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
I had no idea that this was a thing. Here's a video clip of the 2023 Championships.
Is it a real sport? Let a participant tell us about it.
As I said, I'm completely unfamiliar with this "sport". However, a friend points out that after Texas cowhands are thrown by a longhorn bull in the arena, their hobbled gait as they stagger to their feet and try to get away from the bull sometimes resembles that of the hobby horse riders . . . with added sound effects, of course!
Peter
A very worrying report indicates that airliners may be vulnerable to a clash of technologies that might "mask" dangerously low altitudes.
French investigation authority BEA believes the prevalence of ILS approaches has obscured an underlying vulnerability of aircraft to the risk of terrain collision arising from incorrect altimeter pressure settings.
BEA made the remarks following its inquiry into a serious incident in which an Airbus A320 descended to just 6ft above ground during a low-visibility approach to Paris Charles de Gaulle’s runway 27R.
The ILS was not operational on the day of the incident, 23 May 2022, and the Airhub aircraft (9H-EMU) was conducting a satellite-based approach with barometric vertical guidance.
But BEA found the pilots had set the altimeter reference to 1011mb instead of 1001mb, after being given an incorrect QNH pressure reading by an air traffic controller. This resulted in the jet’s flying a descent path which was 280ft below the required profile.
Although this triggered a minimum safe altitude warning in the control tower, the controller took 9s to inform the crew – by which time the jet was 122ft above ground – and then used incorrect phraseology. The crew did not hear this call, and continued to descend.
BEA says the approach lights had not been switched on, and heavy rain meant the windshield wipers were operating at maximum speed.
After passing what they believed to be the decision height – but with the jet actually much lower, just 52ft above ground – the pilots initiated a go-around, because they had no visual contact with the runway.
The aircraft descended to 6ft, while 0.9nm from the threshold, before climbing away.
There's more at the link.
That's frightening as hell to anyone who flies frequently. Basically, the aircrew entered an incorrect value, but did not double-check it; and then they relied on the aircraft's technology, now mislead by their entry, to keep them safe. It's only by the grace of God and a couple of seconds' leeway that they didn't fly their airliner straight into the ground, killing everyone aboard.
We're seeing this more and more; aircrew relying on technology to fly the plane rather than doing so themselves. Automation has become so advanced (?) and so complex that it's easier to simply set a computer to do what you want, then sit back and let the computer figure out how to do it. If incorrect values have been entered, and the computer uses them in its calculations, you have no way of knowing that the danger exists.
As another example of relying on technology rather than pilot skill and concentration, consider the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 in 2013.
The Asiana pilots said in interviews with the National Transportation Safety Board that they had set the auto-throttles to maintain an air speed of 137 knots. That’s a significantly faster speed than the plane actually achieved as it came in for its landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday.
. . .
The pilots’ statements do not resolve the central question of why the Boeing 777’s speed and altitude fell so far out of the normal range for landing at SFO before it hit a sea wall and crash-landed. But outside air safety experts said the statements suggest a risky reliance on technology when the flight crew should have been constantly monitoring the airplane’s speed.
“Whether it was engaged or not working is almost irrelevant,” said Barry Schiff, a former TWA pilot and an air safety consultant. “The big mystery of Flight 214 is why in God’s name did these two pilots sit there and allow the air speed to get so low.”
Experts said the pilots should have been monitoring the plane’s speed every few seconds, and could have manually taken control of the engines at any time.
Again, more at the link.
The first report gives me the shivers. Six feet off the ground??? Oy gevalt . . .
Peter
Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.
I've said nothing yet in these pages about yesterday's attempted assassination of former President Trump. I won't have anything substantial to say until more information is available - and that may be some time in being made available. I certainly don't trust the FBI to conduct a reliable, impartial, non-partisan investigation. As Rep. Thomas Massie tweeted this morning:
Quite so. I said some years ago that "The FBI can no longer be trusted in any way, shape or form". I've seen nothing since then to make me change that opinion - rather the opposite, in fact.
And what about the abysmally poor security coverage of President Trump? How, precisely, could a man with a clearly visible and identifiable rifle climb onto a rooftop only a few hundred feet from him, take aim, and fire several shots before being neutralized? How did he penetrate the secure perimeter that should have been in place for several hundred yards around the venue? Failure of security, much?
In years past, before being elected President, Trump hired a very efficient and effective Israeli security company to handle that sort of thing. Perhaps he should do so again, to remind the Secret Service how it's done. They appear to have forgotten.
