Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard

Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard

I picked this up at Powell's City of Books a couple of weeks ago. I was looking for something I could read. I browsed the Science Fiction section for a while, but nothing grabbed me, so I figured I'd pick up a couple of Murder Mysteries from authors I knew. Elmore Leonard usually writes pretty good, hard-boiled murder mysteries. A bunch of shows were based on his books. These four I remember clearly:

• 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
• Jackie Brown (1997)
• Get Shorty (1995)
• TV series Justified (2010—2015)

Morro Castle Havana

Cuba Libre isn't one of them. It's more of a historical adventure story. It opens in 1898 right after the USS Maine got blown up, which triggers the Spanish-American War. It's pretty great. We have heroes, villains, a pretty girl, guns and a sprinkling of factoids that make it seem very real.

Characters:

• Ben Tyler - our hero
• Charlie Burke - Ben's partner
• Roland 'Rollie' Boudreaux - sugar plantation owner, polo player
• Amelia Brown - our girl and Rollie's mistress
• Victor Fuentes - Rollie's factotum
• Novis Crowe - Rollie's bodyguard
• Palenzuela - Havana Chief of Police
• Rudy Calvo - investigator for Palenzuela
• Lorraine - Amelia's friend and the Chief's mistress
• Neely Tucker - reporter page 12
• Paulina Gonzales
• Gomez
• Osma - former slave and slave hunter
• Dr. Henriques - San Lazaro hospital for lepers page 330
• Mary Lou Jones - San Lazaro hospital for lepers page 330
• Tavalera - evil Guardia leader
• Isabela Catolica page 236
• Islero - insurgent general

A number of historical figures are mentioned:

• John J. Crittenden - American patriot
• Clara Barton - founded American Red Cross page 89
• Winston Churchill - junior British military officer page 85
• Evangelina Cisneros - Cuban imprisoned by Spanish authorities page 89
• Charles Crocker - railroad tycoon page 12 (Crooker)
• Richard Harding Davis - reporter page 12
• Frederick Funston - American artillerist page 297
• Calixto García - Cuban General page 85
• Máximo Gómez - Cuban General page 85
• William Randolph Hearst - Newspaper mogul page 87
• Julia Ward Howe - author and social activist page 89
• Fitzhugh Lee - American Army General page 87
• Narcisco Lopez - Cuban patriot
• Charles Dwight Sigsbee - Captain of the USS Maine page 85
• Valeriano Weyler - Spanish General page 87

Here's some pics of stuff that got mentioned:

USS Terror, page 190

Spanish cruiser Vizcaya

The Sims-Dudley Dynamite Gun
Uses compressed air to fire explosive rounds

Chapter 17, page 260, the cowboy and the marine set off to collect a debt from the owner of a sugar cane plantation. Naturally there are guns involved:

Minute of Mae: Spanish Mauser 1893
C&Rsenal

Minute of Mae: U.S. Krag–Jørgensen 1898
C&Rsenal

Minute of Mae: S&W No.3 Russian 3rd Model
C&Rsenal

Page 301. In 1898, trains and horses were the primary means of transportation. Sometimes you carried your horses on a train, which meant you had to raise the horse four feet off of the ground to get into the stock car.  For that you need a ramp:

Soviet Union, South.- Horses being loaded into a train." August 1942

Havana Cuba 1898

Cuba

I was able to find most of the places mentioned in the book. I marked them on a Google Map. The Cluster of blue markers are around Havana, the green ones are around Matanzas and yellow ones have to do with the war.

I wrote a couple of pages of notes about Cuba Straits, a murder mystery set in Cuba. Page 1 here. Page 2 here. And then there's all my other posts about Cuba.

Spectre

When you Accidentally Compromise every CPU on Earth
Daniel Boctor

What he's talking about here is virtual lockpicking. There is something about locks that attracts a certain kind of person, a person who says 'Hah! You think you can keep me out? I will show you. Nothing can keep me out. Your security is worthless!' The Lock Picking Lawyer comes to mind. They are people who like solving puzzles. I like solving puzzles, but I only enjoy working on puzzles that I can solve in short order, like five minutes. Oh, I might spend a couple of hours on a jigsaw puzzle, but that's about my limit.

I sometimes think about wading into computer security, but that is going to take a lot more time, and where's the payoff? Even if you manage to break into a computer system, are you even going to find anything valuable? And valuable to who? And would you trust anyone who sanctions breaking into someone else's computer system? Psychopaths could find ways to entice computer security experts into breaking into other's computers with enticements and challenges, but do you really want to be doing business with psychopaths? Get paid in cash and never tell them where you are. They'll sell you down the river in a heartbeat.

