Caption: PTSD is a real thing. Managing it is an internal struggle. Overcoming it is likely impossible. Keep making buddy checks and reach out when necessary in the most appropriate way.
Your Sunday Sermonette
The weekly (or monthly, depending on my mood) polemic on Virtual Mirage is not designed to be an emetic.
Sermonette Points:
** Dealing with TDS in a spiritual way – there is a cure. Hope is on the way for sufferers.
** First, if you must purchase carbon or biodiversity offsets, please buy them from the White Wolf Mine. Yes, it’s all bullshit, but I’ll take your money and put it to good use. Second – and here is where the sermonette comes in, I’m not a church, but if you feel that you need to pay money to buy your way to heaven, why not give your money to me? I guarantee nothing, but (again) I will take your alms and spend them wisely. No gold doghouses or gold bathroom fixtures, but I don’t rule out guns and ammo or a new airplane if you’re very generous. If money is a burden to you, I’ll take it and lighten your load. I’ll even send you a free book and autograph it.
Bullet Points:
** The U.S. government spends ~€2.19 trillion on Medicaid, Medicare, and other health programs. That figure includes ~€300 billion from the states for Medicaid. Canada is projected to spend approximately €246.38 billion on healthcare. The difference in medicine is that the United States does not consider assisted suicide health care. Rodney Dangerfield used to joke, “I don’t get no respect. I called Suicide Prevention. They tried to talk me into it.”
** (left) graphic h/t Old NFO.
** Ammo.com recently updated their Concealed Carry Crime Stats analysis, and here are a few highlights from that report: (1) The U.S. violent crime rate peaked at 758.1 incidents per 100,000 in 1991, when only ten states had right-to-carry legislation. The violent crime rate declined to 359.1 per 100,000 in 2024 when 41 states implemented right-to-carry legislation. (2) Of the 12 states that passed permitless carry laws between 2019 and 2022, 11 had lower crime rates in 2024 than they did in 2019. (3) The average violent crime rate among permitless carry states was 311.9 per 100,000 in 2024. The collective average violent crime rate in permit-required states was 335.1 per 100,000.
** Could you ride prospect? Normally, all a prospect was allowed to do was fetch beer or guard the bikes. I was an undercover police officer and a fully patched Hessian (black and white), not Hells Angels (red and white) – you could never tell who would turn out to be…a rat.
** Claudio rode the VM Wayback Machine again and reminded me of my documented planned calexit and of my plans to cold-plate my cars before I made the move. Those plans were successfully executed. MRSLL mentioned our flight from the Workers’ Paradise, and I reminded her that while much of it had to do with taxes, every bit as much had to do with the mosque built down the street and the 100% Muslim population that moved in as everyone else moved out. My neighborhood became hostile. And while they didn’t threaten me personally, my family felt unsafe walking the sidewalks in front of the house. So, the White Wolf Mine…
** The Labor Department’s Inspector General, Anthony D’Esposito, announced this week that the Trump administration has launched its first significant probe into alleged abuse of H-1B and PERM visas, labor trafficking, and the displacement of American workers.
** Brian Greene discusses this question: Can humanity ever reach the stars? He breaks down the hard laws of physics that stand between us and interstellar travel — from the relativistic speed limit imposed by Einstein’s special relativity to the staggering energy requirements of near-light-speed propulsion. Discover why the cosmic speed limit isn’t just a technological barrier — it’s written into the very fabric of spacetime. Greene examines the challenges posed by time dilation, fuel mass paradoxes, cosmic radiation at high velocities, and the question of whether theoretical concepts such as warp drives or wormholes could ever bypass these fundamental constraints.
** The night sky on Mars.
** I don’t know if it’s true, but an anonymous Supreme Court clerk reportedly claims that Justice Amy Coney Barrett has had a change of heart on birthright citizenship after seeing evidence that foreign governments (such as Mexico) are advertising “birth tourism” and citizenship-by-delivery services. The clerk allegedly said: “Something changed in [Amy Coney Barrett] after she saw that Mexico was putting up billboards advertising birthright citizenship deliveries… She’s going to flip.” – I’m skeptical. It sounds too much like clickbait.
** Why did the Japanese lose WW2? It’s not what you think.
In the Magic Kingdom
Behind this week’s photo-op smiles, the U.S.-Saudi relationship just went through its worst strain in years. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down with Saudi Ambassador Princess Reema Bandar al-Saud at the White House, the highest-level meeting between the two countries since reports surfaced of a serious rupture (Times of Israel, Arab News).
The breaking point was “𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐅𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐨𝐦”, a major U.S. operation to escort commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia refused to let the U.S. use its airspace for the mission, and the operation collapsed less than 𝟒𝟖 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐬 after it was publicly announced (Jerusalem Post). Trump’s response wasn’t subtle. The administration briefly withheld the transfer of 𝐛𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 bound for Riyadh and floated the idea of pulling U.S. troops out of the kingdom entirely. Riyadh’s own explanation, per reporting, is distrust in how the administration is running the Iran war; the Saudis worry that continued escalation puts them squarely in Tehran’s crosshairs (Israel Hayom).