Then there's this allegation. It may be a complete fabrication - we don't know yet, and I've seen nothing to confirm it - but I'd love to know whether the shooter was observed by President Trump's security detail before he pulled the trigger, and if so, why none of them stopped him before he could do so. Was permission to shoot denied? If so, by whom? And why? And who told the leader(s) of his security team what to do under such circumstances?
As for all the calls for restraint from so-called "moderates" and the progressive/liberal/left-wing half of US politics . . . no. Simply "No." When the only candidate who offers anything to "constitutional Americans" - those who support our traditional values, who reject the political, social, economic and cultural "norms" of the Obama and Biden administrations - is targeted, so are all of us who want the same things. I personally don't like the thought of a sometimes vulgar, sometimes obsessive, loudly outspoken President Trump in charge of the country again: but if (as it currently appears) he's the only candidate who's prepared to dismantle the administrative "deep state" and restore our country to something at least approximating "government of the people, by the people and for the people", he'll have my vote every day and twice on Sundays. I have nothing left about which to be moderate, because every time our side tries moderation, the other side grabs more power and refuses to relinquish it. If it takes a morning star to beat some sense into their heads, I'll buy one, gift-wrap it and personally hand it to President Trump, along with a bouquet of roses and a smile. The time for moderation just went out the window.
Several bloggers have been expecting an attempt on President Trump's life, and I've foreseen the possibility in several previous posts in these pages. Yesterday, all of us were proven correct. The only question now remaining is whether this was merely one facet of a much wider, deeper and more sinister plot. Was it a "lone wolf" acting on his own? Or was it the harbinger of many more such attempts, each fostered and encouraged by a progressive left wing of US politics (and its "deep state" allies) that will do literally anything to stop President Trump from being elected to a second term in office? And will the FBI and Secret Service, both very much a part of the "deep state" and therefore tainted by association, offer more effective (and trustworthy) protection to him? I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of that . . .
Finally, the assassination attempt has "rattled the cages" of vast numbers of Americans who thought it couldn't happen here. Clearly, it could - and it has. The result? As SGAmmo, my favorite ammunition supplier, pointed out in its latest advertising flyer, published today:
It is safe to say the next rush to buy ammo is here. As I have talked about in past emails, the lion's share of the volume in the ammunition business is based on hoarding and panic buying, not consumption, and demand is such cases is a fear-driven. Yesterday, due to the tragic events, we saw order volume increase by about 2000%, 20 times recent normal from around 6pm CST to 11pm when I stopped monitoring the flow for the night. Order volume then sustain massive elevation through the night and into this morning ... Yesterday, we saw several of our so-called 'competitors' raise prices almost instantly, especially on 5.56/223, and as of so far we have not increased any prices, however please consider this notice that there may be upward movement in the days ahead unless demand settles quickly.
Clearly, many US citizens understand that in uncertain times, you'd better have ammunition with which to respond to any threat requiring it. As the old saying goes, "it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it".
I've got mine. I hope you've got yours. Keep it handy.
Peter
Following news that the "Fanfare for the First Lady" was nothing more than the lightly reworked theme music from "F Troop", a number of readers left suggestions as to what alternative theme tunes might be used. One of them, perhaps inevitably, was "Yakety Sax", also known as the Benny Hill theme. However, the Benny Hill Show used only part of "Yakety Sax" as its theme, omitting several of the variations in the original piece.
"Yakety Sax" is also said to be very hard to play for any saxophonist, due to the very difficult breath control needed to play some of the longer sections. Boots Randolph allegedly called it the most difficult saxophone piece he'd ever played, and kicked himself for having composed it! Be that as it may, it became his signature piece, demanded by audiences wherever he appeared.
Here's Boots Randolph performing his own composition.
The music has been used to indicate a funny, satirical or slapstick video more times than I can recall. My favorite is still one I put on this blog back in 2013. The authorities in New York City had banned an annual skateboarding event known as the "Broadway Bomb". After the organizers defied the ban, the NYPD was ordered to stop the skateboarders. Mayhem (of the very funny variety) ensued. Someone filmed it from his apartment balcony, and set the resulting video to the tune of the Benny Hill theme, with highly entertaining results. The music was a perfect fit for the action.
I hope that brought a smile to your face this Sunday morning!
Peter
As mentioned in a blog post a couple of weeks ago, I've been reading about the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-1812. Among other sources, I found "When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder, and the New Madrid Earthquakes".
It's a long (sometimes over-long) but very interesting account of the earthquakes, based upon survivors' reports and post-earthquake investigations. I'm still busy with it, and finding it very informative.
