High Level View of America's Place in the World

Dawn of a New Era by Bruce Abramson

He takes a bunch of pieces and fits them together into a semi-coherent whole.

Drug Cartels

Woody Harrelson Addresses Controversial SNL Monologue on JRE Podcast
Going Rogan

Woody Harrelson strikes again. For a long time I thought Woody was a dummy, probably because he played his famous character (bartender on Cheers) so well. Took me a long time to figure out that he is actually a very smart guy.

Sweet Emotion

Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion
Aerosmith

Looking at the mess we (meaning the USA) have fallen into, and I'm wondering how did this happen? I think I have an answer. 

• Part 1 is that people are emotional animals and logical thinking is hard work. 
• Part 2 is 'sharing is caring'. It's very easy to be seduced by stories about how this program or that is going to help, the poor, miserable disadvantaged souls in our midst. 
• Part 3 is these feelings tend to grow. You feel a little sympathy for the poor, miserable wretches, and that feeling makes you feel better, so you sign on with that campaign because you like feeling better.

As long as there is money to be had, this will continue. After all, feelings are what make us feel alive.

The problem is that no one wants to hear the cold hard facts. They are boring and devoid of warmth. There's no feeling involved, so no one cares. The trick then is to wrap up your rational, conservative approach to government spending in some kind or warm fuzzy blanket that will make people feel better. And that's what President Trump has done. Well, he's making some people feel better, at least a majority.

Alacrity Fitzhugh

Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds by Brian Daley

Tam posts:

Putting together a series of book reports on my favorite Sci Fi trilogy you've never heard of.

Just finished reading Requiem for a Ruler of Worlds for probably the dozenth time and starting in on the second book of the trilogy...

Don't remember whether I have read this book or not, but when I pull up the link and read the blurb the name Alacrity Fitzhugh pops up. I remember that name well because I remember running into Alacrity before and discovered that when you pronounce Fitzhugh it sounds exactly like 'fits you'.

If I didn't already have a stack of books to read I would order a copy. 

 

Islamist is just another word for Commie

Palestinian Protest - Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images

Fine story about the danger of radical ideologies:

America Can’t Ignore The Warning Signs Of Radicalization by Isik Abla

There was a time in my life when I lived in the shadow of terror — not just as a distant observer, but as someone who felt its grip firsthand. I was born into a world where radical Islam was not just a belief system, but a way of life — a force that dictated what I could wear, how I could think, who I could marry, and whether I lived or died. I have seen the face of oppression up close. I have felt the cold breath of death whispering lies of hopelessness into my soul.

And yet, by God’s grace, I escaped. I ran from that life and stepped onto foreign soil, hoping to leave the nightmare behind. But the nightmare was not confined to one land, it has followed me. It has followed us all.

I came to America believing I had reached a place of true freedom — a nation that stood tall in the face of tyranny. Today, however, the more I watch, the more I realize America is sleeping.

I see the same signs I saw growing up. I recognize the rhetoric, the infiltration, and the subtle shift in public sentiment that paves the way for radical ideologies to take root. America needs to wake up.

Read the whole thing here.

Giggle

I need an explanation!
Legend Content

A commenter responds:

Rare footage of a nest of excavators being born.

Fun fact: a group of excavators is called a diggle.

I dunno, maybe you had to be there.

 

Welcome to Absurdistan

Not One More Cent

Excellent story about the gangsters running our country:

"Give Us Back Our Fu*#ing Money." How Washington Stole Everything. by Elizabeth Nickson

Independent media - you reading this - is now the most powerful force on earth.

Introduction:

Every person in your family or community living on nuts and bolts and berries has had his life stolen by the bureaucratic blob.

And, we are going to get it all back.

So essentially the entire town of Washington, D.C. has been stealing. The anomalies are those who are not stealing. $4.7 trillion, almost impossible to trace, represents two-thirds of the annual U.S. budget. And if it’s happening in the U.S., it is happening everywhere: France, Canada, the U.K., Germany, where budgetary processes are probably even more opaque than those of the U.S.

How does the Department of Defence have a $35 trillion black hole?

I used to think of people who worked for the government with a kind of veiled contempt or, in a more benign mood, compassion. I thought of them as pity jobs for those without initiative, as jobs paying off lefty campaigners, as a warehouse for the barely competent. In my own dealings with them, I found them punitive and extractive, papering me with demands to spend more and more money to hire more and more of their pet contractors, to get approval. In my working life, looking at the results of their involvement in America’s rural areas, I hated them for the hell they visited on people unable to fight back. They forced bad science on good people, and refused to see reason. They ruined forests, water courses, fisheries, and township after township turned to dustbowl status. The misery in rural sitting rooms in every state in the U.S. was palpable, long lasting; the green Blob ruined families for generations.

But I did not think of them as being embroiled in a theft so large as to be unparalleled in world history.

You can read the whole thing here.

Via Zerohedge

Sokol Slet & The Biggest Stadium in the World

The Forgotten Story Of The Largest Stadium Ever Constructed
The Tim Traveller

Very cool. I like the way he ties the history of the building to what was happening in the world.

The Åre Murders - Netflix Series

The Åre Murders | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix Nordic

Small town murder mystery that takes place in Åre, Sweden, a ski resort right in the middle of the country about 30 miles from the border with Norway. This is a short series, only five episodes, with two distinct stories. We've got the usual mix of Netflix characters including a woman detective, a woman coroner, a woman police chief, a brown cop, a gay cop and a brown suspect. 

The first story (3 episodes) begins when a ski lift is turned on in the morning and a frozen body is found on one of the chairs. The villain turns out to be exploiting immigrant labor in his home cleaning business. 

The second series starts with the discovery of a dismembered body on the frozen river right next to the railroad bridge. Evidently the man was run over by a train. Our main suspect is an fundamentalist Christian preacher. Turns out that although he is a bad man, he isn't the culprit. It was a kid in the garage with a shovel.

Permutations

Factoring and Permutations Spreadsheet

Talking at lunch Tuesday*, Dennis mentioned he was playing with numbers, specifically looking for interesting patterns in permutations of a four digit number. Why? Because it's there, that's why.

I got to wondering if you could factor a number using a spreadsheet. Since we are limiting ourselves to four digit numbers, there will be no factors greater than 100. There are only 25 prime numbers under 100, so it shouldn't be too bad.