OPEC (and OPEC+) is folding. The UAE pulled out of OPEC, and Iraq will follow them. Even if they don’t formalize it, they won’t adhere to OPEC’s production guidelines to control crude oil prices. Saudi Arabia needs prices to remain high to support its efforts to get a grip on its spending problems. They’re running a significant deficit.
The USA (not part of OPEC) is producing crazy quantities and is exporting, and Venezuela (part of OPEC) is quietly doing what it needs to do despite its membership. It’s more than just Iran. The New World Oil Order. The Saudis are quietly making common cause with Iran, Pakistan, and China while the US is aligned with the UAE, Israel, India, and maybe Iraq by the end of the year. Turkey wants in on the game, too, as a US ally. Make of that as you will.
Pick your Friends
(h/t Claudio)—Russian military personnel—operating under the Ministry of Defense’s Africa Corps (Russia)—are actively engaged in intense, escalating combat in northern Mali alongside the Malian military junta. Initially arriving in 2021 as the Wagner Group following a coup d’état by Colonel Assimi Goïta, the paramilitary force was rebranded and absorbed directly into Russia’s state security apparatus following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s death in late 2023. Currently, approximately 1,000 Russian fighters are deployed in Mali to sustain the ruling military junta and suppress a fierce, multi-front insurgency led by Tuareg separatists and Al-Qaeda-linked militants. Whether they’re ‘lucky’ to be in Africa rather than Ukraine is very much a matter of perspective.
Following severe ground casualties and structural losses earlier in the year, the Africa Corps shifted its operational model. The Russians have increasingly taken a “backseat role” on the front lines, prioritizing advanced drone warfare, intelligence sharing, and devastating airstrikes to minimize manpower exposure while maximizing localized damage. They are currently instructing Mali’s 33rd Airborne Regiment using Russian D-6 parachutes and state-provided Mi-8AMTSh transport helicopters from Bamako’s international airport.
The Alliance of Sahel States (AES) Card: Moscow is leveraging its military architecture to systematically push Western influence out of the region. Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger formed the AES after cutting ties with France and the US. On July 9, 2026, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met with AES leaders in Niger to formalize their growing military-technical cooperation, which will culminate in a major summit with Vladimir Putin in Moscow this October.
It’s not all roses for the Russians. On July 10, 2026, a heavily armed convoy of dozens of vehicles managed to break through rebel ambushes and secure the strategic northern town of Anefis. The Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) stated they withdrew from the town for strategic reasons to prevent civilian casualties. (more here) The breakthrough at Anefis followed a chaotic week. On July 9, 2026, a massive convoy ferrying more than 200 Russian fighters and 100 Malian soldiers fell into a coordinated desert ambush near Tabankort. On July 5, 2026, Tuareg-led rebels released footage demonstrating they successfully shot down a Russian-operated Mi-24 attack helicopter near Gao, reportedly killing the entire crew.
These events are part of a wider security collapse that began with a massive April 2026 rebel offensive. During that shock wave, Al-Qaeda-linked fighters (JNIM) and the FLA openly cooperated, killing Mali’s Defense Minister and forcing a humiliating, hasty Russian retreat from the key northern military stronghold of Kidal.
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
3
5 built – remains in production
Parting Shot
For you wheel gunners.
End
Space – as someone once said, “Prediction is hard, especially about the future.” A good prelude to them would say something like “Based on our current understanding…”. I seem to recall reading some time ago that there was a time where experts were saying humans couldn’t travel faster than 60 mph. That may have been an urban legend story, but it fits well with other predictions that did turn out to be wrong…after more discoveries/advances were made.
And some scientists thought that the sound barrier would be a problem. I suspect that reaching or exceeding the speed of light will be a far more formidable barrier.
And the speed of light is far too slow to allow spreading into the galaxy. Are people going to willingly go on flights that are even 10 years long to settle in the local neighborhood. We don’t know if some sort of “suspended animation” is possible and people will deteriorate to the point of not surviving if they don’t move for 10 years. Warp speed may be possible, but we just don’t know what happens because we don’t have the physics to predict it.
If we expand to Mars in any meaningful way, robots far more advanced than the rovers, with AI capabilities, will have been there first for some time. Will those robots lie to us?
will we be able to bypass the speed of light – jump technology
We are learning new things all the time!
It must be possible or how would all theses extraterrestrials be visiting us??????😁
3 is Paramount Mwari, formerly AHRLAC (Advanced High Performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft), South African.
Excellent. I thought that one might pose a bigger problem.
“Moscow is leveraging its military architecture to systematically push Western influence out of the region.”