The crux of Spectre is that it can 'trick' the CPU into accessing memory belonging to another process because it is only a 'speculative' access. Another interesting bit is that apparently you can time how long it takes to access a single memory location. A simple way would be by setting a timer before reading memory and reading the timer afterwards, but that would mean locking out interrupts for the duration, and I'm pretty sure nobody but the operating system gets to lockout interrupts. Given that CPUs have gotten a zillion times more complex since I last fiddled with interrupts, there's probably several other ways to do it.

Thermoelectric Generators

Candle-Powered LED Lantern: an Exercise in Conversion Efficiency
Our Own Devices

I was surprised to see the long list of thermoelectric devices (4:54 mark).

The Candle-Powered LED Lantern is available from Amazon:

Candle-Powered LED Lantern

Amazon also has a much cheaper, but similar, device.

I made a Russian type kerosene radio
Syam Nath

qrp.gr has a long page all about the history of thermoelectric generators.

You want electric power in the Arctic? No problem for the Soviets:

The Soviet Union's Deadly Abandoned Nuclear Generators
Andy Mcloone

Update a couple hours later fixed first video.

Blast from the Past

Hyperion: The Fully Reusable SSTO!
Hazegrayart

Hyperion was an idea from 1966. The video is a recent creation.

Golly gee, that looks familiar. A comment clued me in:

When Worlds Collide (1951)- Leaving earth
Razor Shark

I saw this movie when I was a kid and it made a huge impression on me. Didn't see it when it came out, that was the year I was born. Must have been a later release, maybe when the Apollo project was ramping up.

F-15

McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle at Luke AFB

Luke Air Force Base is on the west side of Phoenix, Arizona.

Life and Death

Vikings Season 1 Trailer
Rewatch Again

We've been watching Vikings and while it is a gory bloodfest, it's given me a few things to think about.

Early on Ragnar's 'tribe' makes a pilgrimage to Uppsala where they have a drug and alcohol fueled orgy. Then there is a religious ceremony where they sacrifice (slaughter) a bunch (several dozen) animals and also a group of humans. Now my immediate reaction is that this is barbaric, which is understandable, after all they are heathen / pagan savages, not god-fearing Christians and it is barbaric. Then I think about it a bit and now I wonder if maybe the sacrifice victims were just feeling suicidal and this gave them a socially acceptable means of ending their lives. Now, by our standards they were living pretty miserable lives up there in cold, rocky Norway where farming was a pretty precarious business. You can see how someone whose life has been pretty miserable might get discouraged and take the opportunity to exit this life and join their gods. Shoot, we've got it a heck of a lot better than they did and we have people committing suicide.

Many episodes later there is a scene where they are getting ready for a battle and Bjorn says 'life is on the edge between life and death' or words to that effect. I'm reminded of stories from soldiers about how they never feel more alive than when they are engaged in real combat - where their lives are at serious risk. There was a scene in a movie (Proof of Life) where a couple of guys who know what they are doing break in on meeting between the principal and a group who is angling to be the negotiator in a hostage situation. The two guys come into the meeting armed with assault rifles and run the erstwhile negotiators off. No shots are fired, but now we know that these two guys know what they are going. The face-off is all over and one says to the other 'that was some fun, eh?'

So now I'm thinking that Vikings went on these raids sheerly for the thrill of combat. Sure, they might capture some slaves, and haul off some loot, but I think the slaves were just to pay for the expedition, and the loot, well, they just buried it so they would have plenty of loot in Valhalla. Were they just adrenaline junkies?

Earlier today I was reading Bayou Renaissance Man and he's talking about people who cannot perform the simplest jobs. Whether it is stupidity, or being unwilling or unable to pay attention, the job doesn't get done and sometimes they just make a mess. 

Capitalism depends on people being able to work together towards one goal. Typically, you need one person leading the charge, directing the people. You don't want more than one, too many chefs spoil the soup and all that. If you have a bunch of people who will apply themselves to the leader's goal and can follow directions, you have a chance of reaching your goal.

Now I'm thinking you get a leader who wants to make war on the neighbors, he could make use of the same kind of people to wage an effective war. If there is business going on, the competent people might not be interested in going to war. However, there are always going to be people who are not going to be good employees but who might be thrilled by the prospect of going to war.

Different kinds of people, with different temperaments and different motivations.

Heard a rumor today that someone in Colombia is offering tourist packages to suicidal Japanese. The idea is that life in Japan is too safe and boring, whereas life in Colombia can be fraught with danger.

