Can we call these the “Bill Gates“?
The road is paved with good intentions – or so it’s said. Good intentions with bad outcomes.
Bullet Points:
** Reprioritizations within the US War Department have changed deployment schedules. You shouldn’t spend money you don’t have. The US Army has deployed along the Southern US Border and has changed its force posture elsewhere. The Europeans wonder whether they’re in last place. (h/t Claudio) The reality of European Allies turning the US away when it needed to use bases to support operations in the Persian Gulf may haunt them. Or maybe, in their increasing hostility toward the US, they’ll simply be what they’ve long yearned to express. Fairweather friends are not ‘friends’.
** More Ash and Iron. The Last Crusade. John Hunyadi. Cesarini had prepared his argument that the oath didn’t count before the treaty was even signed. The same day the king sent his ambassador east to negotiate peace, he swore a second oath before the cardinal, promising to continue the crusade no matter what the negotiation produced. The peace was a theatre. The war was already decided. And then there’s the charge. Hunyadi sent a direct message — hold the line, do not advance. The flanks were holding. The plan was working. A twenty-year-old king looked across the field, saw the Sultan, and rode straight at him with 500 knights. He almost made it. Almost doesn’t survive ten thousand janissaries. Here’s the question I can’t settle: does the blame sit with Cesarini for voiding the oath, or with Władysław for breaking the line? One man destroyed the diplomacy. The other destroyed the army. Constantinople paid for both. I know where I land on it — curious where you do. (Sermonette)
The story of Prester John is coming. Prester John was a postulated Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe from the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian nation lost among pagans and Muslims in the Orient.
** Ammo.com – Which state reigns supreme for gun buyers? We analyzed purchase laws in all 50 states and compiled a list of the top 10. Whether you’re looking to move or you want to see if your state made the cut, this report is for you! West Virginia, Montana, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Idaho, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Georgia, and Kentucky are the easiest states in which to buy a gun. West Virginia does not apply sales tax to firearms, while Montana and New Hampshire have no state sales tax. Thirty-six states do not require a permit to purchase a long gun or handgun. No permits to purchase, few restrictions, age requirements, and no sales tax on firearms are just a few of the features of the best states in our article. Give it a read and share!
** What worked and what didn’t work during the Ukraine War. (Strategypage weighs in – h/t Claudio) Russian ground defenses in depth worked. The Ukes don’t have the capacity for large-scale airborne invasions, and even if they did, could they support them across contested distances?
** When one thinks of rebellion, the cost is not always factored in. This is a Star Wars monologue, but it applies elsewhere.
** An Englishman muses about the abuse of British women at the hands of their immigrant (muslim) friends. The experiences of the Germans and the Swedes are remarkably similar. It leaves me to wonder where they go from here. Hoisted on their own petards? Oh yes, that goes without saying. But what are they willing to do about it? (see rebellion above) (Sermonette) “The barbarians never take a city until someone opens the gates for them.” The problem the UK faces is that the infestation has reached the backbone. Excision will be messy if they go down that path. Or maybe they’ll just go along with the caliphate.
** Texas golf – I think the sport will supplant the traditional stick thing.
** CVN-78 Rebuild – a two-year evolution.
** I told one of my daughters, “I didn’t raise a window licker.” A bystander remarked, “That is highly ableist, vulgar, and inappropriate for polite conversation due to its origins as a slur against disabled and mentally challenged individuals.” Or words to that effect. My daughter said, “He’s trying to be polite – not using the word ‘retard’.” My daughter is a CPA and not an idiot – but stupid is as stupid does sometimes. Is it wrong to point it out?
Debt
There are four ways to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio: increase economic growth, raise additional revenue, cut spending, and reduce interest payments through default. Ultimately, U.S. federal policymakers will need to determine the specific combination of strategies to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio.
Reducing the federal debt burden could save trillions of dollars in interest payments. Net interest payments in 2055 are projected to account for one-fifth of all federal expenditures. Real (inflation-adjusted) cumulative net interest payments on the debt over the years 2025–2055 will have totaled $52.8 trillion, equivalent to 181 percent of U.S. GDP in 2024. Reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio to the post-WWII lows by 2055 could reduce cumulative net interest payments over the next three decades by 45 percent.