For today's Snippet, I thought I'd pick a chapter describing the Mississippi River itself during and immediately after the earthquake. Remember that at this period in history, steamboats had not yet become commonplace, so many living near the river had never seen them or even heard of them - hence their reactions to this strange critter of the waters.
ABOUT 125 miles northeast of Rocky Hill, the steamboat New Orleans was resting quietly on the evening of December 15 [1811]. Apart from not having been able to recruit any investors for the Ohio Steamboat Navigation Company, the voyage of the New Orleans was going as well as Nicholas Roosevelt could have hoped. The boat had performed admirably at the Falls, and she was on a reasonably timely schedule. And now Roosevelt was the proud father of a son.
Like everybody else within a three-hundred-mile radius of New Madrid, those aboard the steamboat were awakened by the 2:15 a.m. shock. With the shakes continuing throughout the night, they passed the rest of the anxious time without sleep. Yet they may have been the most fortunate of everyone in the area—because of the size and stability of their boat, the water was safer than land.
As soon as it was light enough to travel, the New Orleans was able to get under way. Moving downstream, the vibrations and noise of the engine kept the people on board from feeling the impact of the ongoing shocks, including the powerful aftershock that morning. But the Roosevelts’ Newfoundland dog, Tiger, felt the tremors and alternated between whining and growling as he prowled around the deck, and laying his head softly in Lydia Roosevelt’s lap, which indicated to the humans that “it was a sure sign of a commotion of more than usual violence.”
Insulated from the quake’s effect by this awesome new vehicle of a dawning age, those aboard the steamboat calmly ate their breakfast, but as the New Orleans continued downriver, signs of the quakes became more readily apparent. The passengers saw trees swaying as if in a high gale although, in fact, there was no wind blowing. They watched as an enormous section of riverbank suddenly tore away and dropped into the river. As the boat grew closer to the epicenter, it was lifted by quake-induced waves, and many on board the New Orleans were struck with seasickness.
The boat’s pilot, Andrew Jack, who was on intimate terms with the river, found the channel altered to the point where he was forced to concede he was lost. New hazards lay everywhere, and heretofore reliably deep water was now filled with uprooted trees. Without the familiar channel, Jack chose to stay in the middle of the river and hope for the best. It slowed him down, but it was a much safer way to proceed.
As the big boat passed the small settlements along the lower Ohio, the evidence mounted. Henderson, Highland Creek, Shawnee Town, and Cash Creek all showed earthquake damage. All along the route, banks were caved in and trees were down, and the shapes of familiar islands were changed.
The following night, the New Orleans put up about six miles above the junction of the Ohio and Mississippi, and not more than twenty-five miles from the Rocky Hill plantation. Not long after the crew and passengers had retired, there were urgent cries for help from the forward cabin. Assuming an Indian attack, Roosevelt jumped out of bed. He quickly grabbed the ceremonial sword from the outfit he wore for official receptions, and flew out the door of the family’s sleeping quarters.
Reaching the forward cabin, Roosevelt found not Indians but flames. Roosevelt’s mind jumped to the worst conclusion—an engine explosion, the most dreaded hazard on steamboats. But as he glanced around the room, he saw the real cause. In anticipation of the following day’s needs, the crewman who had been assigned to tend the fire had stacked up a pile of green wood near the heating stove to dry it out. Exhausted by the stress of the past two days’ events, the man had fallen asleep, and the wood caught fire. The flames quickly jumped to the finely crafted wood of the cabin walls, and suddenly the whole boat was imperiled. Roosevelt regained his wits and took command, urgently barking out orders. With Roosevelt encouraging his men all the while, the blaze was soon extinguished, but not before the exquisite paneling of the forward cabin was all but destroyed.
The following day, when the New Orleans reached the confluence of the two rivers, the water level in the big river was unusually high and the current had slackened, an unmistakable indication of flooding. When the big boat arrived at New Madrid that afternoon they found the place in a shambles. The entire town had dropped fifteen feet, down to the level of the Mississippi. A huge chunk of the riverfront, including the city cemetery, was gone, carried away by the river. Many chimneys and fences were down; others fell before their eyes. Houses were damaged. What had been a large plain behind the town was now a lake. The earth’s surface was rent by hundred-foot-long chasms. People and animals wandered about in a state of somnambulance.
As the huge boat approached, many of the townspeople fled in terror. The braver among the inhabitants, however, hailed the boat and begged to be taken aboard. Their frantic pleas for help threw Roosevelt into a quandary. There were far more people wanting to board the New Orleans than the boat’s store of provisions could possibly accommodate. Moreover, these refugees had no place to go, and when they were put ashore at Natchez or New Orleans, they would have no means of support.
