A War with Iran is Close
It doesn’t mean that there will be a war, but it does mean that nobody will rule it out. Pres. Trump’s overture comes as both Israel and the United States have warned they will never let Iran acquire a nuclear weapon, leading to fears of a military confrontation as Tehran enriches uranium at near weapons-grade levels — something only done by atomic-armed nations. In an interview with Fox host Maria Bartiromo for “Sunday Morning Futures,” Trump said, “I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.’”
If you take my meaning, I’m not sure I want to be twenty miles from Iran in Kurdistan when the balloon goes up. Fortunately, the wind blows east, not west.
The beards in Iran will play for time, hoping to test a nuclear weapon to demonstrate capability before the US (and Israel) can dismantle their capacity with high explosives. I doubt President Trump will be so naive as to allow that demonstration if he can stop it. Iran has threatened to wipe Israel off the map through the use of nuclear weapons and the Israelis have to take them at their word. I have no idea how many nukes Israel has – I’m sure one hundred at least, assembled and ready to go. I have no idea how many more they could assemble in a month or two, but enough to nuke every city and military base in Iran so it would glow for hundreds of years.
Where do YOU fit in?
Bullet Points:
** Are mountains people? Maher weighs in on Tribal Thumpers.
** The USS Constitution is the only US Navy ship in commission to have sunk an enemy vessel in combat.
** In 1876 Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and a large portion of his 7th Cavalry were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. More than anything else, that disaster can be attributed to Custer’s hubris. He refused to wait for the rest of the U.S. Army forces to arrive, divided his own relatively small force and charged with only a dim understanding of how many Native American warriors he was facing. By the time he understood what he had done it was too late.
The Little Bighorn River is in Montana. However, we may be getting ready to see a reenactment in Ukraine. President Zelenskyy has let his ego drive his decision-making, and Putin is as unforgiving as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull ever were. The Ukrainians made brave noises about being able to hold out alone. That is all they were – noises. The Russians smell blood, and they are pouring it on.
One would hope that the unfolding disaster would bring Zelenskyy back to reality. There is no sign of such a development. The United States is sending a delegation to Saudi Arabia next week for talks with the Ukrainians regarding ending the hostilities. Zelenskyy announced he would fly to Riyadh to talk to the Crown Prince yesterday but would return to Ukraine and not meet with the American delegation.
** In Leicester, England, only 45% of the population can speak English. How inclusive.
** How much are Palestinian terrorists paid? It’s referred to as the “pay to slay” program. (h/t Claudio) – The answer is at the strategypage.
** What will London look like in 2030? The A. I. has a prediction.
** Thoughts on DOGE, kickbacks and legislators who know how to block things.
** DOGE has canceled a $600,000 grant to Southern University and A&M College. The money was to fund a study on the menstrual cycles of transgender men. Southern is an HBCU school. This is only the tip of the iceberg, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Elon!
At Kursk
Inside Russia, Ukrainian troops cling to territory near Kursk. They are now virtually encircled. One road out remains open. The Russians are methodically destroying all the bridges, not in front of the Ukrainian forces but behind them. They are not worried about the Ukrainians advancing. They are making sure they cannot run away and escape what is about to happen to them.
“The situation (for Ukraine in Kursk) is awful,” said Pasi Paroinen, a Finland-based Black Bird Group military analyst, told Reuters. “Now there is not much left until Ukrainian forces will either be encircled or forced to withdraw. And withdrawal would mean running a dangerous gauntlet, where Russian drones and artillery would constantly threaten the forces,” he said.
The Russians are pouring new troops into the fight, including North Koreans. After temporarily withdrawing in late 2023 or early 2024 following heavy losses, North Korea’s 11th Army Corps rejoined the conflict with fresh reinforcements. These North Korean troops are fighting alongside the Russian 177th Marine Regiment, 810th Naval Infantry Brigade, and 11th Air Assault Brigade.
Meanwhile, the Russians have taken advantage of the pause in American intelligence sharing to launch a wave of aerial attacks. Without American help, the Ukrainians have no warning of such attacks and their impact is significantly enhanced. Over the last week Russia has carried out hundreds of attacks against Ukraine using roughly 1,200 guided aerial bombs, nearly 870 attack drones, and over 80 missiles of different types.
The cutoff of U.S. intelligence “significantly impacts Ukrainian force protection of High Value Equipment’s shoot, move and scoot timelines, indications and warning of high-threat aircraft,” a retired high-ranking Ukrainian officer said recently “It significantly hampers the ability to target Russian forces and conduct long-range strikes against critical, mobile high-value targets.”