” Verrry Interesting. Appears to be a lot of easily recoverable uranium and gold in The Sahel States, but you still need easy access to the Gulf of Guinea,Valdimir Vladimirovich.”
Africa is a beast. Everything in Africa (ok, Ukraine too) is easier said than done.
Identify The Aircraft
1. Tupolev Tu-114 Rossiya
2. Northrop Grumman Firebird
3. Paramount Mwari
Outstanding
I made the mistake of moving my family to the promise that was Portlandia from the Hell that I saw just beginning in NY – sorta like jumping from the frying pan into the fire – or vice versa.
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“The Saudis are quietly making common cause with Iran…” The Great Schism is finally healing? – using oil as its glue. Hmm. I thought oil was a lubricant/
I have found through personal experience that everything in the Middle East is exceptionally complicated. The Byzantines were who they were for a reason.
You mean byzantian?
Handy – I’ve never seen before. Have you used?
Curious if the speed loader comes out of the holder without resistance?
***
In the Magic Kingdom – Looking more likely we will pull out and leave this mess to the Gulf States in Europe to figure out. If all’s we’ve done is cause OPEC to disintegrate that is a worthwhile accomplishment.
Our next move should be to build at least three new refineries in this country. And more LNG export capacity.
I have not used one. The problem of speed loaders – both how to carry them and using them in a combat reload is not as simple as it might appear. Having used them under fire, I will assure you that a magazine reload on a semi-auto is at least 100% easier. That said, I remain a wheel gun shooter because there are situations where they’re better. If you were to see my desk, you might notice two speed loaders containing .454 Casull (Hornady HP) cartridges on the desktop. Dropping them into pouches or carrying them in a pocket is doable, not optimal. The referenced carrier is for smaller speed loaders for those little .38spc revolvers that are very good belly guns. There is no safety on a revolver, and if you don’t reload, there isn’t much (forensic) brass lying around. I like the big revolver cartridges. And so on. This might work.
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We’re committed to the UAE, and I guarantee that politics in the Gulf will continue to evolve. We have a MASSIVE air base in Qatar with 10,000+ service members stationed there. I don’t see that changing. The Saudis want to be the big dog, and if we don’t bow to their demands, they’re wounded.
I thought (I guess wrongly) that Iran was a threat to the Sauds and that their removal would empower the Sauds to expand their influence in the region.
It’s complicated. Iran is close to Pakistan, and the Paks do the bidding of the Saudis.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Tupolev Tu-114 “Cleat”
2. Northrop Grumman Firebird
3. Paramount Mwari
Excellent.
Senator Lindsay Graham, RIP – Graham died from cardiac arrest yesterday evening, July 11, 2026, two days after his 71st birthday. Given that we’re close to the same age, I’ll say that he died a young(ish) man. The day before, on July 10, Lindsey Graham paid an official visit to Kyiv.
71 is definitely too ‘young’ in our supposed modern medicine era, however he looked 20 years older than many his age whom I know. And maybe nothing, maybe something, that visit abroad will have the ‘theorists’ going bonkers today. I do ask why any state Senator would visit with a foreign power on a junket, not their role…but that’s just me. Does give one pause though, when slightly ‘over the hill’…live each day to the full, whatever that looks like for you.
Agreed. He looked 20 years older for some time. Now, he’ll be replaced.
He was not Dorian Gray.
He could have used a picture in a closet. As it was, he was starting to look like Darth Vader when they were the same age.
Good riddance.
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I was surprised to learn he was only 71.
Then again, even though I know it intellectually, I’m always (re)surprised to read that Ted Cruz is younger than me.
As to “cardiac arrest”, is that now the official cause? Because while a stopped heart is sometimes the cause of death, it’s always a RESULT of being dead.
Never liked the guy myself as well, he always had one foot in the D canoe. It’ll be telling to see who gets picked for his replacement, another Swamper or independent thinker.
Maybe the Ukes drugged him? I’m sure that they’ll run a tox screen, but not EVERYTHING that will kill you or stop your heart will show up on a tox screen. I don’t want to start a conspiracy theory because I have no idea what happened beyond Graham dying.
Could be…problem is everything we get as facts from DC and their media is tainted, often severely…so color us skeptical whenever an official report’ says ‘X’ and we think, “baloney”. He was supposedly ‘close’, on the SAVE Act as well, another rabbit hole the theorists will go down. But his travel timeline were, as reported:
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Flew to Kiev and met with Zkyy on the 10th, visited a drone factory yesterday then flew to his CapHill home, had a call at 7:00pm with PDJT, dead hours later at 1:00am today. As someone noted: “He was 71, overweight, heavy drinker, “vaccinated”, flies a lot in pressurized cabins for long periods of time, has a warmonger’s guilty conscience causing constant elevated cortisol levels. Suddenly dropping dead from heart attack, stroke or blood clots is very reasonable.”