Lots of people commit suicide. Most I suspect are due to depression. Some may be due to chronic pain. Some drug overdoses are accidental by people suffering chronic pain.

When I was suffering from depression Stu recommended getting a motorcycle and going for a ride. In retrospect I think it was fine advice. I should have taken it. I managed to escape my depression but it took a long time. A couple of years anyway. Maybe ten. I dunno.

Anti-Bike

World's First SCREW-BIKE
James Burton

This is kind of amazing. Amazing that it works, amazing that someone would expend the effort to build this thing. All that 3-D printing must have taken thousands of hours. And all that effort went into building a machine whose sole purpose is to demonstrate that it could be done. Got to give him credit that he was able to make it all work.

Tornado

Raw video: Tornado forms near Rockwell City, Iowa
KCCI

This is just one of the five tornadoes that touched down in Calhoun County Iowa on Tuesday. Rockwell City is my wife's home town. Rockwell City has appeared here before.

P. S. No injuries.

Neom - The Line

Neom - The Line - The Rise and Fall of Saudi Arabia's Linear City.
Patrick Boyle

Patrick takes down Saudi Arabia's fanciful city in the desert in the most complimentary way possible. No, he isn't being sarcastic. Don't laugh, that could get you kilt.

Map of The Line - Neom

The Line is near the Straits of Tiran.

Via Iowa Man (previously known as IAman)

P. S. There is an ad somewhere in the middle for an outfit called Delete Me. It sounds like a scam to me, but they have a website which means they must be legit, right?

Giovanni's

Tundra Repair

My gang gets together for lunch every Tuesday. Today we were going to Giovanni's but IAman makes an excuse for not coming:

I’m busy with Tundra coils-over-shocks.  Can’t do lunch today.

You all are welcome to come over and commiserate with me. 

Again it was easy, except for the one inaccessible nut, that finally gave into a nut splitter.

Motorcycle

How many downshifts?
Lukas Höllbacher #72

Tamara de Lempicka

Young Woman in Green (1927–30) - Tamara de Lempicka

Variety reviews a Broadway musical about Tamara de Lempicka, a Art-Deco painter from Poland. Never heard of her, so I look her up and this image is the first one that pops up. Kind of reminds of old heroic, communist paintings, but that may just be due to the prevailing style of the time.

Fight

From ZeroHedge:

Renato Moicano and Joe Rogan

"Read Ludwig von Mises, Motherf**kers!" - Brazilian UFC Fighter's Victory Speech Pumps Austrian Economics by Tyler Durden

While the Middle East wobbled on the precipice of World War III on Saturday, a Brazilian UFC fighter gave us hope by using his victory speech to deliver an emphatic endorsement of Austrian economics, Ludwig von Mises, the First Amendment and gun rights. 

Renato Moicano's televised speech came after he pulled off a comeback win over Jalin Turner at Las Vegas. Joe Rogan joined him in the ring to discuss the fight, but Moicano had other priorities, and proceeded to drop a profanity-peppered liberty bomb on the T-Mobile Arena crowd and a worldwide audience:  

“I’m a huge advocate of the First Amendment. Today, of course I want the $300k bonus but they not going to give [it to me] because somebody say, 'hey, this is fucking Disney, you cannot curse'…so I’m not going to do my speech, but...

First off all I love America. I love the Constitution. I love the First Amendment. I want to carry all the fucking guns. I love private property. And let me tell you something: If you care about your fucking country, read Ludwig von Mises and the six lessons of the Austrian economic school, motherfuckers!”

By "six lessons of the Austrian economic school," Moicano was referring to a concise, 106-page Ludwig von Mises book, "Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow." Among the best-selling Mises works, it's broken into six sections: Capitalism, Socialism, Interventionism, Inflation, Foreign Investment, and Policies and Ideas. (The Brazilian version's title translates to "The Six Lessons.") 

The lessons are transcribed from a series of lectures Mises delivered at the University of Buenos Aires in 1959. Per the book's description, "Mises had urged Argentina to turn from dictatorship and socialism toward full liberty, so there is a special urgency behind the cool logic employed here. The book's continued popularity is due to its clarity of exposition on the ways in which economic policy affects everyone."

I like his attitude, and I'm surprised hear a fighter talking about economics, but I'm not sure widespread knowledge of economics is going to help. What we need is Congress to quit spending money like drunken sailors. And maybe a few entrepreneurs who can put a million people to work doing something productive.

Beetlejuice

Watch the Opening Number From Beetlejuice on Broadway - "The Whole Being Dead Thing"
Playbill

To the ancient Egyptians, Betelgeuse was the mythical god of the underworld. So we've taken the name and given it a new spelling that people like me can pronounce. Then they took that name and made a movie with Michael Keaton. Then they made a musical and my wife and I went to see it at Keller Auditorium last night in downtown Portland.