The Russians are already gloating. “The situation in the Kursk borderland has become much more active: there has been no retreat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from Malaya Loknya yet, but an assault is already underway, and the situation for the occupation forces there is terrible,” the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) claimed on Telegram. “The problems with logistics have finally begun to develop into a collapse of the defense. Day and night, drones are taking out equipment and ammunition, attempts to send reinforcements and carry out rotation are being stopped. We are expecting good news.”
“In all directions of the Kursk section of the front, all units have launched a large-scale offensive,” Maj Gen Apti Alaudinov, the commander of a Chechen unit fighting in Kursk, said on Telegram on Saturday. “The enemy is abandoning its positions.”
I think of A/C as a Necessity.
Identify the Armor
1
About 600 delivered – still in production
2
A few made – unknown actual numbers
3
4
Identify the Field Gun
5
End
5 looks like WW1 QF 4.5-inch howitzer in Australia early WW2 by the uniforms.
Close
Identify the Armor:
1. Karrar
2. Tosan
3. Sayyad
4. Rakhsh APC
Identify the Field Gun:
5. Ordnance QF 25-pounder Short
Thanks Surly. Great work
Ukraine seems vaguely reminiscent of someplace else in April 1975, don’t it?
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Indonesia’s place on the cooling chart makes me wonder what’s going on there economically. Should we be concerned about that?
WWW – People are caught up in the fact that “Putin is a dictator.” Of course he is. So is Xi. So is Kim, So is Z-Skyy. My response is, “What’s your point?” – and yes it feels a little like April 1975.
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Indonesia has 9% A/C. Does that seem high or low to you?
Most of the world lives under a dictatorship. The United States is an anomaly. I hope. “A Republic, if you can keep it.” I really didn’t mean to go down that rabbit hole. After all, “there ain’t no party like the Dictator Party ’cause the Dictator Party don’t stop.” Attributed to Kevin O’Brian, SFC, SF, Ret., R.I.P. What I meant was, Veet Nom went inverted, seemingly overnight. “Slowly at first, then all at once.” Ooopsie! We’d backed them to the hilt, until we didn’t. My pattern recognition software, as decrepit as it is, kinda went, this don’t compute….I don’t know what that means, exactly. Ukraine is a shit-show. We need to be sure to use the right end of the stick to stir it, that’s all.
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Lots of people in Asia besides China. If they ever get their schit together, look out. Sleeping giants and all that. Maybe that 91% of Indonesians wake up one morning and say, we want air conditioning too. We need to stay on the front end of that curve, or else.
“Lots of people in Asia besides China”
Well yeah, there are a lot of bodies, but there’s “fancy Asians” and “jungle Asians”. (Actually, this mental construct — which I don’t even particularly like — leaves out South Asians and Central Asians.) Guess which groups of Asians have the lowest fertility, to the point where their societies are literally dying out? Of COURSE it’s the Asians with mean population IQ above 100. The world is heading for a mean IQ in the mid-80’s. (The shade of Count Kalergi grins in hell.) That said, you don’t necessarily need a lot of bodies to run things: Ethnic Chinese in SE Asia have WILDLY disproportionate economic and therefore political power compared to their population percentages. The Chinese are (on average) higher IQ than their host populations, have open disdain for the host populations, are intensely nepotistic, and are fairly ruthless about making and keeping money. In return, ethnic Chinese are often intensely disliked on account of their behavior. (For the record, I don’t generally care for how the “overseas Chinese” in SE Asia behave as a whole. This is not me being “self loathing” but rather me being consistent. I don’t care for this sort of behavior by any ethnominority.)
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https://www.statista.com/statistics/1171367/apac-total-fertility-rates-by-country-or-region/
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“Most of the world lives under a dictatorship. The United States is an anomaly.”
We ARE an anomaly. I think we have the privilege of being directly ruled by The Cabal (The Society, or whatever you call it), whereas many other countries are ruled by installed dictators. Of course the Cabal doesn’t exist. And if it did, Noticing it would be called anti … hey! there goes a squirrel! Anyway, Canada is a “free” anomaly just as we are. Why, Mark Carney is the new leader of their Liberal Party and likely to be next Prime Minister. Central Banker Carney is an alumnus of Goldman Sachs (nacherally) and holds degrees from Harvard (de rigueur) and Oxford (of course). I’m mortally certain Mr Carney is aligned with the ordinary Canuck in the street and not with the Satanic pedo-vampires of The Cabal. (Not that there is such a thing as The Cabal.)
