s public school enrollment reports nearly 75,000 fewer students enrolled in public schools this school year, 7x more than the 10K forecasted, in the largest drop in enrollment since the pandemic. (Sing along) The numbers would drop further if there were ICE officers on campuses.
** Around 5% of the US population commits 95% of the crime. It’s not that tough to figure these things out. That demographic needs to be warehoused upon conviction at minimal public expense (El Salvador & Uganda) and forgotten about. Let’s address the root of the crime problem in America and move on. Would Uganda consider accepting our welfare class as well? They might go if we supplied candy bars, malt liquor, and sugar soda for them.
** Based on what I’m hearing from people inside and outside of Iraq, the Shiite militias in Iraq may have fired as many as half of the drones that were unleashed. As it is, I think it’s likely that Iraq’s national boundaries will be redrawn to give the oil fields in Kirkuk to the Kurds. FAFO.
** The effect of TDS is profound – (right) Income differential – $500/hr before TDS, and a $2 rub-and-tug after TDS.
** The ship had loaded up at Iran’s Kharg Island terminal before setting sail. No shots fired, no chaos, just precise enforcement of U.S. sanctions. Trump’s team is systematically choking off Tehran’s oil revenue lifeline, one tanker at a time. Mario Nawfal captured the moment perfectly: “Holy crap! The U.S. Navy just seized nearly 2M barrels of Iranian crude in the Indian Ocean. Tanker Tifani, loaded at Kharg Island and heading to China, boarded without a shot being fired. Trump’s team is draining Tehran’s cash at sea.” The Pentagon confirmed it straight up. They called it a “right-of-visit maritime interdiction” carried out “without incident” in the Indo-Pacific Command area. In their own words: “We will pursue global maritime enforcement efforts to disrupt illicit networks and interdict sanctioned vessels providing material support to Iran — anywhere they operate. International waters are not a refuge for sanctioned vessels.” Commerce raiding. Letters of Marque and Reprisal. There are 250 years of precedent behind it. Sail the ship to a port, and have a prize court condemn the ship and its cargo. Sell it at auction. Money can be applied to war costs or to pay down the deficit. Either way, it’s good.
** Question of the Day: Should Iran be made to pay for our and our allies’ (including Israel’s) costs of the war? With accrued interest?
** Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner, a lifelong Republican and Trump supporter, revealed his/her renewed passport now lists him/her as “male” under President Trump’s new policy. The 76-year-old former Olympian said he/she “can’t travel internationally anymore” and called it a “safety factor”. Jenner refuses to blame Trump: “I don’t blame President Trump. I love the guy, and I love what he’s doing”.
** Good article on the change in oil supply, infrastructure, etc. Allow market forces to dictate prices and keep your thumb off the scale, and things will stabilize. Europe is in a bind, but summer is coming. Will they go nuclear harder? In other news, Germany believes it can rebuild its military to present a credible defense of its homeland by 2040. If they go back to coal, it will help them see that happen. It all comes down to Energy, which is why Musk is aiming to put data centers in space, drawing on solar power.
Nodules, ROVs, SMRs, and Profitability
(Rand) Miles beneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean lies a vast stretch of seabed littered with what appear to be dull, dark rocks. Those rocks are actually polymetallic nodules, rich in the minerals that drive modern economies. They could help the United States break its reliance on China, which otherwise controls the market. But nobody has ever mined seabed nodules at scale, much less processed them for industrial use. Those dirty potatoes contain a fortune in nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper. Those minerals are critical components in everything from batteries and electric engines to advanced weapons. And for now, the global market for them runs through China. The government there has not hesitated to pinch supplies when it wants to make a point. Seabed mining could give the United States a new and much more secure source.
The United States is about to try. But as a recent RAND study found, getting those nodules to the surface is only part of the challenge.
The science that underpins the use of ROV crawlers is advanced, though how much of it remains locked in DARPA vaults is quite another matter. Which is why that’s all I’m going to type about that. It may take presidential intervention to declassify key solved problems to provide them to the commercial mining programs sponsored by the US (and USGOV can take a piece of the profits as a stakeholder, in addition to being a taxing entity, if they provide the technology necessary to make it work quickly).
Federally funded research could identify and mitigate environmental risks, RAND found—and help address some of the opposition to seabed mining. But the list of potential impacts that need more study is much longer than that. Seabed mining could trigger new territorial disputes and increase the need for maritime security forces. It could crash mineral prices, straining some developing countries that rely on mineral royalties.
For example: The Democratic Republic of Congo. Its budget rests on royalties it receives from its sprawling cobalt mines. In every scenario RAND studied, it would stand to lose millions—maybe hundreds of millions—of dollars annually if seabed mining supplanted those mines. Cry me a river. Those minerals are critical components in everything from batteries and electric engines to advanced weapons.
