Bad People

 Stolen from The Scratching Post

California

There's something most people don't understand about what's happening in California, something I didn't understand until a month or two ago. I wrote this in a previous blog post, but it was an epiphany for me that bears retelling. 

The high speed choo-choo was never intended to run. There was never any intent to actually build the trains, build the bridges or lay the tracks. It was all a grift from the start, a grift to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.

Think about the size of that con for a second. Bernie Madoff pocketed around a billion when all was said and done. Yes, investors lost more than that, but Bernie himself only got a 10-figure payout. The high speed choo choo is an order of magnitude larger and no one is risking jail.

When that project was started, I knew in my bones you could never do it. I've built houses and remodeled houses in California. It is almost impossible to get anything of consequence done. A house is one thing, but a railroad running for more than a 100 miles? No chance. 

Still, until some Internet wag said it, I hadn't put two and two together, It was all a fraud from the start.

The homeless are the same thing. I said before that the encampments in our cities are just feed lots for the non-profits. Read San Fran-sicko. Seriously. Until you read that, you don't have a sense of the depth of the corruption.

The water situation in California is similar, but I don't think it's a grift. I think it's just simple ideological blockheadedness.

Okay, typical government corruption. But then he brings up Muslim Rape Gangs and I'm not going to even think about that because If I do I'll start foaming at the mouth and my carefully cultivated façade of an educated gentleman will crumble and I will be cast out into the darkness.

Venezuela Earthquakes

Venezuela Earthquake Slider

Notice how the shadows from the tall buildings in the left hand image disappear in the right hand one. Aljazeera has several other slider views of the damage wrought by the recent earthquakes. It's pretty bad.

Urban Hike

Maynard Ferguson - Gonna fly now - Mike Douglas Show 1977
4greatmf

The Adaptive Curmugeon has a fine story about urban hiking wherein he mentions the above tune.

The Curmudgeon’s Urban Hike: Part 2

Distributism

David Warren is down on liberals, as he usually is. But he declares himself a Distributist, which is what exactly? Google knows:

Distributism is an economic and social philosophy advocating that the means of production should be widely owned by individuals and families rather than centralized in the hands of the state (socialism) or mega-corporations (capitalism).

First articulated in the early 20th century by Catholic thinkers like G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, it acts as a "third way" that champions widespread private property, decentralized communities, and family-owned enterprises.

Heaven’s Gate Cult

The Leader - Tribeca Festival

Remember Heaven’s Gate Cult? Variety has a review of a movie about it:

‘The Leader’ Review: Tim Blake Nelson and Vera Farmiga Are Creepy and Powerful in a Disturbing Drama About the Heaven’s Gate Cult by Owen Gleiberman

Good reading since we seem to be seeing a lot cult-like behavior these days.

Stuka JU 87-G2

Stuka JU 87-G2

Introduction to story on Air & Space Forces Magazine: 

The Stuka Story by Thomas Hajewski, May 1, 1987

In January 1942, during the state funeral for Ernst Udet, World War I fighter ace and Generalluft­zeugmeister (Director General of the Luftwaffe) Hermann Goring spoke eloquently about the fallen hero’s deeds. He praised his accom­plishments in the Great War, his six­ty-two air victories—second only to Baron von Richthofen—and his to­tal dedication in helping to build Hitler’s air force. Yet Goring’s high­est praise was bestowed on his for­mer comrade’s support for and de­velopment of a specific type of air­craft, the offensive weapon without which the Blitzkrieg tactics used in Poland, France, and later Russia during the first years of the war would have been impossible.

This new plane was dubbed a Sturzkampfflugzeug, literally a “diving fighting plane,” a designa­tion originally used by the Germans for any aircraft used as a dive- bomber. Only later was it specifical­ly applied to the Junkers Ju-87. In the military jargon of the day, the longer Sturzkampfflugzeug was shortened to Stuka, the aircraft that has become synonymous with Ger­man aggression in World War II.

Both the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka as well as the technique of dropping bombs while plunging earthward at speeds often in excess of 350 mph had an unusual, highly controver­sial developmental history. More than once the entire project was nearly scrapped. German prewar propaganda and secrecy have clouded so much of this interesting phase of aviation history that even now, nearly fifty years after the be­ginning of World War II, new facts regarding the Stuka and its develop­ment are coming to light.

Ju 87 Stuka — Dive Bomber in Action: Cockpit War Footage
Enhanced Warfare

Junkers Ju 87 Stuka - In The Movies
Johnny Johnson

Note - ran into a funny dash in the story I pasted above. Looks like a dash in Blogger's compose mode, but a red dot in html mode. Tried to highlight the whole paragraph to indent it, and it wouldn't highlight. Change to html mode, replace the red dot with a dash, then realizing this is probably just marking a place where the word can be hyphenated, so I put it back. Now I can highlight the whole paragraph. Then I realize Blogger has it's own method of wrapping text, which is to not break any words at all, so it doesn't worry about hyphenation. But this story is from 1987 which is like 40 (!) years ago. Probably wasn't online then, so somebody went to the trouble to digitize it. I dunno, was anybody using computers to enter text back then? 