The cabal loves us more (I’d say “long time” but that would be racist).
Speaking of “jungle” and Weaponsman, I have a No. 5 bayonet that used to belong to Kevin. It’s on a bookcase in my living room. I don’t know if he had a “jungle carbine” to go with it, but if he had, that didn’t come to me. […] Suddenly I have a hankering for a Dr Pepper….
” the “pay to slay” program.”
Reminds me of how Planned Parenthood says that none of it’s taxpayer funded income is used for killing babies in the womb.
Of course, in their defense, they claim those are not babies in the womb.
If you dont know what a woman is, it’s not a big leap to be able to claim that you don’t know what a baby is.
Nah, most of their “revenue”(1) is from selling Not-A-Baby parts and pieces for “research” (2)…all done under the guise of “woman’s necessary healthcare”.
(1) a euphemism for ill-gotten cash when used by these scumbags and gov’t, usually taken at the point of a law backed by guns
(2) another euphemism for [pick a thing that isn’t real but often done with grant money from taxpayers]
How convenient that just after ending involvement in a 2 decade long foreign war, and effectively ending involvement in a European one, a justification for another one appears. For a)the Chosen, b) remember 1979! C) WMD, just like Saddam’s. I wonder if anyone will notice? Meanwhile the HTS government (I wonder who put them in charge) is starting their internal pacifcation campaign and oh look African Islamic butchery back in the news, too. I suggest Trump find another way not to get rope-a-doped into another entanglement overseas.
Ukraine, which is soon to break up along ethnic lines like the unlamented Yugoslavia, is now suddenly getting their conscripts butchered in the Kursk salient. It wasn’t that long ago that offensive was touted as being the beginning of the end for Russia. The blame Trump wing of the Rules Based Order will of course blame the usual suspect rather than admit to open US involvement in the war, and their own. And provocation of it too. Korea is getting some actual modern combat experience, at a high cost in lives, but when has their government ever cared about those?
I doubt that the “Iran War” will take long. Famous last words…I know. My sense is that it’s more of a war of annihilation in terms of infrastructure, and then leave them to sort out the damage. I doubt that an invasion is in the cards.
I’m sure that after both the war with Iraq, ok their war and our war with Iraq, and a couple decades of low-level sabotage and assassination, they have moved all those facilities and duplicated enough that it won’t be as simple as many think. The USAF is not what it once was. The regional “allies ” are hardly capable, or reliable either.
War with Iran is complicated. Should we destroy the nuclear facilities, topple the government, put boots on the ground for twenty years, or carve it up into five or six new countries? I’d like a “plan” on goals before we start.
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No speak z English in Leicester? Anyone visit London lately?
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Pictures of Iranian armour … not even equivalent to a Ruski T72. They’ll blow up and burn without much trouble. Give a few to the Ukraine war for field testing if in doubt.
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Need for air conditioning and availability of it in stores, businesses, homes, is a good metric for determining if I want to live there.
I don’t know what the plan is, but USGOV has been working on one for a very long time. Maybe we destroy their capacity to enrich uranium, build or launch missiles, pump oil, transport goods by rail, etc. And let the “new government” sort it out?
We have been at war with Iran since 1979, they know it even if most of us don’t. We needed decisive action after the embassy was taken and nothing happened so that never stopped…
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Kursk? I had to look at a map, Kursk is IN Russia! And the Russians are closing the door behind them…
Ukraine doesn’t want to talk, Europe doesn’t want to talk… it sure looks like the killing is no where near to an end.
Watching what’s happening with the EU rearming talk, Ukraine & Russia… I wonder if people watching what was happening in 1914 Europe felt like I do today?
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On a side note… after watching the unbelievable size of the graft & corruption we allow (regularly allow!) I am most shocked by MY ACCEPTANCE OF THE CAUSUAL USE OF THE WORD BILLION (as in billions of dollars!).
This is just not right…
We toss the word trillion around as if it were the car payment.
Stealing this.
I saw this in, if memory holds, American Handgunner, from Roy Huntington, I think:
How much is one trillion?
CCI make one million .22 cartridges a day: 1,000,000 in numbers
In a five day workweek, that’s five million: 5,000,000
Working 50 weeks in a year, that’s two hundred fifty million: 250,000,000
To make one billion takes FOUR years, 4 times the 250,000,000 or 1,000,000,000
But, to make a trillion would that 4,000 years, because a trillion is one thousand billion, (1,000,000,000,000) or 4,000 years times the 250,000,000 yearly production.
Just to put a bit of perspective to it in hard numbers.