The spreadsheet is full of formulas, but I only had to figure out a couple of them and then copy and paste them to make the whole sheet.

The spreadsheet is not very smart. The largest number of factors a 4 digit number can have is 13. Two to the 13th power is 8192. Add a 14th factor and the product will have 5 digits. So 13 is the largest number of times we will have to divide.

We simply divide our starting number by our chosen factor and then count the number of times the division came out even. Our quotient becomes the starting value for the next line and the next factor.

Next I tried my hand at generating permutations. This one didn't work out quite so well. I ended up generating the permutations by hand (there are 24 permutations of 4 character strings) and then using those values to extract digits from the original 4-digit number.

Today I worked on a way to generate permutations automatically. It works, but criminently, it took a bunch of equations. 

I used string functions to cut up the number which means it should work for any four characters. It could probably be done using mathematical operations. I don't know if that would be any simpler.

*Tuesday three months ago.

When it rains, it pours

I originally wrote this a couple of months ago. I suppose I intended to add to it, but I never did. Anyway, I'm cleaning out my drafts folder and this one is good enough so up it goes.

Devastation of the Palisades Fire at sunset in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Jan. 14. Ethan Swope/AP Photo

For the last week (at least), Los Angeles has been on fire. Is it still on fire? Maybe, I haven't heard anyone saying the fire is out. No matter. Obviously, California did this to itself. Whether it was politicians or the government or the courts, it doesn't matter. Somebody should have been paying attention and raised a stink, and I'm sure that some people were doing just that. But not enough people listened, and the political clout never developed far enough to do anything about the risk of fire, and so it rained fire.

You know another thing that California is know for? Green energy. Green energy often means batteries, and those batteries are often lithium-ion, and when a lithium-ion battery catches fire it can be the very devil to put out. So if it was raining fire, now it's pouring.

While car batteries are the biggest, they are used in most every electronic do-dad we have:

Lithium-ion batteries are used in cellphones, tablets, laptops, wireless headphones, electric cars, and solar panel storage. - Jill McLaughlin at The Epoch Times

Blood

My daughter works at the Nick-you, the neonatal intensive care unit, in a hospital. They deal with babies who are born prematurely. Whenever I see her, like I did today at lunch, she has a new horror story to tell. I imagine that most of the babies who come thru the Nick-you survive and go on home to become fully functioning babies, but the ones I hear about are abysmally sad.

In the Netflix series Kill Me Love Me, the princess marries the emperor, gets pregnant, but then miscarries, hemorrhages and bleeds to death. This is something that still happens to women. Not often, but it does still happen. Reminds me of a line from a movie where a woman is counseling her daughter that while men fight wars, a woman's battlefield is in giving birth.

If someone is hemorrhaging and you can't stop the bleeding, the best thing you can do is to supply them with new blood via transfusions. I imagine the expectation is that eventually that the blood will start to clot and the hemorrhaging will stop. It may take a lot of blood to accomplish this. What is a lot? I have no idea. A quart? A gallon? A tank truck load? In any case you have a better chance if you have a large quantity of blood on hand, a blood bank if you will.

Evidently some hospitals have blood banks and some do not. And how much blood would a prudent hospital have on hand, and how long can you keep that blood? I imagine blood has a 'best used by date' and I imagine it's not that far off, which means the blood needs to be replaced periodically.

Wikipedia page about Blood Banks.

The Story of Pearl Girl - Netflix Series

[Official Trailer] The Story of Pearl Girl: Coming on 11.1💖 | YOUKU
YOUKU English-Get APP now

Chinese historical drama / soap opera. It's got all the standard stuff we like about these shows, pretty girls, fabulous sets, fancy clothes, inscrutable dialog and plot, but this show also has a variety of locations. We start with a pearl collecting operation run out of cave by. The pearl divers are all slaves. The slavers are vicious. We move to a large, deluxe ship run by a guy engaged in trading jewelry.

High points:

• Girls melting gold in a crucible using a tabletop furnace, still dressed in their everyday, high-class finery.
• Traveling across the desert with its sand dunes and labyrinths formed by erosion.
• Small caravans of two wheeled carts traveling cross country, sometimes through areas with plenty of vegetation.
• Jewels and jewelry as a foundation for the economy.

The Black Swindler - Netlfix Series

Kurosagi - The Black Swindler (2022) FMV
Hey! Say! I love Janpu

The characters in this show are a little confused.

This story is a little uneven, it is not as smooth as some shows. The story starts well before the show does when a father is defrauded of his life's savings. This so psychologically devastates him that he kills his whole family including himself. However, his son survives and sets out to take revenge on the man who swindled his father.

It seems that in Japan, where this story is set, swindling people is an industry with multiple players who are organized into a hierarchy. In order for Kurasaki (our hero) to get revenge on Minimoto (the villain), he has to work his way up, targeting other swindlers. All this is done under the direction of Kurosagi, the mild mannered sweet shop owner who is actually a lynch pin in the swindling industry. He provides two services for swindlers. Up front he provides an information package on the target for their scam and then he launders whatever loot they manage to collect. That's the major thread of this story.

There is also the problem with the police. The police won't investigate or arrest these criminals because it is almost impossible to convict them in court, so these fraudsters operate with impunity. The police are trying to take down our hero because his actions are making them look bad.

One of the first cases our hero deals with rescues a family very similar to his own that was on the brink of financial ruin. The college student daughter is set on becoming a prosecutor so she can deliver justice. Even though our hero has rescued her family, she condemns the way he took down the swindler - he swindled them.

So these two characters beating down on him is super annoying. Are they stupid, or is Japanese society that screwed up? I suppose it's no worse than what we have in America when an armed robber is shot in self defense and the victim is prosecuted for defending himself. Guns are bad, don cha know.

The show goes into lots of detail of how these scams are perpetuated. The scammers will hire halls, print up promotional materials, set up websites and then hire actors to pose as satisfied clients. Kind of reminds me of the movie The Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman. Of course, in that case our two swindlers were the heroes and the victim of their scam was a villain who deserved what he got.

Tech tidbit: when one guy goes to China for a meeting, both participants put in ear buds that translate the other speaker's words for them.