The Roosevelts looked at the heartrending scene, and despite their instinct to take the refugees aboard, they knew they had no choice. Sadly, “there was no choice but to turn a deaf ear to the cries of the terrified inhabitants of the doomed town.”
* * * * *
As bad as the damage was on land, conditions were worse on the river. The New Orleans had been protected by her weight and size. The rest of the boats on the Mississippi were tossed about like toys in a bathtub.
Firmin La Roche, a sailor by trade, was the captain of a small fleet of three boats transporting furs from St. Louis to New Orleans in December 1811. (After the Battle of Tippecanoe, riverboats increasingly tended to travel in groups as protection against Indian attack.) There were eleven other men on the three boats; on La Roche’s vessel were a crewhand named Henry Lamel, a slave named Ben, and Fr. Joseph, a French priest who had been a missionary among the Osage and was now returning to France. The convoy left St. Louis on December 8 but twice in the first week was delayed en route for repairs.
On the evening of December 15, the convoy tied up about eight miles north of New Madrid, at a landing near the home of La Roche’s cousin, John Le Clerq. The boatmen ate supper and retired for the night.
At about 2:15 a.m., La Roche was jolted awake by a thunderous crash that turned the boat on its side. Lamel, sleeping in the next bed, was flung on top of La Roche, and the two men landed hard against the side of the boat.
La Roche, Lamel, Ben, and Fr. Joseph scrambled to the deck to see what had happened. The impenetrable darkness was filled only with sounds—an unidentifiable crashing and grinding, and booming explosions and ominous rumblings emanating from the depths of the earth. For almost an hour, they had no reference point until, at around 3:00 a.m., the haze cleared enough for La Roche to see thousands of trees crashing down and huge sections of shoreline tumbling into the river.
With the boat pitching and rolling, Lamel managed to cut the rope that was tied to a log near the bank. The boat had just begun to float away from shore when it was lifted by a monstrous rush of water from downstream. “So great a wave came up the river,” wrote La Roche, “that I never have seen one like it at sea.”
The four men grabbed on to whatever part of the boat they could and held on for dear life. Trying to row or steer was futile—not capsizing or being thrown overboard was the best they could hope for as they were swept along by the gigantic wave. The river rose to as high as thirty feet above its normal level, and the boat was carried upriver, toward St. Louis, for more than a mile. The mighty Mississippi was running backwards!
The angry river was surging and roiling. John Weisman, a flatboat pilot who was transporting Kentucky whiskey, reported that “if my flatboat boat load of whiskey had sprung a leak and made the ‘Father of Waters’ drunk it could not have committed more somersaults. It seemed that old Vesuvius himself was drunk.” Vessels were tossed about so violently that experienced boatmen had trouble staying on their feet.
Sandbars and the points of islands dissolved into the furious waters, taking countless numbers of trees down with them, thereby creating new hazards for already beleaguered riverboat pilots. Great quantities of long-submerged trees were also dislodged from the river bottom, freed from the depths “to become merciless enemies of navigation,” as one later report so aptly phrased it.
One man whose boat was wrecked on a planter climbed onto its trunk as his vessel went down. Grateful at least for his life having been spared, he soon realized to his dismay that the snag was slipping down into the raging river. Over the course of the next few hours, he desperately clung to the trunk, calling for help as several boats passed by. Finally, a skiff managed to row a short distance upstream of the man and float down alongside the planter. As it passed under him, the exhausted fellow let go of the trunk and tumbled into the boat.
Neither of Firmin La Roche’s other two boats was in sight; one vessel and its crew would never be seen again. “Everywhere there was noise like thunder,” wrote La Roche, “and the ground was shaking the trees down, and the air was thick with something like smoke. There was much lightning … I do not know how long this went on, for we were all in great terror, expecting death.” La Roche, Lamel, and Ben knelt and received absolution from Fr. Joseph.
Finally, the great wave began to subside, and the river gradually resumed its normal direction. Near New Madrid, several boats that had been carried up a small stream just above the town were left high and dry, several miles from the river.
As La Roche’s boat was carried back downstream, the sky began to lighten. On the Kentucky side of the river the boatmen saw two houses burning. When they reached New Madrid, there were several more buildings in flames, and a crowd of about twenty terror-stricken people crowded together on the high bank, crying out and cringing in fear. The crewmen tied up to the shore, but before anyone could disembark, a nearby hickory tree suddenly cracked and came crashing down on the boat. A branch whipped into La Roche’s left arm, splintering the humerus like a toothpick. Ben was pinned beneath the tree trunk. The others rushed to his aid, but when they managed, with some difficulty, to pull his body out, it was limp. Ben was dead.