The deficit relative to GDP can be decreased by increasing economic growth, raising revenue, and stabilizing or reducing spending. There is no appetite for spending reductions. A 3.2 percent annual real GDP growth rate over the next 30 years would, by itself, reduce the debt to the post-WWII low of 23 percent of GDP by 2055. Such growth is double current projections and might not be feasible given slowing population growth and an aging workforce. A simpler tax code might raise additional revenue by improving economic efficiency and reducing compliance burdens on individuals and corporations. Additional revenues could come from increasing the share of federal revenues from corporations, which was 11 percent in 2024 but as high as 35 percent in 1950. Taxing the corporate sector more means taxing the public more because they pass it on.
Ensuring that future federal spending does not outpace inflation would limit the debt-to-GDP ratio. Medical inflation, for instance, leads to higher costs for Medicare, Medicaid, and other health programs and is a key contributor to the baseline projection of 2.0 percent annual real expenditure growth rate between 2025 and 2055.
What’s YOUR plan? Taxes are much like sins. Everyone has a favorite one that they want you to keep your hands off of (Sermonette).
Covid Cover-Up
This is just the beginning. History will remember Fauci as one of the most despicable self-serving fraudsters in the scientific community of the Twenty-First Century.
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
3
4
End
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Antonov An-132D
2. MiG-21U Mongol
3. Mil Mi-24 Hind
4. Mil Mi-28 Havoc
Outstanding Surly. Fast…
I believe my home state of Queenihas the most guns per person in Australia (I try to help keep numbers up).
State Government did not change laws after the shooting in Sydney and in NOT doing a “buy back”.
Had a meeting with local Member of Parliament eight weeks ago and suggested changing laws would not be a good idea. At the meeting he agreed (not sure how much that means). They have made a few attempts at recruiting me into their party.
Had another shooting range open last month about half an hour from home so a positive move.
RCC thank you for doing your part. The results worldwide show that armed societies are polite societies. They also show that importing savages into your country is a bad thing. I realize that some politicians hope to boost their support among savages by fawning over them, but it ends badly. Some say that excluding people based on the criteria that they are savages is somehow “racist” or “abelist” or whatever “ist” they come up with but there is evidence worldwide that is unambiguous.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18fmKJ8wde/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Agreed.
Queensland (auto correct swear)
Window licker. There are some among us that are always on the lookout to be offended. Mrs. FHubert doesn’t think it would be wise to allow me comment on social media. She is of course correct as always. An occasional awkward comment on this online oracle is my only online footprint. As my mother often said to myself and my 5 brothers, “you have the obvious family character flaw, the inability to keep one’s mouth shut when one probably should.” I think that I share that trait with many of the others on this fine forum.
I have the ability to keep my mouth shut. My problem is, I refuse to use it. Especially when somebody who should mind their own failing business sticks their nose into mine.
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My old age has increasingly revealed an inability to keep up with certain societal norms and trends, or perhaps just an abject lack of interest. This “bystander” business, for example. Is that a code name for something else, like “Karen” or “busy-body?” Help an old guy out here, please. What fresh hell is this?
I could (possibly to my own detriment) not give a tinker’s damn (or a rat’s ass) about what some metrosexual, woke, pajama boy thinks about anything.
Something I said offended you? Let me make a note. I may want to use it again.
😄
X2…The Boyz were having this discussion earlier when the question was asked by a spouse, “How come we don’t get together with ‘them’ anymore?”. Tolerance for Bravo Sierra reduces as one ages, it is the difference between being a ‘nice guy’ vs. a ‘good man’…’nice guys finish last’ as the old saying goes, and for good reason.
TDS makes them foam at the mouth – so you show up to the party in a MAGA t-shirt with a TRUMP ball cap and examine their “tolerance”. Or you drop bombs such as, “does it offend you that I don’t want to chop my dick off, shave my legs and walk like a park fairy with a cucumber up my ass?”
It’s useful to have barbs to sling on demand.
X2!
A business associate of like mind refers to the process we are describing as “being transparent.”
“… (failure) to support operations in the Persian Gulf may haunt them.”
It seems that the ‘hauntavirus’ is a double-edged sword. It works both ways. Alliances built on sand, paella, or bread pudding, can’t be serious alliances. Best to send them to the dump.
There are many countries that the US can ignore. Spain is one of them. The UK seems to be showing a bit of spine. Maybe there’s hope for them yet.
in reference your optimism regarding the UK.
in 2000 there were ~614 Masjids registered in 2001: presently there are somewhere between 1,884–1,895 Masjids registered (numbers provided by Grok)
a couple of friends/acquaintances in the UK have mentioned that rapes by Muslims of various nationalities (white girls only) are increasing daily.