Subteran - Netflix Series

Subteran - Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Accountant steals $2 million worth or bitcoin from the local gangster kingpin. Bad idea. Kingpin has beautiful twin daughters, one a goody two-shoes, the other a cold-blooded killer. The killer one makes short work of the accountant.

Decider has a review.

The Recruit: Season 2 - Netflix Series

The Recruit: Season 2 | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

This is an action thriller. Our boy is a lawyer working for the CIA and he's gets dispatched to deal with a legal problem in far away places, but when he pulls on the legal problem, reality intrudes.

This time the Yakuza (Japanese gangsters) have kidnapped a woman working for some charity outfit delivering food somewhere on the east coast of Russia. Initially, it is not clear what has happened to her, she has just vanished. Eventually we hear that her deliveries were somehow interfering with their smuggling operation. Basically, the kidnapping was just an excuse for our boy to unleash mayhem on the Russkies, which he does in fine style.

Curiously, the CIA is portrayed as being full of evil and corrupt people who aren't above killing co-workers if it means they get a shot at a promotion or a better office. They are some real scum bags.

Tudum has a review.

Season 1 here.

Hound's Hill - Netflix Series

Hound's Hill - Official Trailer | Netflix
MVSRS

18 years ago Mikolai and three of his friends give LSD to Sebastian, a retarded guy. Sebastian's sister, Daria, is our guy's girlfriend. She starts walking her brother home. Mikolai's father pulls him aside and takes him home. The other guys go after Sebastian and Daria. They pull up next to them in a car. They force the girl into the car, drive to secluded plot and rape her. The third guy hits her in the head with a rock and kills her. Sebastian finds his sister's body, and the police find him there. He's arrested and convicted and sent to the local nuthouse. Nobody has a clue about the three friends involvement.

Later, Mikolai writes a book about this incident. It's not clear whether it's fact or fiction. Doesn't matter, it's a best seller. He returns home for his father's birthday. Coincidentally, dead bodies start turning up in town. Nobody has a clue who killed them.

Eventually we find out who was actually involved the girl's rape and murder, and wouldn't you know it, it's the same people who have been turning up dead. Mikolai's father becomes a suspect, but the evidence is thin.

On occasion a mysterious old woman appears wearing a black headdress and a fancy necklace. The necklace has a 3D silver tree 3 or 4 inches high and several wood rays pointing outward from it. She isn't involved in the story, she just appears to add creepy atmosphere.

Gypsies show up now and again, mostly just to raise suspicions.

Other People, Other Problems

A couple of well written essays about problems in other places.

• The True Faces Of Evil by Ben Shapiro, talking about Israel and the terrorists.
• US-Ukraine ties falling apart – former Ukrainian diplomat - RT
• The fantasy of British defence - We can offer Ukraine nothing but dreams by Aris Roussinos

a local take on political discussion.

• Capital chatter: Readers respond to plea for civility by Dick Hughes

an amusing take on Germany.

• Mean JD Vance Makes Germans Cry by Andrew Klavan

Papua New Guinea

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist's Pallavia Rao, locates the known overseas bases of the American military, categorized by who controls the base.*

Graphics from a story in Zerohedge about U. S. Military Bases Worldwide. There is also a list of all the bases. I'm reading through the list (my copy here) and I notice that we now have six bases in New Guinea. Really? When did that happen? I know we were there fighting the Japanese during WW2, but after that? There are always stories in the news about U. S. Military Bases in some furrin country, but I don't recall hearing anything about any in New Guinea, so I ask our friend Google, who turned up a couple of stories. One was about WW2 and the other, widely reported, was from 2023, where the U. S. is granted six bases in Papua New Guinea (PNG). I guess it didn't cause much of a stir, or if it did the stinkers were suppressed.

All this got my attention because I just finished reading Lucky 666. a story about an aerial reconnaissance crew flying a B-17 out of New Guinea during WW2.

* Methinks the map is trying to convey too much information. Europe, for instance, has a bunch of military bases. Each military base is individually marked, but if you zoom in far enough to be able to distinguish one from you can only get a vague idea of their location because the borders have been pixelated.

Meetings

Meetings - The Practical Alternative to Work

Via Fillyjonk's Progress

Washington Chainsaw Massacre

Elon Musk holds up a chainsaw he received from Argentina’s President Javier Milei, right, as they arrive to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference (Jose Luis Magana/AP)

Argentina’s President Javier Milei walked onstage with  the red chainsaw – engraved with Milei’s slogan “Viva la libertad, carajo,” which is Spanish for “Long live liberty, damn it” – and passed it to Mr Musk.

The Ross Sisters - Solid Potato Salad

The Ross Sisters - Solid Potato Salad (DVD Quality) Full Video
utubebob100

Those back bends are out of this world.

Wikipedia: 

The Ross Sisters were a trio of American singers and dancers consisting of Betsy Ann Ross (1926–1996), Veda Victoria "Vicki" Ross (1927–2002), and Dixie Jewell Ross (1929–1963), who used the stage names Aggie, Maggie, and Elmira. They performed as a three-part harmony trio, who also danced and were particularly noted for their acrobatics and contortionism. Their careers peaked during the 1940s, when they featured prominently in the 1944 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical film Broadway Rhythm, footage from which appeared in the 1994 compilation film That's Entertainment! III.

Civilized Coffee

Civilized Coffee

Saw this scene while I was watching Story Of The Black Cats | Stealth flying boat of the South Pacific (1944). Living in a war zone, getting ready for another night of bringing savage vengeance to the Japs, but still drinking coffee like a civilized man. I mean, look at that cup.

Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Show

John Belushi – SNL50
Saturday Night Live

We watched this show Sunday night. I used to watch it a long time ago, when it was new. That would have been back in 1975, except I'm pretty sure I didn't have a TV in 1975. Matter of fact, I don't think I had a TV of my own until the 1980s. For the life of me, I can't remember where I would have watched it, but I know that I did often enough that the stars of that era are embedded in my brain:

• Dan Ackroyd (1952 - )
• John Belushi (1949 - 1982)
• Chevy Chase (1943 - )
• Jane Curtin (1947 - )
• Bill Murray (1950 - )
• Garrett Morris (1937 - )
• Laraine Newman (1950 - )
• Gilda Radner (1946 - 1989)

That era lasted maybe five years, so while we are watching this 50th Anniversary Show Sunday night, occasionally bits would pop up form this era, but most of it was totally alien. The audience was full of celebrities - Robert DeNiro, Alex Baldwin, Paul McCartney to mention a few.