Intel 310 Microcomputer System

I was at Intel and we had computers. What the heck did I have on my desk? I think we were using terminals hooked to Intel 310s. I was writing up short pieces about technical problems I dealt with. Not much different from what I do now with this blog, though now I mostly write about other people's technical problems.

War

The eight phases of the Song of Roland in one picture; illustration by Simon Marmion from an illuminated manuscript of the Grandes Chroniques de France (15th century), currently preserved in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia

Stolen entire from Essays in Idleness by David Warren.

The task of war

One does well to examine the Song of Roland (the French, XIth century, chanson de geste) before jumping to conclusions about war. I particularly recommend Scott Moncrieff’s translation (1919), which had an introduction by G. K. Chesterton that has been anthologized elsewhere. He neither glorifies nor condemns war, and actually, neither did Roland in the “splendidly inconclusive conclusion.” War contains both good and evil characters and events, and is never finished in this world. Any final victory must wait patiently on God. So long as there are insane barbarians (the present regime in Iran offers an unambiguous example) they will have to be fought. It is inappropriate to “make peace” with such a vicious and deceitful enemy. And when there is fighting, there are casualties. The Lord — and Christ is not a milquetoast — does not require us to omit this task, and did not condemn it in His Bible. Those who fight for the right, deserve honour; those who insist on “peace, peace” regardless of circumstances are cowards who deserve contempt.

It is sad that there are people, even Catholics, who don’t understand this.

Probably should go read the Song of Roland (translation by Jesse Crosland), but I probably won't because it is 78 pages long. 

Water

An Engineering Student's Notes, Technical, Philosophical and Otherwise by John Richards

JMSmith talks about clams and education and included this from the above book:

“I am beginning to think that water-craft, that is, human craft on the water, is much the same as it is in animals. It is absorbed in an insensible way throughout a term of years, or a lifetime, and is not a specific thing to be learned, like building houses or shoeing horses. A kind of second nature. Put a water-skilled man on a steamer, a ship, in a boat, on a raft, or a life buoy, it is all the same. He knows the traits and trends of the water, and how to keep on the surface of it. Geometry, dynamics, mechanics, or even a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, will do him no more good than a heathen’s talisman, unless he has been trained to the water, on and in the water.” - John Richards, An Engineering Student’s Notes, Technical, Philosophical and Otherwise (San Francisco: Industrial Publishing, 1904), p. 155. 

UPS MD-11 Crash Investigation

A fractured spherical bearing race (center, on either side of monoball) began the chain of events that caused UPS 2976 to lose its left engine. Credit: NTSB

You might remember hearing about the giant UPS air freighter that crashed in Louisville, Kentucky, last November. Looks like the NTSB has finished their investigation. My Daily Kona has a post about this. I'm not sure if they figured out who to blame, it's kind of a long post and I didn't read the whole thing. The part that amazes me is the huge volume of records that must be kept to even allow this kind of analysis. It's frankly mind-boggling.

Who Rules Trade Rules?

Containers stacked far and wide

From Jamestown:

The Chinese ‘Rules and Future’ of Global Trade

Executive Summary:

• The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is shaping global trade standards in data control and customs clearance. These standards give preference to Chinese platforms that provide Beijing with end-to-end visibility into global shipping.
• No Western equivalent of this system exists, and the resulting data asymmetry could enable PRC actors to identify supply chain chokepoints, exploit dependencies in critical resources, and circumvent tariffs, sanctions, and export controls.
• Chinese trade platforms gain international power via bilateral adoption agreements, multilateral institutions like the World Customs Organization, and standards-setting bodies led by Alibaba and state-run LOGINK. This ecosystem embeds Chinese platforms and norms into global trade infrastructure, locking in adoption and displacing alternatives.

Sounds like something that the rest of the world should get in front of. Or maybe it doesn't matter if the Chinese establish the standards, they'll probably do a pretty good job. Of course the Chinese could use this system to their advantage, but any centrally planned system is going to have weak spots and properly motivated outsiders will probe and eventually find those weak spots, so people who don't think they are getting a fair shake are going to exploit those weak spots.

Russians get Right to Bear Arms

Pischal Counter-UAV Gun

Not really for the average slob, it essentially enables private armies, as long as they are loyal to the regime. Of course they are going to be loyal. You aren't going to let a rebel force raise an army, are you?

From Meduza, 

Russia has authorized private companies to purchase heavy weapons and equipment to defend against drone attacks, including anti-aircraft artillery systems, gun turrets, radar systems, and electronic warfare systems, the Russian business outlet RBC reported, citing sources.

Previously, businesses were limited to what were described as “passive safeguards for facilities” for their security personnel, including small arms.

Authorities expect the policy, adopted under new regulations, to speed up the supply of weapons and equipment to mobile fire groups — units formed from reservists, volunteers, and employees of private enterprises to protect civilian infrastructure from drones.

One of RBC’s sources said such groups “demonstrate high effectiveness in intercepting fixed-wing drones.”