The tree had also damaged the boat, which began taking on water. Thinking they would be drowned, the men frantically climbed onto the shore, dragging Ben’s lifeless body with them. When the people on land saw a priest among the group, they all knelt, and Fr. Joseph gave them absolution as well.
La Roche’s boat did not sink, however, and the townspeople loudly urged the boatmen to return to their craft, believing they would be safer on the water. Having already experienced several terrifying hours on the river, however, the crew were of the exact opposite opinion, and they chose to stay on land. They hurriedly dug a shallow grave and buried Ben.
All the while, the shocks continued, accompanied by constant sounds issuing from the earth. As soon as it was light enough, the crew set about repairing the boat. When it was mended to the extent that they could continue, the people onshore began crowding on board and dumping the cargo of furs into the river in order to lighten the load. (La Roche later estimated his losses at $600.) Finally, when no more souls could safely fit aboard, they pushed off. Unfortunately, the boat leaked badly, and the overloaded vessel was in danger of sinking. Lamel bailed furiously, but finally La Roche insisted that the passengers be deposited back onshore.
As they made their way toward New Orleans, the boatmen saw evidence of earthquake damage for 250 miles south of New Madrid. Concerning the loss of life, Fr. Joseph wrote, “We made no effort to find out how many people had been killed, although it was told us that many were. We saw the dead bodies of several and afterwards drowned persons we saw floating in the river.”
* * * * *
Earthquakes in themselves do not usually kill people. People are killed by the secondary phenomena associated with earthquakes, which include tsunamis, landslides, fires, falling structures, soil liquefaction, and land fissures.
Fires are one of the greatest hazards in an earthquake. In modern quakes they can be caused by exposed electrical wires or broken gas lines. For example, in the 1906 San Francisco quake, for which death toll estimates range from seven hundred to three thousand people, the greatest number of casualties was caused by the resulting fire that swept through the city. In the New Madrid quakes, the burning buildings witnessed by La Roche were a result of candles or overturned woodstoves that still held embers of the previous evening’s fire.
The wave that carried La Roche and his crew upriver and created the impression that the river had reversed its flow was another deadly secondary effect. It was similar in cause and result to a tsunami. Two factors most likely were responsible. First, a large piece of land somewhere near Little Prairie was thrust up and temporarily dammed the river—quite possibly the “great loaf of bread” recorded by Michael Braunm, who observed that after the “loaf” burst, the river was running retrograde. When the water upstream, pushed along by the current, hit the wall of land, it had no place to go but back in the direction from which it had come, causing a huge wave, just as deformation of the ocean floor during an earthquake at sea displaces vast quantities of water that can result in a tsunami. In addition, enormous sections of riverbank were caving in all around—a Captain John Davis recorded seeing “30 or 40 acres” fall—and when they did, they displaced huge volumes of water, adding to the size of the wave. When the land that had dammed up the river began to erode away, which happened relatively quickly because of its soft character, the current once again flowed naturally.
* * * * *
John Bradbury, a Scottish naturalist engaged in an extensive collection of North American plant specimens, was on a boat about a hundred miles south of New Madrid when the first quake hit. He had been entrusted by a friend with delivering a cargo of a ton and a half of lead from St. Louis to New Orleans; on board with him were a passenger named John Bridge and a crew of five French Creoles, including M. Morin, the boatmaster or patron. On the night of December 15, the boat was tied up to a sloping bank on a small island near the second Chickasaw Bluff, near present-day Memphis, about five hundred yards above a shallow stretch of river so treacherous that it was known as the Devil’s Channel or the Devil’s Race Ground. Through this channel, the river rushed so ferociously that the roar of the water could be heard for miles. With the sun already having set, Bradbury determined that the channel was too dangerous to attempt and decided to wait until morning.
When the quake hit, Bradbury and the others were awakened by the noise and “so violent an agitation of the boat that it appeared in danger of upsetting.” They rushed onto the deck. The caving banks had caused such a swell in the river that the boat nearly capsized and sank.
Morin, the patron, was beside himself with fear. “O mon Dieu!” he cried, continuing in French, “We are going to die!” Bradbury tried to calm him, but Morin ran off the boat crying, “Get onto land! Get onto land!” The deckhands followed him onto the island.