The show was full of flashing lights and people singing songs that I had never heard, using words I couldn't understand. I think the next time we go I need to read the lyrics beforehand. There were some funny bits, the lead actor was energetic, and Lydia, the young girl, has quite a voice.

Driving home, we're in the center lane of highway 26 and the car in front of me stops. WTF!?! Going into Portland it's often creepy crawly from the top of Sylvan down to 405, but going the other way traffic is usually free flowing. So why is this guy stopping in the middle of the highway? Turns out that we were about five cars back from a car that was stopped. Engine failure? Heart attack? Freak out? I have no idea. Fortunately, traffic was light so I was able to pull out and go around without getting clobbered.

Thinking about this, I realized the problem might be due the extreme reliability of automobiles. Back in the good old days, there was always a distinct possibility of your car breaking down. If that happened, you were supposed to pull off of the road onto the shoulder. But these days, cars hardly ever break down. Oh, stuff breaks all the time, but it usually doesn't stop from going on. I can't remember the last time I saw a car broke down on the side of the road. I mean I've seen them, but it's like once a year, not every blinking week. So because cars are so reliable, people have forgotten what you are supposed to do if it stops. Or maybe they quit teaching that. 

Anyway, I think the car was broken because it was just sitting there and there wasn't any of that jerking around that you get with a pissed off brake checker.

Sunshine

From Pill Hill:

Mt. St. Helens (left) and Mt. Adams (center)
Marquam Bridge front center

Mt. Hood
Ross Island Bridge (left) and South Waterfront

NPR Political Apparatchiks

The Free Press has a story:

I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust. by Uri Berliner

It's a fine story, Uri goes through a long list of stories that NPR (National Public Radio) screwed up in recent years. Okay, but why? Near as I can make out the place was infected with TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).

The fish rots from the head, so who was in charge of this place?

Wikipedia has a list of CEOs:

List of presidents/CEOs

• Donald Quayle (1970–1973)
• Lee Frischknecht (1973–1977)
• Frank Mankiewicz (1977–1983)
• Douglas J. Bennet (1983–1993)
• Delano Lewis (1993–1998)
• Kevin Klose (1998–2008)
• Vivian Schiller (2009–2011)
• Gary Knell (2011–2013)
• Paul Haaga (2013–2014)
• Jarl Mohn (2014–2019)
• John F. Lansing (2019–present)

Funny, Wikipedia has a page about all of them except the last one: John F. Lansing. Actually he's not last, Katherine Maher was appointed as new CEO in January.

Lansing was a big wheel at USAGM (U.S. Agency for Global Media). Apparently retired now. Mahler is a Biden appointee, so I expect she is just as worthless as Biden, well, except for pumping out more hard left bullshit.

Via The Shekel

Could you beat in an elephant in a fight?

Could you beat in an elephant in a fight? is the title of a post on Finding life hard? An excellent question, the best question, I love this question. 

I enjoy Liz's posts because they are so far all the other stuff I see.

Hatred is a Human Right

Great stuff, stolen entire from Essays in Idleness 

Hateful anti-hatists by David Warren

Granted, it is hard to get anything right; and when in addition to oneself, one has assumed responsibility for the behaviour of some hundreds of millions of others, or even a few thousand, the certainty of failure must be quite discouraging. Yet, I feel no compassion for these political leaders — very much including those “on my side” — and will not sponge them with soothing, sympathetic wetness.

When the State tells me that it is wrong to kill, or even to maim or torture, immigrants, I am willing to “grant the State a pass”; for there have been laws against such violence from the beginning of (human) time. But when the State tells me that I mustn’t hate immigrants, it has gone too far. Indeed, as a connoisseur of hatreds, I despise various immigrant groups particularly, and probably hate many white cis-Canadians even more. These are prejudices to which I am entitled.

The question whether I have a right to hurt animals is more complicated, and potentially very boring. But I remain within culinary conventions by eating only animals and vegetable matter. I hate some vegetables even more than I hate the immigrants, though seldom does it rise to the murderous level.

The nursing of selective, as well as general, hatreds, is an important human right. Hatreds have been, as those acquainted with art and literature may know, a fine creative goad. … “Some of the greatest poetry and paintings,” &c. … And it can never be prevented, because the more practised hatists go about their despications, subtly. One might easily miss what they are secretly gnashing about.

But those who would persecute hatists refuse to be subtle. They want legislation. They are so damned obvious. Categorically, let us persecute them!