Anyway, they played this short film during the show and I thought it was ironic that the actual life of Belushi and the other characters was the exact opposite of this story. The title of this film is apparently taken from the play Look Back in Anger from 1956. I have no idea what connection there is, but then I've never seen it, certainly never discussed it, though I have heard about it since forever. Not sure why, probably just a passing mention in something I was reading.

There are several skits done on SNL back in the day that have stuck with me. I don't recall if I thought they were funny or not. I suppose they stuck because they were so out there.

Garrett Morris is portraying a major league baseball player being interviewed by a television reporter. In response to the reporter's question, Garrett replies: 'baizball been berry, berry goot to me'. The reporter asks more questions, and the response to all is the same: 'baizball been berry, berry goot to me'.

Dan Ackroyd and Jane Curtin used to do the 'Weekend Update' segment where Jane would play the bleeding heart liberal and Dan would play the staunch Republican. They made their mark in my memory (and maybe in the history books) when Dan replied to a statement from Jane by saying 'Jane, you ignorant slut.'

John Belushi did several skits where he portrayed a Samurai engaged in various retail operations. His portrayal of the Samurai Tailor is etched in my brain. I didn't find a video of the whole Samurai Tailor skit, but I found one video on YouTube that contains a couple of snippets from that skit.

Another skit done by Belushi and Ackroyd had them playing busy New Yorkers going out for lunch at the latest, trendy restaurant. The place was called The Trough. There were troughs up on stands loaded with chili. You put on a bib, bent over, stuck your face in the chili and ate your fill. When you had enough the waiter would wash off your face with a sprayer. Did not find a clip with this skit.

King Tut - SNL

King Tut - SNL
Saturday Night Live

From 1978.

Let's Talk About Ukraine

Meeting at Diriyah Palace, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday Feb. 18, 2025

Looks like Zelensky, the grifter / puppet, has been sidelined. Lots of people talking about this meeting, but identification was neglected, so I decided to investigate. Note that the three countries represented at this meeting are the world's largest energy producers.

Participants, left to right:

• U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff
• U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio
• U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz
• Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud,
• Saudi National Security Advisor Mosaad bin Mohammad Al-Aiban
• Russian foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov

• 

  Diriyah Palace, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Nothing like a European palace, but then Saudi Arabia is an alien land.

The Perfect Couple - Netflix Series

The Perfect Couple | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix India

A very stupid show full of annoying, obnoxious people, making long pointless looks with weird eye movements that I suspect are supposed to make the character look suspiciou but they just look weird. We watched the first two episodes one night and then skipped to the last episode because my wife wanted to know who dun it. They do tell us, and they give us an explantion, but the explanation doesn't hold water. Rich couple have three sons. There is a trust fund that will released to the boys once the youngest turns 18, which is in a couple of weeks. Girlfriend of the bride has been messing around with the father and has gotten knocked up. Wife of oldest son kills girlfriend because once she gives birth, they'll have to wait another 18 years before the trust is released. EXCEPT the trust will already have been released long before she gives birth. Basically it's a soap opera masquerading as a murder mystery.

Who Saw the Peacock Dance in the Jungle? - Netflix Series

主演 広瀬すず『クジャクのダンス､誰が見た？』長編予告 解禁!! 1/24スタート! 【TBS
TBS公式 YouTuboo
Google translates the first two dozen characters as 'Thank you!!" I am not sure I believe that, but whatever. There are four episodes, a cute girl, a convoluted plot and some real characters. Entertaining and intriguing.

Update two days later: The series is incomplete. There are only four episodes available on Netflix and no sign of more episodes coming. So far they are just collecting clues and more questions and no explanation of what happened, so that's kind of a drag.

There are some good shots of a truly fabulous peacock displaying his fan, several shots of everyday things taken from unusual angles, like watching tea being poured into a cup viewed from the bottom of the cup.

The title is basically a different version of  'if a tree falls in a forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?'

Money for nuthin and your chicks for free

Big Couch

If you have ever tried to move a couch around a corner in a hallway, you know what a pain it can be, especially if it's heavy. I've done it a couple of times when my kids moved into apartments. We had to stand the couch on end to get it in. I remember a place in Eugene where the entrance door opened onto a hallway that ran sideways, so three feet inside the door was a wall. Turning the couch on end, it was too long to fit through the door, so we had to slide one end through the doorway and then tilt it up while sliding the lower end through the doorway. Now it is standing up on end inside the apartment. Then we turned it 90 degrees in place and reverse the process and slide the lower end through the doorway from the hallway into the living room. Giant pain.

Anyway, once upon a time, some dude wondered what the biggest shape that could be moved around a corner in a hallway. 30 years later a student answered the question with a 120 page paper. It's an entertaining story.

Money For Nothing
Dire Straits

P. S. The post title comes from this song which includes these lines:

We got to move these refrigerators
We got to move these colour TVs

It comes to mind every time I have to move something big.

Illegal Immigration

Illegal Immigration

Seems like Illegal Immigration can be a hanging offense. The Hansen case was decided in 2023.

With the amount of corruption and waste that DOGE is uncovering, it makes me wonder who was minding the store. Evidently no one. It's like whatever security there was, was hired by the crooks to make sure no one noticed that they were letting in boatloads of aliens while simultaneously shoveling money out the back door.

Megavalanche

アマチュアとプロの違い [The difference between amateurs and professionals]
やくちゅ [Yakuchu]

What is this? Someone's daily commute? No, it's the Megavalanche, a giant downhill bicycle race held annually in France and half a world away on the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. I think this video was taken in France. Réunion has a mountain that reaches 10,000 feet, but it's in the tropics, so not much chance of snow.

Réunion has appeared here before.

C-17

The Most Insane Flight On The C-17 Globemaster
Sam Eckholm

This guy is a little too happy, but he's young, so it's understandable. I sort of knew all this stuff, but seeing it all wrapped up made me realize how impressive this machine is. It isn't a C-5 Galaxy, but there are twice as many C-17s. C-5 - 131, C-17 - 279.