Vax’d and booster, or just family DNA…his father died of a sudden heart attack at 69, working all the time in that environment is not easy…unless you are Trump, who thrives on the battle as if it gives him energy when others wilt.
Maybe LG is chatting with McConnell, discussing their tenures. But it does point to how that ‘work’ must be intoxicating for most of them to stay in the ugly game well past their prime. Yet I still do not know why a SC Senator is going to Kiev to meet with anyone and touring a drone factory, seems outside the margins for a state senator. Term Limits will again come up this week.
Ukes drugged him? I thought he was almost a registered foreign agent of theirs.
Or a Russian agent, running with the Ukes?
👍
>almost a registered foreign agent of theirs
Bite your tongue, Ed! If Miss Lindsey belonged to anyone (and he did) he was Israel’s.
And to suggest that there could be any collusion between UKR — nominally run by el Presidente Zelenskyy, but it’s that Denis Shmyhal guy who has “served” in all sorts of actually important positions such as Defense Minister and Energy Minister, not to mention Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, what a coincidence, huh — and, uh, um; well, best not to go there.
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Anyway, now the totally honest and transparent Fourth Estate tells us that Graham died of either an aortic dissection or an aortic rupture. I suspect this inconsistency is just ignorance of what the medical terms mean. It’s like listening to the Tyler Robinson circus/clownfest where the lawyers are clearly confused by the difference between “bullet” and “round”. So if LG had an actual aortic rupture, particularly of the thoracic aorta, he was a dead man period freaking dot. Ruptured thoracic aorta is the kind of thing that you have >50% chance of dying even if you have the event in a surgical operating room with a thoracic team fully scrubbed and ready to operate on you. As to dissection, they range from “it’s bad” to “it’s really really really bad”. (I’ve seen a few dozen CTs of abdominal aortic dissection — where the patient was alive and had had it for quite some time, but a thoracic dissection is pretty bad. Can people survive it? Yes, but it’s really a surgical emergency.)
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I don’t think we will ever know what really happened to the good Senator, but I like to think that he and Dear Volodomyr were, uh, going at it after a few great whacking snoots-full of Peruvian Marching Powder, and the excitement was too much for Miss Lindsey’s heart. Or aorta as the case may be.
Could be issues from circulation due to air travel. It is a thing, a little-known thing to most people. Remember, when flying, get up and walk around every 2 hours or so. Same with being a chair-master. Gotta get up and keep the circulation flowing.
It’s “circulation” but the pulmonary (right-sided/lung) circulation and not the systemic arteries (left sided vessels) that we normally worry about.
So this is the skinny.
1. Pulmonary embolism (what Beans is talking about) is the third leading cardiovascular killer, after heart attack and stroke. But awareness of this is really poor compared with heart attack and stroke.
2. Pulmonary embolism (PE) can happen to anyone any time, but cancer, smoking, and estrogen (like birth control pills), anything that makes you hypercoagulable (prone to blood clot) make you more prone to it. Prolonged immobility, like bedrest after surgery, or sitting still for a long time on a long flight, also increase the chance of PE.
3. Typically you get a clot in your leg, then the clot breaks loose and goes through the right heart into the lungs, hence the term “embolus”. This is NOT in the airways, mind you. This is in the pulmonary blood vessels that work with the tiniest airways to exchange deoxygenated for “fresh” air.
4. As Beans says, get up and walk around. Or at least jiggle around in your seat once in a while.
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Inevitable war story: So we had a patient who presented with shortness of breath, that eventually was found to be due to PE, in mid April. He had NO risk factors. The only suspicious thing we got from the history was that he used an old fashioned straight-legged wood desk chair, and had the habit of hooking his ankles behind the front legs (putting pressure on his lower thighs). So dude sat for 10h straight, except for a bathroom break or two, while doing his taxes. We honestly think that immobility combined with the pressure on his thighs gave him a venous leg clot that then broke free and gave him a PE. There is a clear lesson to be learned from all of this.
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All that said, in my head cannon, Lindsey died “in media res” while engaged with Zelenskyy (cough 69 cough) after a few lines of coke.
The few lines of coke and recreational exercise…sic transit glora mundi.
We were two REMFs (dentists, friends in school): me in the Air Force (GFAFB), him in the Army (Ft Benning) when he got sent to Nam.
He got back OK – sorta. Two years later I was his best man in a Catholic church, two years later he was my best man in Temple (Whatever, Wherever).
We called each other once a month for an update. He took (and passed) the Boards and moved down to Floorida; I moved from Da City out to Oregon several years after; we still called each other (same frequency).
I was getting a bit worried after speaking to him each time so the intervals got shorter and I called him more frequently; the calls now averaged about once a week.
I retired and moved down to Floorida full time and we’re speaking about twice a week, sometimes more often.