Bradbury decided to go ashore as well. As he was preparing to leave the boat, another shock was unleashed. When Bradbury reached the island, he found a frighteningly large fissure. With his candle, he walked the length of the fissure and concluded that it was at least eighty yards long; at either end, the perpendicular banks had crumbled into the Mississippi. With a shudder he realized that had his boat been moored to a perpendicular bank rather than a sloping one, he and his companions would have been goners.
As the sky lightened, the horrors began to emerge. “The river was covered with foam and drift timber, and had risen considerably.” As Bradbury and his party waited for enough light to embark, a pair of empty canoes came drifting downstream on the faster-than-normal current. These canoes were of the type towed by boats and used for getting ashore and boarding other vessels, and Bradbury took it as “a melancholy proof” that some of the boats they had passed the previous day had perished along with their crews.
The shocks continued; while on the island, Bradbury counted twenty-seven more by dawn. At daybreak, he gave the order to embark, and everyone returned to the boat. Two of the deckhands were loosening the ropes when yet another powerful shock hit. In terror, the two men ran up onto dry land, but before they could get across the fissure that had opened in the night, a tree came smashing down to block their way. The bank of the island was rapidly disappearing into the river. Bradbury called out to loosen the ropes, and the two hands ran back to the boat.
Now they were once again on the river, but as the boat approached the Devil’s Race Ground, Bradbury saw that the channel was chocked with trees and driftwood that had floated down during the night. The passage appeared blocked. Equally distressing, Morin and his crew appeared to be in such a state of panic that Bradbury concluded they were incapable of getting the boat safely through the channel.
Bradbury thought it prudent to stop once more to give the men time to get their emotions under control. Spying an island with a gently sloping bank, the boat moored again, and the crew began preparing breakfast. Bradbury and Morin went ashore to get a close look at the channel and determine where the safest passage might be. As they stood and talked, the 7:15 aftershock arrived, nearly knocking them off their feet. Another tremor hit while they ate breakfast, and as they prepared to reboard the boat, there was still another, which nearly pitched John Bridge into the river, as the sand suddenly gave way beneath him.
Before giving the order to push off, Bradbury noticed that the deckhands were still in a state of fearful paralysis, so he proposed to Morin that the patron give each of them a glass of whiskey to bolster their courage. After they had drunk up, Bradbury gave them a spirited pep talk, reminding them that their safety and the safety of the boat depended on their efforts.
Finally, the boat untied and was once again on the water. Their confidence buoyed by the whiskey and Bradbury’s exhortations, Morin and the hands successfully threaded the boat through the perilous channel, making several instantaneous changes in their course in order to avoid disaster. When they had passed the danger, the men threw down their oars and crossed themselves, then gave a loud cheer and congratulated one another on having come through the Devil’s Race Ground in one piece.
Bradbury’s summing up of the total effect of the December 16 quakes was that they “produced an idea that all nature was in a state of dissolution.”
* * * * *
The crews of countless boats either drowned or abandoned their crafts to take their chances on land. The misfortunes of these men proved a source of salvation for the residents of New Madrid. In the days following December 16, the river deposited manna at their shores, as boat after unmanned boat floated down into the New Madrid harbor, bringing a bounty of meat, flour, cheese, butter, and apples. The town was still a disaster zone, but at least the people had enough to eat.
The shaking went on—as Jared Brooks wrote on December 16, “it is doubtful if the earth is at rest from these troubles 10 minutes during the day and succeeding night”—persisting throughout the course of the following days. Three days later, Stephen F. Austin—later known as “The Father of Texas”—landed at New Madrid and recorded his impressions. “The Philanthropic emotions of the soul are never more powerfully exercised,” he wrote, “than when called on [to] witness some great and general calamity … throwing a hitherto fertile country into dessolation and plunging such of the unfortunate wretches who survive the ruin, into Misery and dispair.”
“These emotions I experianced when on landing at N. Madrid the effects by the Earthquake were so prominently visible as well in the sunken and shattered situation of the Houses, as in the countenance of the few who remained to mourn over the ruins of their prosperity and past happiness.”
Several days afterwards, the camp of Little Prairie refugees received word that New Madrid had survived and that food was available there. Led by George Ruddell, the two hundred Little Prairie survivors immediately set out on a three-day march and reached New Madrid on Christmas Eve.
* * * * *
As the New Orleans chugged its way down the hazard-choked river, keeping to the middle as much as possible, those on board continued to witness the aftermath of the earthquake’s wrath. Earlier in the voyage, the steamboat had always made fast to the shore at night, but with so many sections of riverbank caving in without warning, that was no longer possible. Instead, pilot Andrew Jack now anchored to any of the larger islands that dotted the river.