The Pacific seabed is one of the hardest-to-reach places on earth. The area identified as the best bet for mining lies around 2.5 miles down, deeper than the Titanic wreck.
Mining companies have begun seeking approval not from the International Seabed Authority but from the United States. The seabed authority oversees resources in areas of the seafloor beyond national jurisdictions. But it has wrestled for more than two decades with how to regulate mining. The Trump administration has promised no such delay. It plans to use an existing U.S. regulatory framework.
President Trump has described seabed resources as “key to strengthening our economy [and] securing our energy future.” He has called for “immediate action” to explore and map the seafloor and to collect and process the minerals there.
Small modular nuclear generators can be used to produce the energy required to process these strategic minerals in a “clean energy” environment. If you want these materials outside of a supply chain controlled by America’s enemies, that’s how to do it.
For those of you who felt that PINK, WET, and JUICY constituted false advertising ->
This is your meme of the day.
Identify the Small Arm
1
2 & 3
4
Identify the Aircraft
5
6
26 built
7
Parting Shot
dirty jobs
End
1 looks to be FN Minimi
2 looks to be M2 Browning body.
3 HK 416 F
4 is French MAT 49
Exactly!
1 – FN Minimi
2 – Browning M2
3 – HK416-F
4 – MAT-49
5 – Fairchild XC-120
6 – Short Seamew
7 – Tupolev Tu-91
Outstanding
Regarding Commerce Raiding, which it is when done by a nation’s navy. Go for it. I don’t want PMCs to get Letters of Marque and Reprisals as then you get some really weird corporate bullscat. Unless the PMCs are hired by the .mil and have small US Navy crews that the PMC crewed vessels are ‘under command’ of and that gets rid of that legal issue.
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Commerce raided ships and cargo? Sold, money goes to the War Department to cover expenses of the injured and dead and to replace equipment used and should not be considered as part of the yearly budget. It should not be like “Lotto for Schools” where the estimated Lotto take is taken out of the school systems’ budgets for that year. It should be considered an after-budget ‘gift’ and not count towards the following year either.
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And, yes, Iran and all it’s puppets should pay and pay and pay for the War. Both financially and in having the country reduced in size (Go Kurdistan, y’all are muslims but you treat your women better than most.)
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Same with Venezuela. Or any other country that forces us to put the hammer down on their pea-sized heads. If it comes to us invading the UK or France, then make them pay and pay and pay. Not as bad as what France did to Germany, but there should be considerations for the US for saving the world, yet again, from bad actors.
X2…This came to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9ojK9Q_ARE
There is a fine line between commerce raiding and piracy. The letter of marque and reprisal lends some legality, but in this environment, I agree with you fully. There are a lot of Iranian assets being unmasked by the Gulf States that the Ayatollahs shot missiles at. Those are quietly being locked up by the US government, and I expect that they will be repurposed as reparations to the USA. There will be ongoing commerce once the war is over, and I hope that we levy a war tax on every barrel shipped from Iran.
Let’s face it.
There is no appeal to a world government on the legality of our actions.
Maybe an appeal to common sense among the nations.
It’s the Rule of the Big Dog.
again Beans the rare occasion arises where I must offer an alternative point of view:
it’s not “Iran” (or Persia” if you prefer) that will pay the price of the war as we learned after WWI; it’s the surviving non-combatants; the very people the world (I would hope) wants to rebuild their nation with the view of stepping/leaping into the 21st Century and a less agressive reading of their bible (قرآن). So many of them were slaughtered by one means or another by the Mullahs/their radical religious leaders, I am unable envision placing any further yokes on their necks. the moral (or primary, if you like) question remains: should the survivors be punished for their leaders’ misdeeds?
another point of view: did we take up arms against our past regimes that went our moral fiber? should we have done so? should we be taking up arms against the groups that we see are damaging our society, our nation?
As to deep-sea mining, a topic Jules Verne touched on, by the way, it’s going to take a further revolution in ROV systems and power supplies and support ships to make it economical. Basically almost the same level as doing actual lunar or asteroid mining.
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Part of the problem, as the CIA found, is that doing deep water operations with cables and lifts and all that stuff is difficult. It’s much ‘easier’ to have an untethered vehicle, powered by nukes, do the mining and transfer, down there, the materials to a ‘lifter’ vessel that does the up/down circuit. Then unload lifter vessel into a surface transport vessel. See where it gets difficult? Add cables and cords and tethers to all that and you end up with ships sinking or being dragged around or dragging around what they’re connected to as in James Cameron’s “Abyss.” (An excellent movie to the issues of deep diving operations, especially when weather interferes.