We’re both 85, still married to our original spouses, but I’m seeing that PTSD/depression does not improve with age.
I don’t know that PTSD goes away. I would hope that your/our coping mechanisms would improve with age. I have personally found that when it kicks in, I usually have low blood sugar. I think that’s just me, but low blood sugar seems to aggravate it.
It never goes away. In my personal opinion it comes down to the individual as to how you cope. Some cope well, some do not. Personally, I found the old ways of handling it work whereas, from what I have seen, the modern ways involving psychologists and other do-gooders (virtually all of whom have no personal experience of traumatic events, only book learning) do not. The last time, some twenty five years ago after my walking away virtually unscathed from a light aircraft crash in Indonesia, that I saw a psychiatrist (at the behest of a retired neurosurgeon friend – I did not really see the point in going but I went anyway) she told me, after three visits, that I was wasting her time, and my time and my money, as, whilst I had PTSD, the old fashioned coping mechanisms I had in place worked for me and I had it under control. Today, having recently attained 82 years old, I seem to be going well.
Under the new systems of “coping” if you sound dangerous to the suzie (male/female) who is interviewing you, they “report you”. Most of those well meaning people who have never been in the crucible do more harm than good.
>psychiatrist […] told me, after three visits, that I was wasting her time, and my time and my money, as, whilst I had PTSD, the old fashioned coping mechanisms I had in place worked for me and I had it under control
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Beat me to it, Larry. It’d be difficult to find a psychiatrist who’d say something honest like that these days. (Bear in mind that my frame of reference is academic medicine at elite institutions where faculty skew heavily leftist and “progressive”. Maybe private-practice pshrinks aren’t like that. But I doubt it.) Psych (-iatry and -ology) strongly tends to attract whackos at baseline. Which is a pity, because I think it’s actually a very important area of medicine and therapy. (In case you were wondering, cardiology attracts arrogant assholes. We know this and in fact take considerable pride in it.) What really got my goat back when I was applying to residencies was that Psych was NOT competitive, so a lot of shitty foreign medical grads from shithole places got into Psych. By this I mean MENA and the sub-continent, but I was trying to be polite and not say it out loud. (This may have changed in the decades since I was a resident. Maybe psych is now prestigious and competitive. But again, I doubt it.) Anyway, of all the specialties, Psych is clearly the one where the MD needs to have a broad AND deep understanding of the culture and mindset and mores of his patient. A surgeon deals with unconscious people. A cardiologist largely deals with objective stuff (but even there it helps to understand culture), but PSYCH? Culture, mindset, faith, they’re EVERYTHING. Some guy from a fundamentalism Muslim country, or a country burdened by a caste system, or a country where they think the rest of humanity are in fact subhuman, is NOT gonna be an effective psychiatrist for the normal American.
The CIA is famous for having a massive shrink to employee ratio in the Directorate of Operations. They’re also paid pennies. I think one of the lowest paid general categories. They complain endlessly about their low pay. They are part of the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) not the better compensated Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System (CIARDS), another source of irritation. You can’t swing a dead cat around your head in those elite halls without smacking a disgruntled psych. There are also a LOT of lawyers but the ratio isn’t quite as great. I’ve had the psych types ask me about potential employment elsewhere and I told them that there is no future outside. Be content with your lot in life and 20 year old trash heap of a car – and take pride in the fact that you’re supporting three ex-wives and ten ex-children on the pittance you’re paid.
Reply to Larry and Mike_C. Thank you kindly for your comments. The psychiatrist was a woman in, I would guess, her early/mid to late sixties. When initially speaking with her it was obvious to me that she had been around, and was not just speaking from some theoretical viewpoint. This, coupled with the reputation and standing of my neurosurgeon friend, and his assurance that she was very good and knew what she was about, led me to believe that she was being open and honest. Ron was an infantry officer, in the South African Army during World War Two, prior to his becoming a surgeon, and it would have been extremely unlikely he would have sent me to see her if she had not been any good. His worry, as he told me later, was that the airplane crash, on top of the other things I had experienced in my past, might have been the straw that broke the camels back.
I’m going to assume the old way is not getting drunk.
What worked for you?
It doesn’t get better. What gets better is the coping skills and recognition of triggers. But the triggers are always there, ready to fire off at any time under any level of stress.
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PTSD is a mental-minefield. Sure, the easily-seen ones are easy to avoid. It’s the smaller hidden toe-poppers that will get you, especially if they’re linked and a whole string of small ones goes off all at once.
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The treatment is finding as many triggers and patterns and recognizing them. And avoiding them or deflating them.
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But the triggers are always there.
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Like, who knew a bedside table being too close to the bed would be a trigger for a major PTSD? That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Before that, things like remembering someone, hearing a voice like someone, seeing a person on tv that looks like a trigger person, the color of something that was involved in the event(s) that led to the PTSD.
