It's about 2.30 am on Saturday morning, and I still haven't gone to bed. Working too hard, not able to switch off my mind and relax. So, I'm afraid there's no Snippet today; instead, I'll have a last cup of tea, then head to bed and just lie there until my eyes decide it's OK to close.
Peter
Michael Z. Williamson, friend, author, blogger, knife vendor and all-around good guy, has written a magnificent rant about the trials and tribulations of dealing with military administration - and administrators. I've never served in the US military, but my memories of the South African military pretty much match his, and I spent a while giggling (unhappily) over the memories his article brought back to mind. It's a lengthy rant, and will take some time to read in full, but if you're a veteran of military service, you'll appreciate it.
Getting Some Old Military Frustrations Down On Paper
Click over there and have fun!
Peter
Here's an interesting and impressive video showing how giant ship anchor chains are forged.
A lot of people assume that the flukes, or "hooks", at the end of an anchor chain is what holds a ship in place. Actually, that's seldom the case. They're there to allow the anchor to "dig in" to the seabed, which in turn enables the chain to pay out in approximately a straight line from that point back to the vessel deploying it. Usually, what keeps a major vessel anchored is the sheer weight of anchor chain paid out by the ship. If, say, the water depth is 50 feet, you might find ten, twenty or even more times as much anchor chain paid out, laid out along the sea bed to act as a living "brake" against the forces of wind and tide. The part of the chain that curves up from the sea bed to the vessel acts as a shock absorber, lessening the direct strain of the ship on the chain lying along the sea bed. That chain weighs so much that to overcome its inertia and move whatever is attached to it takes a great deal of effort. Even so, a big enough force (say, a major storm) can certainly accomplish that - which is why so many ships put to sea if a big storm approaches, to ride it out at a safe distance from the land.
See for yourself how big those chains can be. The video title mentions "warships", but chains this big would apply only to the largest of them (say, an aircraft carrier or amphibious assault vessel). Even bigger ones will be used aboard supertankers, ultra-large container ships, etc.
Here's how the process works.
Impressive!
Peter
The news and social media are full of rumors that President Biden may announce his withdrawal from the 2024 Presidential election. That doesn't mean he'd leave office as well, of course: that could happen, but there's no certainty that he'd be prepared to bow out early. I suspect he'd be more likely to continue in office until his present term expires in January next year.
That could be a very big problem. Biden has already demonstrated on repeated occasions that he can be vindictive, nasty and vengeful to those he thinks have slighted him. Just how much damage could a lame-duck president do in the final half-year of his term in office? I suspect the answer is "A heck of a lot!"
It may be that Congress and the Senate could prevent or mitigate the worst of the damage, by refusing to pass enabling legislation. However, presidential executive orders can operate without such support. Biden could install his supporters in critical positions in the Executive Branch; reallocate budgets to support his preferred agenda, even at the expense of defunding other parts of government that are just as (or even more) essential; increase his efforts to dilute the electorate by bringing in millions upon millions of foreign "migrants", and getting as many of them as possible to register as voters, even though that's illegal (just as his administration and Blue states are doing right now); and so on. Sure, some of those steps may be actionable in court - but it takes time to get such measures on a court docket, and there's no guarantee they could be blocked or suspended in time to avert the damage they might do. So much depends on the perspective of possibly biased judges that it's hard to make that call.
It might be better for the country if he were to leave office at the same time that he withdraws from electoral contention; but we have no idea how well Vice-President Kamala Harris would perform in his stead. Based on her track record, I think she'd get even less respect and cooperation, nationally and internationally, than would President Biden - and that might make her vengeful, bitter and retaliatory in her governance.
A lesson one learns early on the African plains is that an animal is never so dangerous as when it's wounded and weakened. It'll lash out and try to kill those threatening it, no matter who or what they are. (I've never forgotten the dik-dik - a tiny antelope - that charged a game ranger near Rhodes Memorial on the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town. He was trying to see whether any young were in her bush nest, but she was having none of it. Her short, sharp horns penetrated his thigh and punctured his femoral artery. He bled to death next to the nest before help - only a few minutes away - could reach him. I was nearby that day.)