One night soon after passing New Madrid, with the shakes continuing, the steamboat put up on the downstream side of one such island, identified by Zadok Cramer in The Navigator as Island 32 (the islands were numbered consecutively, beginning at the mouth of the Ohio), about fifty miles below Little Prairie. In the night, the passengers were awakened by the sounds of scraping and banging against the sides of the boat. Several times, the vessel was shaken by severe blows. Conferring with Jack, Roosevelt concluded that the sounds and jolts, which would continue all through the night, were caused by driftwood that was being swept downriver. They passed the word to the other passengers and then returned to bed.
When the people of the New Orleans got out on deck the next morning, they were stunned. They were no longer anchored to the island—it appeared that the steamboat had slipped anchor and floated downriver all night.
But Pilot Jack, with his encyclopedic knowledge of the river, looked around and pointed out to the others the landmarks that showed they were in the same spot at which they had dropped anchor the previous day. The boat had not moved at all—instead, the island had broken up in the night and been carried away by the current! The sounds and jolts they had heard and felt throughout the night were caused by pieces of the disintegrating island floating up against the boat.
Island 32 was not the only one to disintegrate. Island 94, known as Stack Island or Crow’s Nest Island, about 450 miles below New Madrid and 175 miles above Natchez, also disappeared.
A tale published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat in 1902 purported to tell the story of “The Last Night of Island Ninety-Four.” According to this account, on the evening of December 15, a Captain Sarpy was en route from St. Louis to New Orleans in his keelboat, the Belle Heloise, with his wife and daughter and a large sum of money. At nightfall, the keelboat tied up at Island 94. This island had been a long-standing lair for river denizens of every stripe, including Samuel Mason, the notorious river pirate who had been apprehended in Little Prairie a decade earlier, only to escape while being transported on the river. Two years before Sarpy’s trip, however, a force of 150 keelboatmen had invaded the island and cleaned out the den of thieves, after which the island became a safe haven, and now, Sarpy thought to use the island’s abandoned blockhouse to lodge his family and crew for the night.
As Sarpy and two of his men explored the island, however, they overheard talking in the blockhouse and, peering in the windows, listened as a group of fifteen river pirates discussed plans to fall upon the Belle Heloise the following morning. Sarpy and his crewmen hurried back to the boat and quietly pushed off, tying up at a hidden place in the willows on the west bank about a mile below Island 94.
The following morning, after weathering a night of earthquakes, Sarpy looked upstream to see that Island 94 had disintegrated—the entire landmass was gone, and presumably, its criminal inhabitants along with it.
Whether or not the story is true, Island 94 did indeed disappear.
That must have been an amazing and very frightening experience for all concerned, particularly because the science of that day was not sufficiently far advanced for the ordinary person to understand what was happening. It must have felt to many like Divine vengeance was being visited upon them for their sins.
If an identical earthquake were to happen in that area again today, with its vastly greater population and much more developed infrastructure, I shudder to think how many would be killed. It would probably be the single biggest natural disaster to strike the USA since the Declaration of Independence.
Peter
I've noted in the past that there are times when Google simply doesn't seem to know what to do with Comments on this blog (and others). The Blogger platform sometimes deletes comments as soon as they're made, before I get a chance to view them; at other times, it memory-holes comments that have already appeared on the blog.
Now - at least, for the past week or two - Blogger appears to be sending some perfectly valid comments to Spam, without giving me a chance to moderate them. What's worse, they appear to be mostly by regular commenters here, who've established a good track record of no spam comments, no profanity, etc. - in other words, no reason to block them or their comments. I've "un-spammed" at least six comments like that over the past couple of days, and am now forced to manually check my Spam folder a couple of times a day to see whether any others have been redirected there.
I've no idea why this is happening. I'm very frustrated by it, but the Blogger team don't appear to answer queries at the best of times, so I don't know whether they'll provide any explanation this time round. I'm sorry for any heartburn this causes commenters - but again, I have no idea why it's happening.
Peter
The phrase "the fog of war" has become a cliché, but it remains as true as it's always been. It appears to have dominated Israel's initial response to the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks. Ynet News has published an extended interview with the pilots of some of the attack helicopters who tried to respond effectively on that day. Here's an excerpt.
Do you even have a battle plan for an attack like this from the south?
Lt. Col. E.: “Yes. Since the 2014 Gaza War, we’ve been training for infiltration incidents in our territory, but we never imagined a reference scenario of this magnitude of a number of communities being infiltrated simultaneously.”