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As you said, buddies need to check up on each other. Whether they’re in the same house or same state or same planet (and, eventually, the same star system.)
Is that speed loader carrier commercially available?
I would think it is but have not seen one advertised.
Thanks.
My understanding is that it is.
https://revisioncv.com/collections/ammo-pods-speed-loaders?srsltid=AfmBOoqieCFvAJCTc2305COFNWGV9WmfFvT9nOHsGJzEPWKyXvtJkkqB
The why the Japanese lost WWII video reminded me of a boating with Ed episode.
*
Ruski’s in Africa will eventually become the Chinese and Ruski’s in Africa. Eventually the Chinese money influence method will spill over into the standard military advisers, training, expeditionary forces and so on. They just haven’t found a resource they must have badly enough.
*
Wondering how often in the “clubs” multiple undercover agents from different orgs who are not talking to each other end up being members at the same time and don’t realize it? Same goes with the various drug cartels.
*
Nice art work today. Is that really a watch on both arms or is one a comm device of some sort?
EdB has sensitive feelings, but some say that riding in a boat with him is a lot like waiting for Godzilla to rise out of the ocean — with predictable results.
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When I was U/C in the Hessians, an ATF Special Agent attempted to infiltrate the club and made it to “prospect” (no center patch or top rocker) and guarded the bikes. ATF burglarized the home of the president of the Hessians and then used the information they obtained from the unlawful entry to write a search warrant for his house, wherein they discovered a .22LR handgun in his bedroom—making him a ‘felon in possession’. You can make of that what you will, but I find that conduct reprehensible. The ATF agent was later ‘medically retired’ after ordering up an outcall prostitute to his home while his wife was away, then fighting with the pimp over the price. Whore and pimp called the police. Said to be the result of PTSD…whatever. I don’t have an axe to grind with ATF. I later supervised 5 ATF agents (among others) on a task force I ran, and we got on well. There are always rotten apples. There are deconfilction mechanisms, but they never apply to that sort of U/C activity. ATF never went through US District Court the way that I did.
Wristwatch and back-up altimeter because the issued instruments aren’t always reliable, and >when< you deploy your canopy is important.
That video triggered my PTSD.
On this day in 1917, the Bisbee Copper Miners’ Strike Deportation occurred when nearly 1,200 striking copper miners (members of the Industrial Workers of the World) were rounded up and deported from Bisbee by county officials and citizen posses.
My main hope in looking at the Brian Greene video is that his bias is that we now know everything about the physics involved. History seems to show that whenever humanity gets that mindset, and it “locks in place” someone comes along and finds a new way of thinking about the situation and discovers a property that was there all along but not noticed. It’s not that the big picture is wrong, it’s that considering something differently is like looking at a sculpture from a different angle and seeing it differently. It leaves some little avenue for hope while he does his best to eliminate all of it.
We have not done great with our near Earth orbit efforts. I give us a C based on our capacity. I think that the Moon is do-able if you’re able to separate the beltway bandits from the space program to a greater degree than we have. Beyond that – we’re a long way off.
>bias is that we now know everything about the physics involved. History seems to show that whenever humanity gets that mindset
We also know everything about politics and human nature. Didn’t you read The End of History and the Last Man?
Huh?
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To be clear for any hypothetical painfully-literal readers, I’m not making fun of SiG. I’m not even really making fun of Francis Fukuyama. I don’t know enough about FF to have an opinion one way or another. But the notion that all of humanity is best served by, and therefore will willingly arrive at sacred Liberal Democracy is moronic on its face. Liberal Democracy works (sort of) for a high-IQ people shaped by millennia of Greco-Romano-Germano-Christian ethics and morality. It sure as hell doesn’t work for people with IQ below 80. And it doesn’t work when tribal people are involved (regardless of how high their IQ is). I strongly suspect it is also not the optimal system even for admittedly high-IQ East Asians.
I hope you don’t mean to imply that God is not (necessarily) a republican because that is hate speech.
God is not a Republican, but his policies lean that way more than the other.
I’m a hater.
No argument from me.
God is not a republican. He’s a strict Constitutionalist. Follow the laws written, and the intent behind the laws. That’s it. None of this ‘it’s a living document’ garbage.
It’s difficult to go wrong with strict construction.
100% off topic
we’re in a period of extreme inflation (probably only get worse) due to Amazon et al setting prices. people are purchasing a lot of unnecessary crap rather than only/just the essentials. this will begin IMHO shortly (within 2-3 years) and a lot of businesses (manufacturing and mom&pops, not farming, etc) will be hurt badly.
only then will consumer costs begin to drop (actual $’s value)
good thing I don’t think I’m an economist
I don’t see the hyperinflation, Boron. If you take institutional investors out of the housing market, prices will drop, and people will complain about deflation and their nest eggs being eaten up. I think institutional investors need to go, but there will be a cause-and-effect.
a house that sold (on LI) for ~$15K in ~1947 (yes, I was 6 yo) now selling for 2.5 Mil. my dad was looking (for my mom) to be close to his brother-law ( a furrier); we didn’t purchase and went to Scarsdale instead.
who said anything about hyper-inflation!
there must be a better/more realistic word
Houses have turned into nest eggs and savings accounts (partly because of the deductibility of mortgage interest), and that can go horribly wrong for some people.