Ratt Anti-UAV System Exterior

Ratt Anti-UAV System Interior

About Meduza:

Meduza is the world’s largest independent Russian media outlet. Completely outlawed by the Russian state, we operate from abroad to deliver news that censors can’t stop to millions of readers inside Russia and around the globe. You can read our reporting in both Russian and English. 

National Unity

 China is making it a law. From Jamestown:

New Law Engineers Unity

Executive Summary:

• The new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress gives legal form to Xi Jinping’s campaign to “forge a collective national consciousness,” transforming Xi Jinping’s ethnic policy agenda into a binding mandate across the entire Party-state.
• The law further hollows out the older framework of regional ethnic autonomy by subordinating minority languages, cultures, histories, and identities to a singular, Han-dominated vision of the “Zhonghua minzu.”
• Its most revealing feature is the scale of the machinery it mobilizes: schools, textbooks, museums, media platforms, families, cadres, budgets, security organs, and diaspora-facing institutions are all made responsible for producing the desired national consciousness. Unity is no longer treated as a social condition to be preserved, but as an administrative outcome to be engineered, monitored, and enforced.

I wonder if maybe we need a little of this. Meanwhile, I understand why good old Joe Biden allowed massive immigration, he wanted to secure a permanent Democratic majority, or at least that's the prevailing right wing theory. What I don't understand is why the Europeans have allowed massive immigration from Africa and the Arabia. Are they also hoping for a permanent Democratic majority?

Word of the Day

Orwell's crimestop - In George Orwell’s 1984, crimestop is a Newspeak term defined as the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It is a form of protective stupidity or self-censorship, allowing citizens to avoid thoughtcrime (thoughtcontrol) by automatically halting independent, critical, or rebellious thoughts before they fully form.

Ran into this word, crimestop, in an excellent post on Yard Sale of the Mind about Darwin, survival, tribe membership and politics.

Farm Life

An Aberdine bull

Joseph Moore has a good post about farm life:

Snakes. Update.

Robbery

Brinks Armored Car - AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

Armored Car robberies seem to be on the rise, at least in Philadelphia. Looking at what Google tells me, it looks like there are, on average, there are roughly 35 armored car robberies each year in the USA. Now look at this story:

Two Armed Robbers Steal $1.8 Million From Brinks Armored Truck in Philadelphia by Bryan S. Jung

It lists at least six armored car robberies in Philadelphia in 2025. Can't say as I am surprised. Squeeze the proles enough, the pressure will get high enough that some of the them are going get squeezed out at high velocity and start bouncing off the walls.

Problem is nobody knows what to do. What we need is some kind big enterprise that will soak up a huge number of man hours. War has traditionally been the project of choice. Our military uses good number of people, but there are bunch who the military won't accept, for one reason or another. Doesn't mean they aren't capable of violence, does mean their vector is not under the control of the government.

What kind of war is this?

Zelensky says Ukraine has completed repairs on Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Europe

Doesn't make any sense to me. It's like two nutcases pretending to strangle each other while squishing a third party between them who is siphoning money out of both their wallets.

P. S. Ten minutes later I came across this one:

Ukraine Billionaire Spends $554 Million For World's Most Expensive Apartment In Monte Carlo

Salvador - Netflix Series

Salvador | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Intense. Salvador, a former doctor, a recovering alcoholic, is driving an ambulance in Madrid. This show covers just about every hot button / social media topic we have and immigration is front and center. Just when you think you know who the heroes are, the curtain gets pulled back and you find they aren't as squeaky clean as you thought.

We saw this show a couple of months ago. I've been meaning to post this, but then today this story from Modernity popped up and kicked me off my duff.

Spain ERUPTS: Patriots ATTACKED By Socialist Mob Over Mass Illegal Migrant Amnesty by Steve Watson

Violence broke out in the Spanish city of Granada when roughly 40 left-wing Antifa extremists tried to shut down a pre-election rally held by the nationalist party Vox in Plaza de las Pasiegas. Police had to form a cordon between the rival groups as fights broke out, delaying the event by around 30 minutes.

8 episodes 50 minutes each

I-5 Tunnel?

Tunnel Roadway Profile and Upstream Alignment chart

The I-5 bridge between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington is an antique. They've been talking about replacing since forever, but all the talk has gotten nowhere. Maybe we should consider a tunnel. At the least.

Willamette Week has a few words to say on the subject:

Shouldn’t We Be Talking About Constructing a Tunnel Under the Columbia River?

Clark County Today posted a story three years ago:

Is a tunnel actually viable for crossing the Columbia River?

Previous post about the bridge.

Early photos of the river and bridge.

My hare-brained idea for a bridge.

Hex's Library

Hex's Library contains several dozen articles / essays. Looks like some good stuff.

Via Detroit Steve

Millwright

Industrial centrifugal water pumps driven by electric motors

Busted nuckles has a fascinating post up about industrial bearing alignment. Your're thinking 'how could industrial bearing alignment be fascinating?' Go read the horror stories in the comments. You might think differently.