 7:42  Rapid descent from 25,000 feet to 5,000 feet in two minutes - that's like 120 MPH 

              straight down.

10:15 Advertisement for the Air Force Reserve

Boeing Globemaster III (03-3127)
Mt. Rainier in the background

Coincidently, this photo showed up in the weekly Flight Aware newsletter.

Trump, Putin & Ukraine

A wonderful take on Ukraine from RT:

Trump ejects from the Ukraine joyride, leaving the EU screaming in the backseat by Rachel Marsden

Western European leaders are having a meltdown because shutting them out from talks is the only way to peace

The European Union was never in the driver’s seat on the Ukraine conflict. And now that same toddler sitting in the back with the plastic Fisher-Price steering wheel is throwing the kind of full-blown crimson-faced meltdown that makes adults chuckle.

How many times was the EU told, including by its own citizens with sledgehammer subtlety at the ballot box, to stop kissing Uncle Sam’s butt and start covering its own? Instead, its leaders cribbed America’s talking points, completely oblivious as they indulged in economic seppuku.

The EU’s entire economy-wrecking “strategy” over Ukraine was based on the fantasy that they were America’s little bro, not being used as naive pawns in a grand game that would knock them right off the chessboard. If Washington had picked peace over profit from the start, the closest thing that the Euroclowns would have seen to a military confrontation with Russia in Ukraine would have been playing Sergeant Savoir-Faire back home, armed with a map of the nearest coffee shops and a five-course lunch.

And now the previously unthinkable has happened. The jig is up on Biden’s ridiculous scam of vowing to do “whatever it takes” for Ukraine to beat Russia on the battlefield – mainly by dumping cash into US weapons which miraculously get lost en route to the frontlines after the cheque clears.

Nice racket. Too bad it’s getting people killed – something Trump’s made it clear he’s not exactly a fan of. Looks like he’s finally asked himself if there’s a way for the US to keep feasting on cash without a body count in Ukraine. Spoiler alert: he found a way, apparently. Several, in fact.

Cutting to the chase through all this messy death and destruction stuff, Trump just wants to wrap up the fighting and have Ukraine hand over its resources to cover US spending — most of which has already gone straight into the pockets of American weapons industries. And can he keep the weapon sales flowing, even without active conflict? Absolutely. Just tell NATO countries to cough up some cash for the sake of “preventive defense,” like he’s been doing relentlessly. A solid 90% of EU-bought weapons are already American, according to last year’s EU competitiveness report. And that’s not changing anytime soon – unless the EU’s itching for a tariff-spanking.

A group of European foreign ministers have issued a statement insisting that Ukraine and the EU must be at the table for any peace talks. Yeah, they’re at the table alright – the bib-wearing kiddie table, along with Ukraine. And while they’re busy twisting balloon animals and tossing around buzzwords like ‘enhancing support for Ukraine,’ totally immersed in their ‘choose your own adventure’ game where they’re obviously ‘winning,’ it turns out that Russia and the US – Putin and Trump – did something totally wild. They picked up a phone. Probably even a landline, like something out of a history book. All while the EU was bravely ‘sticking it to Putin’ by flaming him on social media while wiping croissant crumbs off their keyboard between sips of overpriced lattes.

In the wake of that call, Trump announced the start of immediate negotiations for peace. And now the EU is acting like it’s just been dumped by Uncle Sam, who’s committing the added insult of hanging around with the guy on whom they’ve been obsessively hating. “If there is agreement made behind our backs it will simply not work because you need for any kind of deal, any kind of agreement, you need Europeans to implement this deal. You need the Ukrainians to implement this deal,” said the bloc’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas. 

The agreement is actually being made right in front of your face and ours, for once – unlike the back-room shenanigans between bloc officials and the Biden administration, which ultimately lured the EU economy off straight a cliff with EU “leaders” serving as willing lemmings, sanctioning their own Russian supplies of virtually everything critical to their economy.

Now the German defense minister is yelling from the kiddie table over to the adult table, trying to tell Trump and Putin how they should be conducting their negotiations. “From my point of view, it would have been better to talk about Ukraine’s possible membership of NATO or the country’s loss of territory only at the negotiating table and not take it off the table beforehand,” said Boris Pistorius. Everyone’s really keen to hear advice for peace from folks whose strategy so far has resulted in perpetual war. That’s barely a step above Elon Musk’s toddler, X – the one who was chiseling away at Mount Nostrildamus for the cameras while standing beside his dad and Trump in the Oval Office the other day – offering Trump and Putin his take on negotiated peace in Ukraine.

Sounds like Western European leaders are currently experiencing all five states of grief at once, while frantically refreshing their inboxes to see if either the US or Russia have noticed their total meltdowns and slid into their DMs – and not just taken their freakouts as confirmation that ghosting them entirely was maybe the best way to handle the situation when they’re sounding like they’re on the verge of throwing every dish in the cupboard straight across the room right now.

“All we need is peace. A JUST PEACE. Ukraine, Europe and the United States should work on this together. TOGETHER,” insisted Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on social media. ”Russia has to be forced to peace,” said Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze. No, dear, YOU have to be forced to peace. Now, please just go back to the kiddie table and wipe the spaghetti off your face.

European ministers and delegations had been meeting in Paris earlier this week for what they thought was an important strategy session – only to realize that they were basically just holding the equivalent of a corporate teambuilding exercise. While they were making all kinds of grand public proclamations in their echo chamber, like they were all jockeying for roles they could play in any eventual peace negotiations, it turns out that Trump and Putin were already finalizing the casting, and were even talking about bringing the curtain up. And they were suggesting that would be a two-man show, not an ensemble slapstick comedy featuring the EU big top circus troupe.

European diplomats are now telling the Financial Times that they figure they’ll be expected to foot the bill for Ukraine’s reconstruction – because Trump will insist on it – and also send troops to enforce a deal they had zero say in while the US refuses military involvement. Which is like getting handed a massive dinner check for a meal you didn’t even get to touch. Just picture it: EU soldiers walking around Ukraine at EU taxpayer expense to protect American resource ventures while US troops stay home, as Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has already stipulated, by adding that the EU needs to honor its commitments.

And Vice President J.D. Vance joined in the Trump administration’s stereoscopic spanking of the EU during their visit to the bloc by telling Europeans repeatedly – both during an artificial intelligence summit in Paris and before the Munich Security Conference – to stop censoring information and views they don’t like under the guise of it somehow being a peril to democracy.