Irrelevant addendum: Seems like most every day I come across a word I have never heard before. Today that word is 'despications'.  It is a variant of despicable. Oxford says it is obsolete.

Misfits Rule

My dream died, and now I'm here
Sabine Hossenfelder

I enjoyed this video. I feel we are somewhat kindred spirits. When I was working with computers, I was only interested in making them work which mostly involved debugging code and connecting wires. Since there was no end to the supply of problems, I thought I could keep on doing it indefinitely. Turns out wasn't the case. Looking back, I think I was like the guy who fixes up old cars because he can, but meanwhile the world is churning out new cars as fast as they can, so there are fewer and fewer old cars, and more importantly fewer and fewer people who are willing to pay to have them repaired. Everybody wants new cars that don't require the services of a mechanic.

Charlie Horse

The Song That Doesn't End It Goes On and On My Friend - Who remembers ?
WR

I got a charley horse in my right calf in the middle of night last night, and something weird happened with my right hand around the same. I'm not quite sure what it was, my leg had woken me up from a sound sleep, so I was pretty groggy, so 12 hours later 'something weird' is the best I can do. I mentioned it at lunch today which led to talk about the difference, if any, between a muscle spasm, a charley horse and a cramp. I don't think there is any, really, but to me a muscle spasm is a momentary kind of thing, a charley horse lasts longer and is annoying, and a cramp is painful and disabling.

Anyway all that led to Charlie Horse, the character on The Sheri Lewis Show. That's him being the ring leader in the above video.

Eclipse

From Dennis, who flew home to Dallas for this.

Eclipse

No Moon

Missouri Cheese Cave

Cheese stored underground in a former limestone mine, Missouri

Rumor has it that the government has 1.4 billion pounds of cheese stored in these caves under Springfield, Missouri. The Farm link Project has a page about this as does Wikipedia.

One pound of cheese can provide enough calories to sustain one person for one day, so 1.4 billion pounds is enough to sustain the entire country for like four days.

The natural temperature of the cave is 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but refrigeration brings the temperature down to 36 degrees. I wonder what the electric bill is.

It would be a good thing to have all that cheese in case of famine, but 70% of the world's population is lactose intolerant. 

It sounds like a government project run amuck, but this is small potatoes compared to some.

Via a meme on Bustednuckles

Kangilinnguit

Sikorsky Sea King (OY-HAG)

Big helicopter in a far away place: Kangilinnguit, Greenland.

Southern Greenland Airports

Kangilinnguit is the second placemark from the left.

Death To Google

Up until about six months ago everything was fine in Google land, but then things started getting squirrely. Keyboard and mouse responses got slower, page loads got slower. Not a lot, just enough to be annoying. Today the edit icon disappeared from this blog. The edit icon is a little picture of a pencil that appears at the bottom of each post. It only appears for your own blog.

I was messing around with the layout this morning. It didn't work, so I undid all my edits and that's when I noticed the missing icon. Frightened and confused I asked Blogger Help and found this little turd:

Since browsers can block third-party cookies by default, edit elements may no longer be visible on your blog. This is also related to the new widget management options.

I suspect that the 'new widget management options' are what's behind all my current annoyances. I will be replacing my Chromebox with a Linux box very soon. I suspect I may have to replace my browser as well. Does Netscape still exist?

Dhaka

Boeing 747-200 (4K-BCI)

747 air freighter landing in Dhaka. I've heard of Dhaka, but I forgot where it was. Bangladesh, that's where. Just a reminder that even though stories from the third world are almost uniformly bad, like the movie Extraction, there are bits of civilization.

Extraction

Extraction | Official Trailer | Screenplay by JOE RUSSO Directed by SAM HARGRAVE | Netflix
Big, tough white man (Chris Helmsworth) goes to war against an army of drug war minions and goes all John Wick on them. Great stuff.

It starts with an Indian drug lord's son being kidnapped by the minions of a rival drug lord from Bangladesh. Drug Lord #1 is in jail, so he directs his lieutenant to get his son back. The lieutenant hires our hero, a mercenary from Australia for the job. There's just one problem, the lieutenant doesn't have any money on account of the drug lord's bank accounts have been frozen.

Drug lord #2 is holding the kid in Dhaka, which is evidently an island, because the only way out of the city is on one of the bridges, and his minions have set up roadblocks on the all the bridges looking for our hero.