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I don’t know how much DARPA has evolved the systems they have, but it’s gonna be a real intact female dog of breeding age to get the technology to where it’s economical, not just feasible, but economical.
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I’d like to see it (or asteroid mining) as a way of breaking the powers of corrupt national and state governments (like oh, say, California, which derives lots of money from oil even as they’re kicking the oil industry in the crotch every chance they can.)
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Problem is, just like building Navy ships and working planes, we’ve lost so much industrial ability to create economical equipment to do such type of mining. Yeah, sure, the ROKs could probably build it all cheaper, faster and better than we can now with what we have for shipyards and unions and environmental regulations, but that puts the ROKs in the driver seat for cashing in on the nodule market. Dammit, we need shipyards, big beautiful and messy shipyards and the environmental regulations and do-gooders all need to be told to kiss off and shut up and let the adults take care of the problems.
Economics requires an economy of scale. One-off ventures are always money pits.
I wondered about this and so did a search.
‘The seabed mining industry, driven by the need for critical minerals, faces a complex legal battle with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which dictates that resources beyond national jurisdiction are the “common heritage of mankind”.
While the International Seabed Authority (ISA) regulates international waters, the US, as a non-party to UNCLOS, seeks to operate independently, causing legal, political, and investment tensions. ‘
I think that the US would say (much as with the Moon) if you can do it, you can do it.
It’s the Rule of the Big Dog.
Poison ivy? I knew a girl once, a long time ago, whose nickname was “Lantana”. If she got her hooks into you it was difficult to get her to let go.
Ah, the old days.
Maybe Mamdani could take over the Jets. I’m sure that would straighten things out. Or start up a government sponsored football team, like his grocery stores. But what to name it? The NYFC Unicorns? The Rainbows? How about The Mahdis? Aggies got the 12th Man, the Mahdis could have the 12th Imam. Problem solved.
Zoltan continues to preside over a disaster. I hope people get tired of him.
Name change:
Reds
Comrade’s
Identify the Small Arm:
1. FN Minimi
2. M2 Browning, with someone else presumably carrying the barrel.
3. Heckler & Koch HK416
4. MAT-49
Identify the Aircraft:
5. Fairchild XC-120 Packplane
6. Short Seamew
7. Tupolev Tu-91 Boot
Well done, Surly
Picture 2. Ahhh, another beautiful day for a morning walk in the in the vineyards. Just sixty some pounds for the gun. Another 25 pounds for the barrel and another 45 pounds for the tripod. Plus did Henri remember to bring the ammo? Plus your regular kit, personal weapon and whatever else the Captain deemed helpful on a morning stroll to stretch out the legs after a great night’s sleep under the stars. When is second breakfast?
Life under the standard. Every day is like a day on the farm – every meal’s a banquet, every paycheck a fortune, every formation a parade!
Wow. I wonder why more people don’t sign up for that….
As I have mentioned before on this blog – what you do when you’re young often revisits you when you’re old.
Hang on a second, need to adjust my knee brace…recall the first left knee ‘tweak’ when playing pond hockey as a 12 yo, that was the start.
Well, that brings back a forgotten memory. Mid-70’s, West Germany, MOS 45B, Small Arms Repair. Our Bn unit crest —
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https://www.uniforms-4u.com/p-army-71-maintenance-battalion-unit-crest-8187.aspx
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–and so we did. My buddy and I would drive our M109 shop van to customer units and repair what we could on the spot. The Baader-Meinhof Gang was active then, and various “enhanced” security measures had been implemented. At one arms room went to (an armored CAV squadron IIRC) their solution to meet their new security requirements was to lay all the M2 receivers on their sides on the arms room floor, and run a chain through them. The really fun part was that you had to walk over the M2’s to get to the other weapons.
TDS in a Picture: Beyond true…yet when looking in the mirror all they see is the first picture, no amount of truth or ‘Cap’n Obvious’ will shake them from the delusion.
Same goes for Blue Cities/States losing businesses and students…they’ll couch it as fewer tax revenue is okay since we now have fewer students, that is until their skimmed largess becomes ‘less’.
–
Some early morning back channel discussion with ‘the brothers’ on TDS; ‘The Carlson’s’ (TC and his brother), having been brought up under a CIA Op father…in DC, having gone to all the same Prep schools, etc…now switch-hitting for the other side, is everything it appears, a PsyOp. Then that reprobate Fuentes [allegedly – gotta say that these days even if true] getting paid $270K by the SPLC now they are under a Grand Jury indictment, is working to undermine Trump after the fact when prior he was shilling FOR Trump…Grisham can’t make this stuff up. The conclusion was/is that everything is a PsyOp, nothing we see is real. Yesterday Tarlov was desperate to restate the Charlotte ‘good people’ hoax while intermingling the newest ’32 boat Strait’ hoax into her forced argument…until Watters rightfully explained ‘those promoting ‘X’ while getting paid by the opposition, then to switch sides at the end of it’ does not support anything she just said. TDS, no fixing the demented brain.