Biden and/or Harris might demonstrate similar pugnacity. If they're politically weakened to the point that they believe they can't win, and/or have nothing to lose, they could retaliate against Democrats, or Republicans - even the entire nation. That's a prospect not to be taken lightly, particularly given President Biden's ever-loosening grasp of reality, and Vice-President Harris' growing (and, IMHO, probably justifiable) outrage at the lack of respect, verging on contempt, shown towards her by her own party's leaders.
We might all live to regret something like that happening.
Peter
I'm updating the publication text of various books published by my wife and myself; fixing errors spotted by readers, re-formatting sections, and so on. (Don't worry: the content and storylines won't change at all!) This is occupying a lot of my time at the moment, so I won't be posting more blog content for the rest of today. Please amuse yourself with the bloggers in the sidebar. They write good, too!
Peter
I've seen several claims that large quantities of shares in President Trump's social media network were "shorted" immediately prior to the assassination attempt against him on July 13. The inference being drawn is that whoever did this must have had prior knowledge of the plot, and was poised to profit from its success. Here's just one example of what I've been seeing.
However, few if any of those reporting the alleged short sales bothered to do their own research - they just rushed to repeat a rumor.
The Daily Dot reported more responsibly.
Investors in Trump Media ($DJT) believe that they can prove who had inside knowledge of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump.
But most of their claims are based on misreading a document filed last week with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC).
. . .
But claims that the puts were placed specifically right before the assassination don’t hold water. The filing is a report for a calendar year or quarter ending on June 30, which is the latest the puts could have been placed.
It’s possible firms shorted DJT on July 12, but reports revealing that are not currently available.
There's more at the link.
This always happens after a major crisis event like Saturday's. Conspiracy theorists rush out of the woodwork to spread their slimy suspicions all over anything and anyone they can imagine. They don't wait for the initial "fog" to clear, they don't bother to look for authoritative sources (in fact, they frequently quote each other as being authoritative, when all they are doing is rumor-mongering), and they aren't interested in the truth.
Folks, please be very careful where you get your news. Far too many "independent" sources aren't worth the electrons it takes to get them to your computer or telephone screen. At a time when a rumor might spark genuine violence, even murder, against political opponents, their deliberate inaccuracy and refusal to fact-check is criminally negligent, IMHO.
Peter
That's the unspoken question posed by a cartel takeover of a Mexican port.
A sharp increase in drug seizures has been reported at Mexico’s west coast ports with caches discovered inside containers and vessels’ sea chests, said protection and indemnity club NorthStandard.
The alert follows the seizure earlier this month of 88 tonnes of chemicals needed for the manufacture of synthetic drugs at the country’s largest container port, Manzanillo.
Ports are a “critical part” of the criminal infrastructure of one of the most powerful cartels, the Sinaloa, which uses them to receive precursor chemicals and South American cocaine for trafficking into the US, according to a May report by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
. . .
The DEA report said that the Pacific coast port of Mazatlan was wholly controlled by the Sinaloa cartel and they charged other drug trafficking organisations to use the port.
A long history of alliances with drug trafficking groups also gave the Sinaloa access to the port of Manzanillo, said the report.
The port is “strategically significant because of its location on the central Pacific Coast and its high volume of shipping traffic due to widespread use of the port by foreign countries to exchange legitimate trade goods with Mexico and to refuel”, said the agency in its 2024 national drug threat assessment.
There's more at the link.
It's all very well to go after criminals . . . but what if the administrators and bureaucrats controlling government functions (such as a port) are themselves criminals? Remove them, and you'll have to appoint replacements - who will doubtless be threatened immediately with death or dismemberment, for themselves and/or their families, if they don't do precisely the same as their predecessors did. "Plata o plomo", remember?
Also, how can any honest law enforcement agent or agency work with a port administration that's so clearly criminal? Everything the latter learns about the "good guys" will undoubtedly be passed to the "bad guys", who will use the information to target law enforcement and operate with impunity.
Most worrying of all to me, we've just "imported" what are likely to be hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives and other criminals from South America, thanks to President Biden's border policies. They're now inside our borders, and I'm sure some are already working in our harbors, airports, etc. How long until they take over one of our transport hubs, and operate it for the benefit of their cartel buddies back home?
Peter
I note that violent street crime, shoplifting, etc. are rapidly increasing in Britain, just as much as they are in the USA.
Shoreham-by-Sea is at the forefront of a retail theft epidemic gripping Britain, as shoplifting soars to a record high.