P. S. I wrote this back in 2020, but I didn't finish it or post it. But now I need it for another post, so here we are.

The Iron Law of Prohibition

From Windypundit's post about Backpage:

The Iron Law of Prohibition says that making something illegal will make it stronger and more dangerous. Nobody drank bathtub gin in America until the Prohibition laws of 1920 criminalized alcoholic beverages. Almost nobody smoked crack until law enforcement started a war on cocaine, and we didn’t have much of a fentanyl problem until the government started cracking down on opioids. Legal alcohol and tobacco distributors didn’t shoot each other in the streets the way drug-smuggling gangsters do.

Criminalizing a good or service necessarily drives it underground. The need to hide makes it harder to build a good reputation, which makes it less rewarding to have good business practices. Customer service and attention to product quality fall by the wayside. Without transparency, public regulation, or access to the courts to redress grievances, there is little penalty for being a bad actor. Thus bad actors enter and thrive in the market, engaging in fraud, theft, and violence, which can often only be countered with more violence. Prohibition drives good people out of the business, resulting in entire markets being controlled by gangs of criminals, and the harder the prohibition laws are enforced, the more power gets transferred to people willing to endanger themselves and others to make a buck.

 

Iron Reign

Iron Reign | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Big time drug smuggling operation in Barcelona. The guy running the container operation at the port lost a hand in an 'accident' many years ago. He has been fitted with one of those old style metal claw hands, hence the Spanish title of Mano de Hierro which Google translates as Iron Hand. In the English subtitles he is referred to as 'armless'. Funny how people mangle language.

Besides the big guy and his family, we also have a couple of Mexicans who are there to collect the payment for their drugs and a Frenchman who is a big European distributor. In this mix we have a full boat of crazies. The big guy's son has a serious gambling problem, his daughter is married to a guy who is having sex with another guy, whose 'sister' is working as a maid for the the daughter. His brother is infatuated with a whore who won't run off with him. The Mexican guy practices Santeria, the Mexican girl is a cool headed dyke. Is there any normal sex in this show? If there was, I missed it. Plenty of violence, people fighting with fists, knives and guns. So a bit of perverted sex and plenty of ultraviolence.

But what makes it interesting is watching the people and trying to figure out who stole the container that has the drugs, and how did they steal it? The things are marked and tracked. It's a puzzle. Everyone is shady and 40 million Euros could tempt most anybody.

I would think that shipping containers would be just perfect for smuggling drugs. Zillions of them cross the border everyday. None of the people who are transporting them have any idea what's in them. But in this show we have people on the ship and people on the dock who know just which container is the target which leads to all kinds of problems.

However, if using shipping containers to smuggle drugs is such a good idea, why are the narcos building submarines to transport drugs? That's what they were doing a few years ago. I dunno, maybe it's just easier.

The show opens with pirates attacking a cargo ship out in the ocean. The ship is relatively small for container ship, and the containers are stacked rather haphazardly on the deck, but it's possible there are ships like that out there. The ship sailed from Mexico with stops in China and India which would have it heading through the pirate infested waters off the horn of Africa, so it's plausible. The ship is carrying the two Mexican principles along with a squad of heavily armed thugs, so the pirates are quickly dealt with. Presumably the ship continues up the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and then across the Mediterranean to Barcelona.

Micro-Microphone

Microphone in your Earbud is Amazing Technology
Breaking Taps

I'm impressed by the technology, but I'm doubly impressed by the video.

Groove Armada - My Friend

Groove Armada - My Friend (Official Video)
Groove Armada

Just a tune I like.

Guyana Update

Guyana and disputed the Essequibo region (red hash marks)

I posted about Guyana once four years ago. Today we have a report from RT (aka Russia Today). Looks like we might have another minor war coming.

The border between Venezuela and Guyana is under dispute. Nobody much cared about this patch of jungle until a giant oil company discovered oil there. Now Madura, the commie dictator of Venezuela, wants it, and we, the USA, are naturally opposed to this because we hate commies. And we want the oil for ourselves.

Looking at this I am wondering whether it might be cheaper and easier to get oil from miles below the surface of the ocean rather than trying to get drilling equipment and pipelines into the middle of a jungle. I just don't know. Drill ships are expensive. But so is any kind of construction in a jungle.

Even if Madura could somehow take over the disputed region, I doubt whether he would be able to get any oil out of there. I mean he has pretty much destroyed Venezuela's oil industry.

Venezuela production of crude oil in oil barrels, 1965-2019

V-Twin Motorcycle Engines

How Indian Makes 43% More Power than Harley-Davidson
FortNine

For Stu on account of him calling Harley Davidson Hardly Able. 