The EU media has already suggested that it looks like the EU’s role is basically to shut up and accept the result of negotiations – like it has been kicked right out of the group chat before it even had a chance to log on, and still has to comply with the outcome of the meeting. Basically, at this point, Trump sees Europe as an ATM. Putin sees Europe as background noise. And Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky probably just sees his gravy train’s looming derailment.

Trump and Putin are already debating between caviar and steak for their peace talks while the EU stands outside like a rejected clubber, begging the bouncer to “check again, bro” – meanwhile, Zelensky is eyeing that tablecloth like a pyromaniac.

Rachel Marsden has appeared here before.

PBY Catalina Night Attack

Story Of The Black Cats | Stealth flying boat of the South Pacific (1944)
Armored Archivist

The Catalina is one of my favorite airplanes, but these night time bombing missions are new to me.

• Wikipedia has a page about the Catalina, which has a brief section about night time operations. 
• Navy Times has long page about the Catalina and most of it was new to me as well.

The Navy Times story mentions the Attu Zero, which I suspect means this airplane.

Previous PBY posts.

Kind of curious that I take an interest in these stories about events that happened 80 years ago, but we seem to have an endless supply of new wars, most of which I don't pay attention to. Perhaps it's because the number of people killed in new wars in one year amounts to one day's worth of carnage from WW2.

Badger Musk

I enjoyed this story:

Elon Musk and how the left makes monsters of us all by Jonathan Turley

Especially this bit: 

The State Department reportedly plans to reduce the USAID workforce from more than 10,000 to fewer than 300. It is vintage Musk. It is easier to take the trauma upfront and then rehire the employees needed to fulfill the mission with a leaner workforce.

That process is easier if you can get people to leave voluntarily. Part of it is performative like Musk showing up at Twitter with a sink — to let reality “sink in” for the thousands of employees.

It appears to be working. Many employees are taking an offer leave with a generous severance package. The idea is simple: If you throw a badger into a crowded car, people will get out. Musk is that badger.

Via Knuckledraggin My Life Away

Funnies

 

Mafia

Schneier on Security reposted an essay was written with Davi Ottenheimer that originally appeared in Foreign Policy. It takes a very negative view of what DOGE is doing. It's garbage. But looking through the comments I found this one that I think is pretty great.

Shoal Creek • February 13, 2025 8:59 AM

You’re assuming that government (any government) is legitimate. It’s not. Governments are basically racketeering gangs that fight each other for territory and try to give people the illusion that they chose to voluntarily participate. Mafias are just as legitimate, but without as much gaslighting. When a mafia starts to self-destruct, let it. It likely needs to be destroyed any way.

 

Trump's War on Secrets

Stolen entire from Essays in Idleness.

Depth-charging the deep state by David Warren

The most consequential act the new Trump administration has brought upon the American Republic, is its (declared) war on secrets. After several weeks we see that this extends beyond free public enquiry into the Kennedy assassination, the killings of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, Sr., the 9/11 incidents, UFOs, the Batflu origins, and the Jeffrey Epstein client list. Much ugliness will likely be released for each of these tabloid stories, and I say this not with any special knowledge but by observing how tightly the secrets have been held. (Investigations into assassination attempts on Donald Trump himself will also prove interesting.)

But the inspections by Mr Elon Musk of more recent secrets, with his clever young cybernetic accomplices and their latest algorithms, is already bringing us so much truth. The reader who has made himself aware of only the USAID payments will understand what may, or rather will, be revealed as the Musketeers survey the remaining ninety-nine-one-hundredths of the U.S. government, with not only presidential but majority congressional approval.

That the Democrats, and their allied “uniparty” Republicans, are appalled — shrieking bloody murder in defence of secrecy, corruption, fraud, deceit, and abuse — is part of the common instruction. I have long supposed the Devil’s “fan base” is to be found overwhelmingly on the political Left. The cause is obvious: they are the godless parties.

One bites oneself, for this is a dream come true. … “DEI, die, die.” … Let us recite the Prayer of Saint Michael, the way we imagine that good Catholic, Tom Homan, is doing this morning.

Censorship versus Free Speech

Stolen entire from Racket News. The linked article has a couple of YouTube videos. Presumably, this post is a transcript of those videos.

My Statement to Congress

Opening remarks on John Kerry, European speech law, and USAID before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, February 12th, 2025

Matt Taibbi

Feb 12, 2025

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Two years ago, when Michael and I first testified before your Weaponization of Government Subcommittee, Democratic members called us “so-called journalists,” suggested we were bought-off “scribes,” and questioned our ethics and loyalties. When we tried to answer, we were told to shut up, take off our tinfoil hats, and remember two things: one, there is no digital censorship, two, if there is digital censorship, it’s for our own good.

I was shocked. I thought the whole thing had to be a mistake. No way the party I gave votes to all my life was now pro-censorship. Then last year I listened to John Kerry, whom I voted for, talk to the World Economic Forum. Speaking about disinformation, he said “our First Amendment stands as a major block” to our ability to “hammer it out of existence.”

He complained that “it’s really hard to govern” because “people self-select where they go for their news,” which makes it “much harder to build consensus…”

I defended Kerry when people said he “looks French,” but Marie Antoinette would have been embarrassed by this speech. He was essentially complaining that the peasants are “self-selecting” their own media. What’s next, letting them make up their own minds?

“Building consensus” may be a politician’s job, but it’s not mine as a citizen or as a journalist. In fact, making it hard to govern is exactly the media’s job. The failure to understand this is why we have a censorship problem.

This is an Alamo moment for the First Amendment. Most of America’s closest allies have already adopted draconian speech laws. We’re surrounded. The EU’s new Digital Services Act is the most comprehensive censorship law ever instituted in a democratic society.

Ranking member Raskin, you don’t have to go as far as Russia or China to find people jailed for speech. Our allies in England now have an Online Safety Act that empowers the government to jail people for nebulous offenses like “false communication” or causing “psychological harm.” Germany, France, Australia, Canada, and other nations have implemented similar ideas.

These laws are totally incompatible with our system. Our own citizens have been arrested in some of these countries, but our government hasn’t stood up for them. Why? Because many of our bureaucrats believe in these laws.