The number of reported cases in England and Wales hit 430,104 last year, according to the Office for National Statistics, the highest since records began in 2003.
Outside Westminster, the district of Adur that is home to Shoreham-by-Sea had the joint-highest rate relative to the population, at 22 offences for every 1,000 people.
Neighbouring Worthing, and Mansfield further afield in Nottinghamshire, shared the unwanted crown.
Sussex Police meanwhile had the second lowest solved rate for shoplifting at 10pc, ranking only behind the Metropolitan Police.
In Shoreham Central and Beach, 97.6pc of reported shoplifting incidents were unsolved, Telegraph analysis shows.
Many businesses all across the country will know these issues all too well. As theft rates have soared, rates of those being solved have plummeted.
Only one in seven incidents of shoplifting in England and Wales were solved last year, according to Home Office figures. The figure has halved since comparable records were first published in 2016 and is now at its lowest.
It is not just shoplifting that is on the rise. Robberies of businesses have also risen to the highest level since 2005.
A creaking justice system, large cuts to policing and prisons on the verge of having to turn guilty people away have laid the foundations for this crisis.
The cost of living, rising levels of addiction and organised criminals seizing the opportunity to steal with impunity have made it worse.
. . .
It comes as thousands of prisoners will be released early in September to relieve overcrowding.
Britain’s prisons are believed to be just weeks away from running out of space, a situation that Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood blamed on the previous government and said had left left her with “no choice” but to take action.
As a result, some offenders will be released after serving only 40pc of their sentence rather than half. Exemptions will be made for sexual and serious violent offenders.
The alternative would risk “looters running amok, smashing in windows, robbing shops”, Mahmoud said. However, this is not far from what British retailers say they are already seeing.
There's much more at the link. It's worth reading, to tick the boxes about what Britain is seeing that we're also seeing in many parts of this country. They're very similar - including the increasing violence of criminals.
There is, of course, another factor besides those named - one the news media dare not name, in either country, for fear of being labeled racists or bigots or whatever. That is that both countries are dealing with a massive influx of illegal or quasi-legal aliens or "migrants". Street crime and shoplifting is increasingly being committed by that group, sometimes almost to the exclusion of other groups. I worked with law enforcement for decades, and maintain my contacts with them. Almost everyone with whom I speak in that demographic tells me that it's a migrant problem - but they're not allowed to say so. It's a firing offence if they do. It's a politically incorrect "third rail" that they dare not touch.
I'd like to see some properly collected, collated and analyzed statistics dealing with that . . . but we can forget about that as long as left-wing progressive local, state and national governments and bureaucracy prevent them from being gathered.
Peter
Four days after the assassination attempt on President Trump, there's still an awful lot of smoke blocking our view of the fire. Unfortunately, that's likely to be the case for months to come. The fact that the would-be assassin was allowed to get "danger close" and fire several shots is an indictment in itself of the US Secret Service and every other agency involved in providing security that day. It was an unconscionable failure of policies and systems that should have been so well-rehearsed that they were almost on autopilot. We've had so much experience of providing security to high-risk targets that this should have been a no-brainer. Clearly, it wasn't. Heads should roll at the highest level, and if any element of Diversity-Equity-Inclusion and other progressive buzzword policies can be shown to have contributed to the failure, it/they should be discarded at once and all concerned re-trained using more realistic, real-world-applicable frameworks.
Will that happen under President Biden? Oh, hell no. Might it happen under President Trump if he's re-elected, and if he stays alive (despite all the Secret Service, the FBI and other agencies can do) until he takes office? You bet your life! I daresay there'll be (metaphorically) a swinging sword scything its way through Washington DC, and it'll likely start with those agencies and people who failed so abysmally last Saturday.
I'm having fun watching the Democratic Party almost fall apart under the strain of deciding what to do next. I'm pretty sure President Trump boosted his electoral chances very highly through surviving the attack; most political commentators appear to agree. That means any potential candidate to replace Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket has to face the very real possibility that he/she will be almost guaranteed to lose, all other things being equal (which they seldom are, of course). That might spell political disaster for their future career. To run and fail is much worse, in terms of future electoral optics, than to withdraw from the race out of "loyalty for the incumbent", appear to give him as much support as possible, then commiserate with him over his failure as he heads for the old age home. Most potential Presidential candidates among the Democrats understand that very well. I daresay they're now pushing for a Biden/Harris ticket in the confident expectation it'll fail, leaving the way open for one of them to replace it in future.