Or as someone somewhere supposedly said, a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about some real money.
Some here would say that’s still not enough ammo to have on hand.
guilty as charged
Juan
If you have a mini-gun, you need to think in trillions if you want to have a party…and you’re ammosexual
That was Senator Dirksen from Illinois. He claimed it was a misquote by a reporter, but that it sounded so good he never denied it!
Air conditioning: decades ago, I had the realization that a technologically advanced civilization could not exist in a place without air conditioning. The European greens always criticize the US for using A/C. The southernmost parts of Europe are pretty much at the northernmost latitudes in the states. My latitude is close to the southern tip of the Sinai peninsula, and we’re a couple of hundred miles north of the southernmost point of Florida. The greens attacking us for using A/C are at latitudes north of New England.
In Arizona, the pavement can melt in mid-summer…
Funny that…dirt/gravel roads don’t melt (well, short of a Mt. St. Helen’s situation)
no, but ass-fault clearly does.
i left my boot prints on a phoenix street waiting on a stoplight on my harley, in early may. dry heat, my butt. that’s when i realized all those blue jugs in pickup beds weren’t kerosene.
wouldn’t change their assaults mate.
they are elite
supreme
just ask em
Juan
SiG, Southern most point in Florida…great Bar/restaurant just off the actual “point”, good food and atmosphere and cool breezes. All the hotels have AC. It’s worth a visit here and there (despite Key West getting…uh…shall we say…those 42 letter pronoun types): https://www.southernmostbeachresort.com/dine/southernmost-beach-cafe/
In southern Louisiana it’s not A/C.
It’s life support!!
Jim from down the Bayou
Exactly. Even a rattly old swamp cooler is better than nothing. Thanks for commenting LongBoy.
Yeah, but it’s got to be installed on a cobbled together with ‘found’ 2x4s rooftop platform that doubles as a BBQ zipline attachment point…that ends at a mattress that’s been bailing twined around a huge oak tree. What could go wrong?
Hold my beer…..
Venn diagram. In no particular order:
OCD
Math Skills
Problem Solving
People Skills.
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I provide outstanding service to my customers, but on technical projects, usually better if I work alone.
AC: Mr. Cool mini-splits are amazing, quiet, small head unit, multiple zones capacity if wanted, DYI install capable (assuming said DYI-er is capable), and both AC and heat if desired. May install one here for 3 months of Summer…because…GlobalCoolingWarmingClimateDoesChangeAndNotBecauseOfUs. The only people wanting us to be cir. 1900 again (including the smells, especially in August…in NYC) are goofballs, so they hate creature comforts such as AC…and 2-ply TP.
(Note to self: Next build…no large lodge style south facing window wall)
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War/Iran: Have always said just bomb the place, flatten and pave it, then put a Mickey-D’s and a Buc-Ees in the center. ME war will never end, if it could be contained with some overwatch eventually they will annihilate each other. Problem is it bleeds due to “interests” so ends up forcing America to get involved. We’re not the world’s police, altho in a way we are the big brother watching out for the little brother.
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Career Analysis (Kam-Alah would love this but not understand why)- People who have never had a job are [true] politicians, shows they have no rudder or skills other than talking about nothing of substance. But what if you are ‘some’ of the Venn diagram, born an engineer-type but developed management skills coupled to being the go-to person…does that make me half a politician? (gag! spit!)
You’re a former preacher, which makes you sort of a politician. Not a full blown Pelosi politician – but a politician all the same.
My day is complete knowing this tidbit.
History of said prior bi-vocational occupation proves your point, or as another told me about his building management position “I make people equally unhappy”. Now that right there is certainly one ‘politician factor’…coupled to “while I increase my personal wealth”…which being a preacher should not (okay to make good money but pretty sure a 10,000 sq-ft house and private jet is not what God had in mind for flock leaders).
A buddy worked in the a/c shop on board an aircraft carrier in the sixties. His battle station was to be on standby in officers’ country. Supposedly because the equipment in CIC had to be kept cool, but the admiral’s cabin was also air conditioned. Rank has its privileges.
Officer’s country is always air conditioned on combatants in my experience.
I grew up without a/c in Louisiana. First time I saw it was in Hawaii when I was stationed there. Now days, I’ll take it!!!
Corruption. Most places it is the norm. Do we need to accept it, like it is some kind of tax?
Listening to all the outrage from the leftist, and the sullen foot dragging by the RINOs, they appear to be failing entrepreneurs. Their enterprises are taking government money. All for lofty purposes, of course, but their business is graft.