Take USAID. Many Americans are in an uproar now because they learned about over $400 million going to an organization called Internews, whose chief Jeanne Bourgault boasted to Congress about training “hundreds of thousands of people” in journalism. Her views are almost identical to Kerry’s.

She gave a talk about “building trust and combatting misinformation” in India during the pandemic. She said that after months of a “really beautifully unified Covid-19 message,” vaccine enthusiasm rose to 87%, but when “mixed information on vaccine efficacy” got out, hesitancy ensued.

We’re paying this person to train journalists, and she doesn’t know the press doesn’t exist to promote “unity” or political goals like vaccine enthusiasm. That’s propaganda, not journalism.

Bourgault also once said that to fight “bad content,” we need to “work really hard on exclusion lists or inclusion lists” and “really try to focus our ad dollars” toward “the good news.”

Again, if you don’t know the fastest way to erode “trust” in media is by having government sponsor “exclusion lists,” you shouldn’t be getting a dollar in taxpayer money, let alone $476 million. And USAID is just a tiny piece of a censorship machine Michael and I saw across a long list of agencies. Collectively they’ve bought up every part of the news production line: sources, think-tanks, research, “fact-checking,” “anti-disinformation,” commercial media scoring, and when all else fails, censorship.

It’s a giant closed messaging loop, whose purpose is to transform the free press into a consensus machine. There’s no way to remove the rot surgically. The whole mechanism has to go.

Is there “right-wing misinformation”? Hell yes. It exists in every direction. But I grew up a Democrat and don’t remember being afraid of it. At the time, we didn’t need censorship because we figured we had the better argument.

Obviously, some of you lack that same confidence. You took billions from taxpayers and blew it on programs whose entire purpose was to tell them they’re wrong about things they can see with their own eyes.

You sold us out, and until these “rather tiresome” questions are answered, this problem is not fixed. Thank you. 

New Experiences And A Cold Morning (Two Posts In One)

Stolen entire from Adaptive Curmudgeon.

New Experiences And A Cold Morning (Two Posts In One)

Have you enjoyed the bright new age? Despite 2024’s fake polls, assassination attempts, and endless complaints, a new situation rushed into existence right on schedule. It’s like it was created by the utter, complete, and total collapse of the Bidenverse? Maybe we needed to hit rock bottom? Reagan won huge because Carter sucked. Biden is similar. If they hadn’t mercilessly lawfared him, would Trump 2 have leveled up to the Ultimate Boss he’s become?

Watching rational governance return to America is like watching a horse released from a tiny paddock into a large field. Muscles are used. Strength happens. A head is held high as the horse does what it was born to do. Look at that thing run!

Older folks might have memories. I’ve only heard stories of a government that was proud and strong. For most generations, the only experience is plodding mediocrity. As with all forms of evil, it gradually descended into blithering madness and abject corruption before going down in flames.

And now Trump does one thing after another. His actions make me (and a lot of other folks) smile. It’s refreshing when a President acts like he has an actual job. We’d gotten used to figureheads who treated “the big chair” like a side gig; the posing of a marionette for cutting ribbons and giving speeches. Meanwhile, private grift and secret maneuvers were the real action.

It’s fulfilling to see things happen. Right there in front of your eyes, you’re seeing responsibility exercised, duties fulfilled; someone is even trying to balance the books! We’re seeing (possibly for the first time) actual, no-bullshit, all the warts exposed, transparency.

America (and perhaps most of Europe) has spent a very long time locked in a web of conflicting interests. The slightest change in anything anywhere generated an equal and opposite force from an eternal maladapted bureaucracy. That is ending.

I knew this day would come. Multi-generation attritional wars of ineptitude must end. They have to. When something can’t possibly continue, it won’t.

I did not guess it would happen this way. I vacillated between anticipating a Mad Max Armageddon or the mass death of Boomers leading to the financial depression they baked into the cake. In defense of Boomers, they did it not necessarily out of malignancy but of inertia. They just weren’t going to let the world adapt to… the world.

Yet to my surprise, real measurable change is happening more or less peacefully. (If you ignore a few assassination attempts and whatever we should call 2020.) Don’t fret over the uncertainties, rejoice that we no longer have concertina wire around the White House or political prisoners.

This is the second time I’ve seen it. The first was the fall of the Berlin wall.

I spent an entire (young) life concerned that oppressed people suffered behind that wall. If you’d asked anybody, anyone at all, they’d have said it was there forever. It was never going away. It was never going to get better. Nobody anywhere had the slightest bit of optimism. As Gen X, I spent my life being told there was no hope. The wall, a geopolitical scar left from the second great war and supported by inevitable infallible socialism, was there for eternity.

Until it wasn’t. On November 9, 1989 the house of cards collapsed. Could there be a greater revelation?

I’d been lied to. In 1988, everyone said communism was inevitable and sure to overcome America. By Christmas 1989, newly freed people were already starting to rebuild a better life.

Anyone who saw the Wall fall should know “experts” make mistakes. They were absolutely, massively, completely, utterly wrong. (Maybe the Berlin Wall was supposed to teach us to keep our head when “experts” wanted everyone to go apeshit over Covid? The President himself pronounced me doomed: “…we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm…” Wrong call motherfucker! I’m as happy as a pig in shit and your decrepit ass was kicked out of your own campaign!)

Love him or hate him, Trump Version 2.0 is the fall of another Berlin Wall.

A man can say what he’ll do and then do it. Who knew?!? Did you know a president can do the things he said he’d do during the campaign? We know there’s no law against it, but doesn’t it seem like a rule of nature? Once a politician  has your vote he’ll “grow in office”, doing the bare minimum until he’s a fucking slug. That’s my observation. Until now.

Which brings me to the next pleasant revelation; I forgot there could be a Republican president that isn’t immediately fucked by the Republican party. It’s not required by law, but it most certainly is practice and tradition. Reagan could tell ya’ all about it. Trump #1 did about as much as he could possibly while his own party jammed a shiv in his back every chance they could. I assumed it inevitable that a President of R gets hosed by his own party. The party is so reliably bad I wonder why the party of R actually exists. This time it’s different. After a few bleating sheep-like motions they sniffed the wind and fled while the Orange Juggernaut steamrolled everything. Neat!