As for President Trump; he continues to be the motivating spark trying to light a fire in the Republican Party. I've been very disappointed in the Republican convention so far. There appears to be a general lack of enthusiasm, drive and energy. It's largely the same old, same old pious political platitudes. Trump's selection of J. D. Vance as his vice-presidential running mate interests me very much, for a number of reasons.
One thing I must say, very vehemently, is that I'm sickened and disgusted by those who latched on to the fact that Vance's wife is of Indian descent (although born here in the USA). So what? Does her race make any difference to whether or not she's a good person? They also object to the fact that she's Hindu, while her husband is Catholic. It's their business to make that work for their family, not ours. Leave them alone to do so! Racism is still alive and well in the USA, and to see it so nakedly on display in the disparaging comments made about Mrs. Vance is nauseating. I know some few of my readers are among those raising such objections, which saddens me. I can only suggest that if they feel that way, they shouldn't be reading my blog either, because there's no place for such attitudes here.
In closing, let me repeat that I'm neither a Republican nor a Democrat. I'm genuinely independent in my thinking, and will always support the best candidate for a given position rather than a political party. (Yes, that means I might vote for a Democrat over a Republican if the former candidate warranted it, and/or the latter candidate was a particularly poor politician.) However, in the present situation in this country, there's only one side that appears to be trying to restore genuinely constitutional government; what President Abraham Lincoln famously summarized as "government of the people, by the people, for the people". I may not agree with every position taken by that party, but its foundation(s) is/are solid in that sense (unlike their opposition). Therefore, that side, and its candidates, gets my vote. We'll "sweat the petty stuff" later.
Peter
Editor Jeremy Black, already a well-known expert in military strategy, has curated a large number of articles by numerous authors into a collection titled "The Practice of Strategy: A Global History". The articles include:
Best of all, you can download a full PDF copy of the entire book free of charge! That's the best value in this field I've seen for a very long time. Don't let some early pages in Italian put you off: the full English translation of them follows.
Highly recommended to all military strategy and strategic planning buffs.
Peter
There's a very interesting article over at The War Zone on how Ukraine is training its FPV (first person view) drone pilots to take on the enemy, and win. Here's an excerpt.
It’s one thing to have drones. It is something else altogether to reliably guide them to dynamic targets across a chaotic and bloody battlefield. While the many videos of attacks on tanks, trucks, and troops like the one below make it look easy, it’s not.
“We have a constant need to train our pilots and operators. The world of unmanned systems is constantly changing and the enemy comes up with certain methods or can prevent us from completing our tasks,” said one of the soldiers, who goes by callsign Teenager. “We have the opportunity to constantly train and improve our skills.”
As he speaks, the video cuts to an FPV drone flying through a net-covered tube obstacle. It’s one of the many hurdles new pilots have to navigate as they become familiar with flying and experienced pilots have to use to refresh their skills.
For rookies, just getting to that stage takes time.
“Our training is done in several stages,” said another soldier, callsign Glory. “It starts with a base of basic summer practices, then the second stage is more complex practices, and then there are application tactics, where our pilots learn to counter the enemy, an imitation of what is on the battlefield.”
The obstacle course offers many challenges, from mockups of building facades to slaloming around metal poles to buzzing through hoops. There are also static targets, like an old automobile ... This training teaches pilots to make kills that look right out of a dystopian movie, including strikes through open windows, doors and tank hatches.
There's more at the link, including photographs and links to some spectacular combat footage.
The trainees are also taught to use a 3D printer in the field, so that they can produce their own spare parts to repair their drones when needed. I hope the US is watching developments like this closely; our forces deploy tens of thousands of drones of different sizes, and their operators need to be as up-to-date as possible on actual battlefield tactics, defenses, and so on.
As I've said before: I'm very glad my military service ended several decades ago. I'd hate to be on a modern battlefield, where the slightest exposure might mean one or more drones hunting me down and blowing me up. I'd feel pretty darn helpless out there!
Peter
CNBC put up an interesting article (it's worth reading) about how, since men tend to die earlier than women, older women are likely to receive a lot of money and assets from their husbands who predecease them.
So far, so good.
Unfortunately, the headline CNBC's editor(s) chose was . . . not so good.
The giggling among financially inclined commenters has been epic.
Peter