Their anger does not appear directed primarily towards the rapists, rather the police.
LSP is there, basking in the glow of the politics of the UK at the moment. Hearing his take on the subject on his return will be interesting.
I thought you were polite. I would have said “I didn’t raise and helmet wearing, booger eating, window licker!”
But then again, I tend to be kinda crass.
1chota – You’re not as constrained as I seem to be.
Great art in the 2 captions L.L. I’ve often pondered over the end of Revelation 18:13. Not just merchandise and slaves, but ” the souls of men” being a commodity.
There are many who are willing to sell their souls and their birthrights for a bowl of pottage.
😔
**The reality of European Allies turning the US away when it needed to use bases to support operations in the Persian Gulf may haunt them. Or maybe, in their increasing hostility toward the US, they’ll simply be what they’ve long yearned to express. Fairweather friends are not ‘friends’.**
After 80 years of Pax Americana the west was making a move on Russia and Russia said no more. Germany is rearming, Japan is rearming, England (looks) to have fallen to the Muslims, our NATO allies told us to pound sand when we FINALLY dealt with the Iranian attacks that have been happening over the last 47 years. Mid-east nations are on our side and Europe is on the other side.
AI is in Everything and the birthrate is falling in the west.
We are live in interesting times!
Eventually, when birth rates catch up with the housing inventory, home prices will drop to where they should have been. I’ve told my grandchildren not to let presumed equity be their retirement plan.
Rather different and interesting interpretation of the afterlife in those couple of pictures at the top. Are those your creation?
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You seem to get far more useful and striking pictures than any other places I’m seeing. Most of the time I see a perfectly normal looking photograph and someone dismisses it as AI.
Those are actual photos from Hell. I sent a democrat I know to capture them for the blog. The dems seem to be able to come and go with ease.
Does that mean that dem is short for demon?
Demoncrat
Certainly operating as such.
Hummm. Top artwork, center, top, soul exchange symbol looks a lot like “How can a man do better?” In certain books front page. Coincidence?
*
Western Europe leaders are following their own plan which looks more like a return to kingdoms than anything good for the people.
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That Mig21 had me stumped for a bit. I think it was the paint job and poor condition of the aircraft.
*
As to the young King and followers… he choose a bold move, rolled the dice, then died with his boots on. Had I been there, my answer to his question of ride forward or hold this line … Ride, God wills it.
Draw sabers, charge for their flag, and the devil take the hindmost. But we in it shall be rememberèd—We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me; Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now a-bed; Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks; That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
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etc.
Al, why aren’t the NO KINGS crowd picketing the crowned heads of Europe?
“I didn’t raise a window licker.”
Hmm! Why were you attempting to avoid the real question/problem?
Obviously your daughter’s not an idiot, what’s bugging you (to get right to the point)?
(WTH did you bring it up in the first place)
Sometimes, I like to remind my girls to “work the problem.”
‘Apples do not fall far from the tree’ still stands.
In my view/upbringing, there is no such thing as Hell Each soul goes to sit at the right hand of G-d; that would be each and every soul.
How far distant from the right hand is a discussion for another time.
Do the “good” souls bask in its warmth or do the “bad” souls sear in its intensity?
I normally don’t weigh in but I agree in a general sense that people (souls, however you wish to characterize them) have a choice of what they want to be both here and on the other side.
My take has always been less complicated: Separation from God, our Creator, vs. Being in His presence…for Eternity. While some are inherently evil, it comes down to a choice of which tail to take. Yet this from Gladiator rings true: ‘What we do in life, echoes in eternity.’
*trail
LOL, that Texas golf could catch on, but you’d need a LOT longer course…
Yes. Unless thats the Kiddy Course.
Ammo.com Report: Yup, Montana is very different than what Colorado has become, the no sales tax thing is amazing and a pleasant surprise when you get the receipt. Gee, what a concept. In service this morning the pastor read a proclamation (request) from the governor to take the day to pray for rain for the ranchers and farmers as it has been that type of winter, more dry than usual. It was beautifully stated, and earnest. Contrast that with Polis in Colorado who is working to bankrupt ranchers and farmers.
Interesting breakdown on the USS Ford. Especially the design compromises. Welp, it’s going to be fun for the next two years. Wonder if Trump will be able to get the repair timeline accelerated while maintaining quality? And hopefully the builders have stacks of prepared materials.