I could go on for hours but I don’t need to. You’re watching the same show. The best I can say is “enjoy this moment“.

Motion in direction can be beautiful. I’ve often sought out riverbanks for the same feeling I’m getting out of “events” today. I’ll find a nice rock or tree stump and watch the mighty inexorable flow of a river. Steady and strong, eternally in motion yet also calming and true. How many tons of water flow by? How far does it go? How majestic is it to see each little molecule of H20 become a forever flow to the ocean.

Rivers feel strong. The Army Corps of Engineers might hurl money at the Mississippi but it always gets to Gulf. Apparently it gets to the Gulf of America now. Ha ha ha! Rivers can be killed. Ask the Colorado River Compact about it. But it’s hard to screw up that bad.

Now is a time to pleasantly flow like a river. I was tired of percolating in a swamp.

I drove to town. I used to go there every day. That changed. Not the town, me. I go there only occasionally.

After COVID, seeing what people allowed themselves to become, I just stopped needing the presence of people so much anymore. I’m not angry (I’m not even disappointed), I’m just removed. I was never of the city, now I’ve structured a life where I don’t often go there… and I don’t miss it.

Folks think I must be suffering. What am I missing? Symphonies? Do you honestly go to the city for symphonies and glorious museums? Of course not. You go there to buy shit at Walmart. I need shit less and less.

I was never gregarious and now I’m even less so. I kind of like the new me. Nobody escaped Covid. It (or rather the social upheaval generated of it) either it made you more of what you already were or nudged you to be something different. I was always less interested in people and more in trees; Covid reminded me why.

I’m not a hermit. I need hardware stores and car parts just like everyone else. I need to do certain business transactions. I have weaknesses. (I keep an eye out in case the McRib comes back.)

So it is that I found myself in town. It was -20 Fahrenheit and snowing.

The “city” was hunkered down, riding out a climate that will literally kill you. The best part of brutal climates is that it reduces bullshit. When it’s that cold, nobody’s bitching about recycling or wants you to sign a petition. Nobody’s out on the streets being a pain in the ass. Electric cars evaporate. The only pedestrians are dressed like they’re running a trap line. They move from Point A to Point B with quick, forced efficiency. It gets so cold, only  serious, rational, adults can handle it.

-20 is hard core.

My diesel truck (fueled on the higher cost diesel #1) was running flawlessly. I churned through unplowed urban parking lots in useful non-ironic 4×4 mode. I did my errands. Then I left.

As I left I noticed what I never see at -20 Fahrenheit. Lunatics and bums and drugged out losers. They wander the streets in August, but are gone at -20. I’m not sure where they go. Like mosquitoes, they simply reappear when it’s warm. Unlike insects, their absence under certain circumstances tells me they’re an optional part of the environment.

I was thinking about USAID; a bureaucracy seemingly built entirely to launder tax dollars into kickbacks and unpleasant experiences. Old videos of old cities don’t show bums. At least not like we accept in a modern city.

I theorize nutjobs and addicts and flakes are ubiquitous because they were deinstitutionalized. One could argue with the wisdom of “dump them on the streets”. Maybe the institutions sucked. I dunno’. I read One Flew Over The Cookoos Nest just like you did. But is delusional wandering in traffic better?

I only know that a world of non-crazy people ended before I was born. It ended so completely I have trouble imagining it. Only during a blizzard do I see a remnant of the time when a regular citizen could walk city streets without dealing with derelicts. Grainy videos of Buicks maneuvering busy streets filled with working men wearing ties and hats are as distant as Mars.

Was that on purpose? How much of was caused by USAID? How much money does it take to generate derelicts to beg at the stoplight in August yet vanish in January? I harbor the suspicion they’re more created than inevitable. Just one of a thousand ways our tax dollars are spent to destabilize society and annoy us.

I’m starting to wonder what WON’T be around after USAID (and much more) is cut? Have you considered this?

What won’t happen without all that corrupt funding?

Will I be able to turn on my truck radio without NPR bitching at me about gun control? Will I be able to stop at a light without some willfully unemployed jackass begging for a buck? Will I make a service call without pressing 9 for English? Will I “Netflix and chill” without a black lesbian in the lead role? Will there be TV without a thousand ads for drugs? Will teachers instruct students in fractions instead of “oppression”? Will subsidized electric cars be less common? Will I drive on the highway without billboards barking about various government programs? Will the power grid stay on better? Will McDonalds fries once again taste yummy?

Imagine all the good things we might get from the absence of corrupt and expensive Federally funded bullshit!

Everything from plastic straws to non-propaganda media might return. Dare we hope for a quieter, saner life?

I can’t wait to find out.

Wrong Side of the Tracks - Netflix Series

Trailer - Entrevías [TEMPORADA 4, FINAL] (TeleCinco) | HD
Pack TV 2

Season 4 and all our whack-a-doodle characters are back. At the end of season 3, Irene, the adopted daughter of Jimena, dies. Six months later her death is still having an impact on the family. It shows up in different ways. The old man, Tiros, is finally emerging from his room. His son Santi has developed a serious gambling problem. Jimena, his normally rational, pragmatic daughter leads a protest that attacks the police. Nelson, Irene's teenage husband gets arrested for hitting a cop during that protest. Tiros finds out he has a 'mass' growing inside his head. Gladys finds out that while she can run the day-to-day operation of the bar, she is not a business woman and the bar is in trouble. Fortunately, Pepe, the previous bar owner, has returned from a six month vacation in Cadiz.

Then there's the cops:

• Ezequiel, the street-wise detective who resembles a bum.
• Amanda, the attractive, lesbian department head who is married to Jimena.
• Camilla, the new, cute recruit, paired up with Ezequiel.
• Rene, a new guy representing big business interests. Turns out he is Glady's ex-husband and Nelson's father. He is also a minister of a small church who happens to offer counseling to gambling addicts like Santi. He is totally suspicious, but he might turn out to actually be good guy. Then again, maybe not.

Let's not forget Sanchis. Near as I can make out, Pepe and Sanchis were soldiers under Tiros command and are all still devoted to each other. Sanchis has a bit of drug habit, but he can still be effective in certain high-stakes situations.

Dulce is the kickboxing young woman leading a gang.

Previous posts about this show:

• 2022 post
• 2023 post