PTSD: No one out here who did not serve has a clue what old or modern warfare did to combat veterans and what heavy load they had/have to carry in their mental backpacks on a daily basis. Really appreciate your admonition to ‘check in’ with ‘those that went’.
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MadMommie: Uh, how come he isn’t being arrested by the DOJ for Treason by trying to do the end-around by cozying up to a foreign enemy? The crap these arrogant SOB’s in suits get away with is unreal. Same goes for that Wisconsin whack job judge who helped an illegal MS13 criminal out the courthouse backdoor so ICE couldn’t arrest him…a year later she gets a lousy $5k fine. You or me did that…well, look at J6 for the answer, and 99% of those folks were not of the criminal element.
***
Ride Prospect? Me? Never…too much of a Boy Scout…unless something happened to my family by evil-doers and they got the ‘no cash bail’ by some lefty judge, then I’d switch mental gears and go all ‘Peppermint’ on them because at that point I’d have nothing to lose and turn Old Testament singularly focused on them because part of me doesn’t like waiting for God’s judgment after the fact.
– Now I get to go to Church Service and ask forgiveness for having that last thought.
“old or modern warfare did to combat veterans”
Pulling the trigger on someone has it’s consequences.
Exactly, not like the movies…because…as God’s creation we humans have an innate built in wretch factor to taking a life, even in self defense…us normals that is…stays with a person (as I am told). That is excepting those who are soulless and without a conscience.
They called it SHELL SHOCK, then they called it COMBAT FATIGUE and today it’s PTSD.
” the DOJ for Treason”
Everybody talks about the Logan Act but nobody goes to jail.
Unless you or I did the same.
👍
Cold plates. We did not resort to that when we escaped the People’s Republik, but did get our vehicles re-registered ASAP. Also filled out and kept hard copies of any and all “sayonara” forms for Kalifornia DMV.
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About a mile south of us, I-20 runs east-west. Signs along the way proclaim it the “Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway”. When ever our background comes up in conversation, I point out that in the California we fondly remember (albeit as young kids) Ronald Reagan was governor. We didn’t leave California, it left us.
X2. Yes, I had my vehicles registered in AZ long before I left CA. All the same, I did use cold plates in my early travels there.
Happy Birthday, WSF! 100 years never looked so good.
100 is the new 80…or is it the other way around? Nonetheless, still a lot of candles on the sheet cake. Happy Birthday WSF.
A hundred years isn’t so bad if it’s metric. Why, that’s just a shade over 62 years in normal-people units.
#tishboom
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Or it could be 230 years (2×100 + 30 as the rule goes). This metric stuff is confusing.
The candles from last birthday’s WSF celebration set off detectors that determine man-caused global warming. Europeans built more windmills because WSF is a year older.
Seems my mission in life now is to annoy as many people as possible. Gives me a reason to push on.
A man’s gotta have a purpose…that’s as good as any.
WSF serves as a warning to others.
TOT (Totally off Topic):
I’m on a (Kaiser) roll:
I received just yesterday my “How to Vote by Mail’ ballot
Everything was in both English and Spanish.
I’m enthralled that I took Spanish in High School; now I can renew my acquaintance. I could’ve taken French. I’m just wondering when the ballots will be printed in Farsi, tiếng Việt, Hmong, and Kreyòl Ayisyen.
The reason I mentioned the Kaiser roll is that I collected German stamps as a kid and watched, not knowing the reason, as stamps reached the 10 million Mark level.
The cost of the mail-in ballot is, of course, only the price of a U.S. stamp – $0.82 or 82 pennies (BTW: is the mint still producing pennies?); I still remember collecting 3¢ stamps; a single one that we affixed to the envelope.
Last but not Least: I’d like to reproduce, for all and sundry, a portion of an advisory notice inserted into the packet:
“Your ballot must be received by 7 p.m. on election day.” (capitalization faithfully reproduced) That means received, not post-marked!
Rant(s) over
I received mine today too. I NEVER vote by mail, just receive the ballot that way. I fill it out at my leisure, researching the candidates’ past behavior, voting record (if aplicable), etc. On the official election day, I hand in my ballot at the precinct since I would never trust the USPS (whose Postal Workers Union actively support the D ticket) to properly handle it.
> my “How to Vote by Mail’ ballot […] was in both English and Spanish.