To be clear: There was an infiltration scenario and firing at terrorists in our territory does exist. It exists in our understanding, but it’s very extreme in our understanding. To get there, you must know that this is your only option, because in a battle plan where a soldier encounters a terrorist, it’s better to shoot him than firing mortars with a 100 square meter fall out range.
What do your pilots see at the Re’im gate?
“They see the battle going on there – people running back and forth between the gate and the trees. They construct a picture and realize that these are definitely neither civilians nor our forces. They shoot and hit a group of terrorists inside the trees next to the parking lot. They kill six or seven. Before finishing the battle, they’re sent to another incident taking priority, and they move south.”
The division doesn’t ask them to say and carry on firing at the terrorists?
“The division tell them to move, that there’s another incident taking higher priority. They transfer them to work with the Southern Brigade.”
But if the division command falls, response capabilities are damaged
“Everyone’s goal is protecting the communities. I don’t know of a commander in the army who would put the division, brigade or outpost above the community. I just don’t."
This modus operandi, transferring helicopters every few minutes from one place to another, carries on all morning. “Every five or six minutes, we were receiving call-outs to another incident,” says Lt. Col. E. “You can’t construct a picture as to where the more urgent thing is, so you go where they tell you.”
In hindsight, is this system of going from one spot to the next an effective method?
“If we’d have stayed in the same place the whole time with other forces - and there were cases like that - we might have prevented something from happening. But it affects the overall aggregate of what was going on at each separate battle at the same time. You can’t foresee what you’ll prevent at a given point.”
His colleague from the 190th Squadron, Lt. Col. A. says this question is hard to answer before investigations are completed. “There were places that helicopters finished off the incident in an hour, while in other places, helicopters operated for hours without bringing the incident to an end. Why? Perhaps there were fewer terrorists there, or maybe it was harder to get our forces in.”
There's much more at the link.
Those who've been "up the sharp end" will recognize much of what the pilots have to say. Another way of putting it is the old saying, "Order, counter-order, disorder". An individual command post has a problem, so it orders forces to deal with it, not realizing that there's a bigger problem a few miles away and the forces it needs have just been ordered (by a different command post) to deal with that one. The forces concerned can only do their best to deal with a hard-to-understand, fractured situation - and risk being court-martialed if they do it wrong, because most command posts (and individuals) are never going to blame themselves. They'll use the fighting forces as scapegoats.
It's a problem that's been with any and all armed forces since the first organized command structure was developed. It'll probably end with the heat death of the universe, but even that can't be guaranteed.
Peter
This news is a couple of days old, but I only just came across it. After I stopped laughing, I thought I'd share it here for others who might not have heard it yet.
It's emerged that soon after entering the White House, somebody in the Administration decided that whenever Mrs. Biden entered an official function, she needed her own theme music, much as the President is greeted by "Hail To The Chief".
Somebody - presumably in the Marine Corps Band, which plays at the White House - came up with this "Fanfare for the First Lady".
Only recently did somebody note that the Fanfare sounds uncannily similar to the theme music for the 1960's TV comedy series "F Troop", about a hapless cavalry troop in the Old West that can't do anything right and gets everything wrong. See - or, rather, listen - for yourself.
Seems to me that the Fanfare is nothing more or less than a (very) thinly disguised rendition of the F Troop theme. Given the performance of the Biden administration, I daresay it's a pretty fair tribute to its accomplishments, too!
I wonder if the composer of the Fanfare was able to get his tongue out of his cheek after completing it . . . ?
Peter
From Chris Martz on Twitter/X:
This plot shows the average number of days per year with daily maximum temperatures ≥95°, ≥100° and ≥105° per USHCN station since 1895.
The trend is down.
You will not see this reported anywhere in the press. I guarantee it. The extremes don’t increase at the same rate that the background warming does. Extremes are a reflection of the bounds of natural variability. Trends don’t create extremes.
There is also no such thing as “climate-fueled heat.” That’s media-spun BS. The climate is not a fuel. Local environmental conditions at the time of occurrence are. That’s called “weather.” Stop confusing the two concepts.
There's more at the link.
Here in north Texas, we're currently well into our annual heat endurance contest. In any given week, temperatures at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit are likely to dominate, and it'll stay that way until sometime in September. (We've only lived here for a decade, yet we've already had one summer where the temperature was over 100 degrees on each of over 100 consecutive days.) According to the news media, this is proof of "global warming". Around here, we call it "summer", because it's been that way for as long as people have lived here, and is likely to remain that way.
Peter