Ukraine & the U. S. Government

Tanks and Flags

I never could understand why we instigated the war between Russia and Ukraine. Maybe there were some dinosaurs who just wanted to pick a fight with Russia because they grew up during the cold war and Russia was bad then, so it must still be bad. But I suspect they saw the war as an excuse to fund our own arms industry, which would mean they would be collecting big time in the form of kickbacks, bribes and insider stock trading. They don't care that the war is killing thousands of Ukrainians and Russians, they're all just peasants anyway.

I don't hear much about the war these days, at least nothing worth mentioning, but I came across Ukraine’s Starting to Get Dangerous by James Rickards today. It's pretty good. Here's a couple of excerpts.

But the entire notion that Russia poses some existential threat to NATO or Europe is absurd.

First off, the theory that Putin will invade other countries if he wins in Ukraine is nonsense. The Russian army lacks the men and materiel to occupy Ukraine while simultaneously invading other countries.

This isn’t the Soviet Union with its massive tank armies poised to roll over Western Europe. And Soviet communism is long dead, so there’s no ideological basis for Russia to invade Europe. These days Russia is a conservative, Orthodox Christian nation.

and:

But more importantly, Putin has absolutely no incentive to invade any of these nations, which are NATO members. What do they have that he wants?Fearmongers like to point to what Putin once said in a speech: “Whoever doesn’t miss the Soviet Union doesn’t have a heart.”

They take that as proof that he wants to recreate the Soviet Union. But they conveniently omit what he said next: “Whoever wants it back doesn’t have a brain.”

 James Rickards has been mentioned here before.

Death and Destruction

I've had some thoughts rattling around in my brain for a while so I'm gonna try and write them down.

Israrel should not not let up until they have eradicated Hamas. Hamas is guilty of bad think, much like the Nazi's and the Nips in WW2. We didn't just punish them with retaliatory raids, we pummeled them into oblivion. Hamas needs the same treatment.

Iran probably deserves the same treatment, but there are a bunch of Muslim countries in Asia. Are we going to lay waste to all of them? We were able to rebuild the moderately sized countries of Germany and Japan but would we be able to rebuild all of central Asia?

I'm reading Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard and he paints the Spaniards as a very vicious group. Massacres, summary executions, torture and starvation are the order of the day. But then I got to wondering how did they get this way? And I remember some old stories of white explorers encountering natives in the new world. At first they got along, but there was more than one incident where the natives came back and massacred the explorers who had let their guard down because the natives seemed to be peaceful people.

The natives were guilty of bad think and the Spanish pummeled them into near oblivion. Western Civilization has standards of behavior that uncivilized people don't. That's what makes them uncivilized and guilty of bad think.

Darwin's theory of evolution applies to civilizations as well. Those civilizations that can organize themselves to produce more and better weapons are going to crush those who can't.

Property Taxes - Plutocratic SF Inbox

Remember the California Property Tax Revolt?

On June 6, 1978, California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 13, a property tax limitation initiative. This amendment to California's Constitution was the taxpayers' collective response to dramatic increases in property taxes and a growing state revenue surplus. - Assessor's Office County of San Luis Obispo

That's just to get you warmed up to hear what California Bob has to say about property taxes:

SF property tax increases are capped using some formula like "lesser of CPI or 1.5% per year." It's like rent control for property owners. I was paying my property taxes and started digging around on the tax website.

Picking a random block near me, with all pretty similar, typical Sunset crap shacks, I found that taxes on the street ranged from $962 per year to $19,600 -- a 20x difference. My own block ranges from $2800 (for a large duplex, interestingly) to over $18K. Happily I'm nearer the lower end.

Scanning Nancy Pelosi's neighborhood, taxes on this $8 million place are about $4500/year -- considerably less than we pay, and equivalent to about 5 basis points on value. Surprisingly inequitable for a city committed to progressivism (TBF this is state law, not local)

This comes from properties remaining in the family for generations. So Cal voters recently passed a proposition which will limit heirs' ability to inherit their parents tax base. Unless the heirs make it their primary residence, the tax base will reset. So if you keep the property as a second home, or a rental -- no tax protection.

I can't help but feel this will increase property turnover. For single family homes, some heir will have to make it their primary residence, or face tax resets. The greater impact will be on rental properties, which have their own rent protection. I see owners dying, taxes resetting ten-fold higher, and the kids realizing that rent control makes it uneconomic to operate, and they have to sell. Haven't seen much movement yet but that's my theory.

BTW rental properties with existing tenants are dirt cheap here. Running a rental in SF is an investment death sentence.