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So the following came to me by text (phone):
Hey Michael, this is Jen. If you have just a few moments, we could use your help with this brief questionnaire on important issues in Michigan. Your responses will be used for research purposes only.
[web address]
Hola Michael, habla Jen. Si tiene unos minutos, nos gustaría contar con su ayuda para responder este breve cuestionario sobre temas importantes en Virginia. Sus respuestas se utilizarán únicamente con fines de investigación.
[same web address]
ReplyStopToEnd
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I was at the airport waiting for a 4x delayed flight [1] and not of a mind to work, so I started answering spam texts:
“Why are you assuming that I need Spanish? Because I am a child of immigrants? Do you think that as a Person of Color I’m too dumb to learn English? That’s a pretty offensive assumption. Shame on you. I won’t have anything to do with racist trash [2].”
What makes all this even better is that I live in Massachusetts, and neither Michigan nor Virginia.
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>printed in Farsi, tiếng Việt, Hmong, and Kreyòl Ayisyen
We’re already there in Boston. Some MBTA busses have big signs in Kreyòl on the outside rear. Something about where to seek help if you are the victim of domestic abuse. For the record I’m against abuse in general, domestic or otherwise. But I don’t see how importing more abusers is Our Greatest Strength. Also (and I acknowledge my racist racist bias in this), it looks like a language for retarded suffers of rhotacism. (The irony wherein people with rhotacism can’t pronounce their own condition. Just like people with a lisp can’t pronounce “lisp”. It’s a cruel, perverse world, innit.)
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[1] It was a 6pm flight per the schedule. On the way to airport I got a text saying it was delayed to 7pm. Okay. Then it was 8pm, then 9. Finally we pulled away from the gate at 9:52 pm. Then the pilot says, “Ah, ground control has informed us that we cannot proceed to the runway. We MAY be allowed to taxi at 10:08. You could hear the entire plane groan.
[2] Some will think it’s ironic that I’m using the term “racist trash”. Well, I’m not trash. So there.
Thank you for providing me with a new word. I understand the context in which clownish Hollywood idiots satirized those of the first generation, then again you didn’t have to listen to, growing up, a strong German/Hungarian accent.
Wiktionary, however, gives, as the first meaning of rhotacism: “An exaggerated use of the sound of the letter R.” perhaps trilled as in guerrilla, burrito, or Marrano – as in La Cuchilla Negra aka Corazón in The Old Whore by LL himself.
I’m ready to see US ballots in Ebonics. It’s about time – not to do it would be racist.
I’m a bit confused by the Wiktionary definition. My understanding of rhotacism was that it’s replacing the “r” sound with the “w” sound. Like Elmer Fudd. And to a lesser degree, swapping R for L (is Elmer a “secret Asian man”?!!)
https://youtu.be/nGZ0ntpSx2Y?si=ytlU028qvLHZDs3m
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So just to be clear, I wasn’t making fun of German or Hungarian or any sort of MittelEuropa accent. I was making fun of Haitian Creole. I was stuck in a traffic jam and noticed an MBTA (Boston area public transit) bus with a sign on the back of it that looked like gibberish. The word that really caught my eye was “pwoteksyon”. And while we must be wary of “false friends” (words that seem like an obvious translation, but are NOT) this was no false friend. Pwoteksyon really means protection. Now we Murricans say “pro-TEK-shun” and our French cousins may say “pro-TEK-see-ON” but only freaking Elmer Fudd begins the word with “pwo”. Or so I thought. Apparently Haitian creole speakers also say “pwo”. Jumping Jesus on a wubber kwutch. Anyway, THAT’s what I was making fun of.
I thought for an instant that we’d seen this quote. Now we will.
“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
42
I never served, or faced combat, but working in a high pressure gas field offshore, and a pipeline explosion, left me jumping at any loud noise. For a year, the reactions were bad after I left. Loud noises led to anxiety, and still place me on edge. My experience was mild, and I can understand how those facing combat feel. God bless them, and may they find solace.
The middle east, just like Africa, are ‘opaque’ to anyone with a ‘western’ mindset. We will never understand the intricacies of the tribal and political relationships there. Re PTSD, it never goes away. What ‘we’ do depends on how ‘we’ either adapt or manage (or not) the situation.
You have to reboot the drive until things click. It’s helpful if you’re not too dogmatic.
Old, old cliche. AWA
“carbon or biodiversity offsets”
how many $25, $50, and $100 certificates remain?
are they available in €s? ₽s? s perhaps?
Any denomination, any currency (all roads all codes), I’ll write you a receipt on a bar napkin.
For you wheel gunners. Looks like it will work for .44Special.
Cramming .44 into a .357/.38 hole should be interesting.
OK, I’ve never heard the term “cold plate” before. Please explain. I can think of several explanations, but they’re probably all wrong…..
Ze “Afrika Korps” vizout Rommel? Vat ver de thinking?