I can’t stand listening to Tarlov, the women of the view, Rosie, DeGenerate, or any of the butch lesbians who are just nasty. I do know a number of ladies who like ladies who are very nice people. There is a crude license that seems to come with the liberal blue/purple hair crowd with rings in their noses like bulls.
Me too, those types are beyond rational. Lately have been weaning myself rapidly from the corporate shillage…tuned in to see what the operators were saying about things I already had my opinion. Not surprised at the result. I do wonder…slight
Y..who watches The View, gotta be the mentally ill.
Perhaps not directly on topic, still, the enemy within.
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https://x.com/RealLindellTV/status/2046686783052947826
Omar is a loathsome piece of garbage. Time to bring her up…but Congress is circling the wagons on their reprobate inner circle.
Reference Ivy: In some parts, kudzu would do well and in the PNW, bind weed would be happy to be the villain. Both grow faster than ivy and are more difficult to control.
Just a thought.
Rap crap with a white boy is still nn!
A Navy question for those who may know: Did Secretary Phelan resign because of the resistance in Congress to restarting shipyards and getting repair facilities funding or did he get fed up with all the paperwork and show.
*****
Undersea mining: ten or fifteen years ago, the Russians were attempting to use a crawler vehicle to drill for petroleum products under the artic ice cap. The thought made some news and then faded away.
HEB is pointing out some of the harder facts about retrieving large amounts of material from the ocean floor. The Cousteaus had problems just working in relatively shallow water, but they certainly accomplished some incredible research.
https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/so-the-secnav-has-departed
The Russians, Chinese and US have experimented with bottom crawlers. I suggest as others have that a nuclear power plant seems to be a prerequisite to seriously mining the ocean floor at those depths. They can create oxygen and float bags of ore to the surface, for example, and remain on station forever if there is no crew to support. You would want at least two (two is one, one is none) crewed vessels that are capable of servicing your subsurface mining fleet.
Thank you LL
I read Sal and he linked to a NYT article behind a pay wall.
I realized that if I move fast enough, I can open the link, hit Ctrl-A (select all), and quickly hit Ctrl-C (copy), then paste into Word and read the article.
I’m a slow learner.
.
But Sal gave a great explanation.
Geez…never thought of that. Now I have to give it try. Thx for the ProTip.
deep sea mining:
entice private industry (Musk?) to develop deep-sea mining drones
Kurds: who/what international body has the power to draw lasting borders for the Kurdish nation? the UN – sorry! didn’t mean to make an unfunny – or can The Donald just begin treating with “the Kurdish nation” as though it were an entity – is there enough interest among the tribes to become a nation?
Hmm. Last time I remember a big push to mine nodules from the sea floor, the initial ship was funded through Howard Hughes and Co, done by the CIA in an attempt to recovery K-129. Partially successful. Project Azorian/Jennifer.
Those of y’all who HAVEN’T heard of this program, please take one step forward. The rest of the Company is dismissed from morning formation.
“I think it is because they finally feel the futility of their failed ideology”
Worse, is there failed religion. They are angry at their God. They are left empty.
That is the prime aspect: emptiness. Starts when their internal lost self turns to angst it is only a matter of time before it turns to hatred to EVERYONE else with ZERO self examination as to the why because that requires humility. These were the ones held up to a mirror by their mothers who told them they were great and beautiful and special and infallible…then reality sets in when adulthood requires responsibility for ones actions. After that they implode. (I was curious why so much Pot, Xanex, and a few other brain fogging drugs are being consumed…no wondering now.)
Sir, your comment about Ivy becoming sentient reminded me of the British show “Space:1999”. It had an episode titled The Rules of Luton (Season 2, Episode 8).
Here’s the synopsis: Koenig and Maya land on a planet where the alien plant rulers put them through trial by combat after they inadvertently kill some of the local plant life.
The show is out there still for viewing.
The real 1999 turned out to be a big disappointment for those of us who watched the TV show.
Remember the Glomar Explorer? It was ‘originally’ supposed to be a commercial endeavor aimed at harvesting manganese nodules from the seabed…
Yeah, supposed to be, but repurposed. That was a long time ago, and ROV tech has improved.
>Ivy overwhelms the planet and becomes sentient
Stargate SG-1, I think? I remember a viny piece of something that “the team” took back to it’s home planet where it re-attached itself to the planetwide lifeform.
It might have been crystals, not ivy.