Random residence in Pelosi's neighborhood 1

Random residence in Pelosi's neighborhood 2

Notes:

BTW - By The Way

CPI - Consumer Price Index

SF - San Francisco

TBF - To Be Fair

basis points - A basis point is primarily used to denote changes in interest rates. Common abbreviations of the term include “bps,” “bp” and “bips.” One basis point is equivalent to one one-hundredth of one percent. In other words, 50 basis points equals 0.50 percent, and 100 basis points equals 1 percent.

Skagway

Skagway, Alaska

Picked up a copy of Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard yesterday afternoon at Powell's City of Books in downtown Portland. I was expecting a hard-boiled murder mystery, but it turns out to be about the Spanish-American War.

It starts with a couple of Americans looking for a way to make some money. They've got some horses so maybe they can sell them to someone who wants them. Skagway comes up as a possibility, there's a gold rush going on up there, and boy does that ring a bell. I haven't heard anyone mention Skagway in a long time.

I can't remember why, but it seems like there was a time when everyone was talking about Skagway. Could it have been a TV show? There was a TV show called Klondike which aired back 1960-61, which would have been the right time frame. I looked at a couple of clips on YouTube, but none of it seemed familiar.

Anyway, I looked up Skagway in Wikipedia and thought this picture was very cool. Now you might be wondering, like I was, just where it is.

Skagway, Alaska

Google Maps has slipped a cog. I expected Google Maps to stick one of their place markers on Skagway once I had zoomed out far enough, but not this time. Anyway, Skagway is about two thirds of the way up the Alaskan panhandle, about halfway between Juneau and Whitehorse. 

The Blade Itself

The Blade Itself

Just finished this book, an entertaining tale of swords and sorcery with some well done action sequences. Joe Abercrombie has written maybe a dozen books about his fictional world. I might have to read another one. I've been trying to read books for several months but haven't been making much progress. Didn't quite understand what the problem was. A couple of weeks ago, after four months of fiddle-fartin' around,  I finally got the heater fixed on the SUV. The next day I was reading again. Weird.

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Gloves

Old Gloves

I threw my old gloves away today. I was proud of those gloves. I've been using them for years whenever I had some work to do. Admitted there wasn't a lot of work, not like I was putting in 40 hours a week. I'd pick up a little project, or my wife would decide something needed to be done and I'd put my gloves on and go tackle it. I dunno, it was probably 20 years ago when I realized cuts were taking longer to heal and maybe I should start wearing gloves whenever I am working with tools, and so I did.

If you, or least I, don't take particular care of your gloves they will wonder off into the weeds and the next time you need them you will spend so much time looking for them that you will decide to just buy another pair. What do leather gloves cost these days? $20? Shoot that's lunch money. So I started taking care of where I kept them. Right now my newer gloves are in one of the pockets of my jacket. My knit hat is in the other.

I like leather gloves. I've tried plastic and rubber gloves a couple of times and I can't stand them. Can't explain it. I would rather get my hands dirty and risk getting a cut than wear rubber gloves. I can tolerate dishwashing gloves because they aren't skin tight. I still don't use them.

Most of the finger tips on my old gloves are missing. Still, they comforted me. I am sad to see them go, but I have newer gloves and they are only missing one fingertip and I wear them. I probably haven't warn my old gloves in a couple of years. Time to let them go.

Turn and Burn

GIRAR UNA MOTO +230 KG SITUACION EMERGENCIA
Kirian Mirabet Vidiella

Cute trick. Via IAman.

Sea Shanty

I wrote a sea shanty
Elle & Toni

The video starts with a minute long introduction. The song starts at 1:25.

Inflation

French Assignat from the 1792 issue: 400 livres

From Praetorian Capital:

Everyone thinks of inflation as being purely a financial phenomenon. However, it is much more than that. It is also a social phenomenon. As the inflation accelerates, an opportunist class rises to the top of society, and the productive class is impoverished. Inflation re-orients all economic activities, encouraging speculation at the expense of work, and forever changing the people who experience it. This societal aspect is rarely discussed.

Via ZeroHedge

Successful businesses, real estate and precious metals are the only things with real value. Money is defined by what it can buy. The stock market keeps going up and up and up, but it's not because all those companies are being more productive, it's because the dollar is worth less and less. Nobody with any money is hanging on to it because its value continues to go down, down, down. They are buying things that have real value.

30 years ago going out for lunch at a sit down restaurant cost about $5. Now it's more like $25. That's like a 5% increase every year, except since Mr. Mumbles rolled into town. Now it's like 25% every year.

Assignats

Assignats were paper money (fiat currency) authorized by the Constituent Assembly in France from 1789 to 1796, during the French Revolution, to address imminent bankruptcy.

By 1796 they were pretty much worthless. We aren't there yet, but we're edging ever closer to the edge.