Friday Snark 2.0

Images courtesy of Real Clear Politics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Friday Snark 1.0

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

A Modest Win-Win Proposal

Writing for PJ Media, Stephen Kruiser looks at the billion dollar level of primarily-Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota and concludes, “The US May Want to Look into Getting Rid of Minnesota.” Kruiser is exaggerating for emphasis, a la Trump.

In that same grandiose spirit, I have an improved suggestion, “The US May Want to Swap  Minnesota for Alberta.” My rationale is this - Alberta would be happier as a US state. Its culture and economics resemble those of Texas. Politically and culturally, Minnesota would be happier as a Canadian province. 

Like all really good deals, it would be a win for both entities.

Thursday Snark

Image courtesy of Instapundit.

Getting Real About Ukraine

If you care about the outcome in Ukraine, or about how Trump looks when his efforts there fail to produce a ceasefire, I have a column you should read. It is at a site called GZERO Media and is entitled “The Ukraine peace push is failing. Here is why.” Author Ian Bremmer is a foreign policy entrepreneur and sometime professor of foreign policy.

There is a real chance Trump’s actions in Ukraine will have an outcome like Kissinger’s in Vietnam. Namely a face-saving way to get us disengaged from a brutal no-win situation, regardless of the carnage left behind.

Churchill, on Hudson Bay

RealClearDefense links to a New York Times article that is not behind their paywall. It concerns renewed interest in the town of Churchill in northern Manitoba. 

Sometimes known as "the polar bear capital of the world," it is also the northern terminus of the only rail line to the Far North, and a roughly 2.5 hour flight north-northeast of Winnipeg. 

When Soviet bombers were a major worry, it was a major DEW line radar outpost and a military airfield. It was also a major grain shipping port on the west coast of Hudson Bay. In recent years both port and air base have been 'neglected' in a climate where things need upkeep.

With climatic warming the Northwest Passage is becoming less mythical. Interest in defending the polar north has grown and there is talk of reopening the military base and maybe upgrading the rail line and port. It is a good article with no political spin.

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The DrsC took the train to Churchill some 30+ years ago, because we like exotic train trips. We boarded in northeastern Saskatchewan, leaving our RV parked there. It was then, and perhaps still is, a slow train. The track is laid over permafrost which is subject to "frost heaves" and subsidence so the train gently rocks and rolls. We were told it derails occasionally but that normally doing so isn't a calamity.

Taking it you will see mile after mile of lichen taiga - vast numbers of stunted, overwatered conifers. In summer the surface melts but a few inches or feet down is still frozen so roots can't get through the ice so they sit in soupy mud part of the year and ice the rest of the time. 

We were still working and went when the university was on summer break. We did not see polar bears as they hibernate on land in summer. Winter is their hunting season and their diet is primarily seals caught out on the Arctic Ocean ice cap. The time to see the bears is autumn when they wake up and prowl the coast waiting for Hudson Bay to freeze over. 

A Motive Hypothesized

At PJ Media Matt Margolis floats a theory about the motive the Afghan guy had for shooting two National Guard troops in Washington, DC, killing one. It has apparently been leaked that the FBI believes he was coerced by the Taliban to do this hit, using a credible threat of mayhem directed at his family still in Afghanistan.

The PJM column recounts the slaughter of six family members, including 2 children, of a similar Afghan guy who aided British troops there. This tactic could turn nearly any Afghan refugee into a terrorist, and there are thousands of them here.

A Problem and a Recollection

There have been several related stories recently in a section of the media I regularly read, but only occasionally write about: defense. These have concerned the US Navy's difficulty in planning and building warships to replace aging units now with the fleet.

Today's example - the Navy recently cancelled the standing order for the Constellation class of frigates, true deep water warships smaller than modern destroyers. The first two are under construction and will be "orphans," the four follow-on ships will not be started as the balance of the program is dead.

This is the second build program ended prematurely, the first being that for the trouble-plagued Littoral Combat Ships. The widespread consensus is that the Navy's system for ship design and construction is badly (some would say 'fatally') flawed.

In an effort to circumvent prior so-called "clean sheet" design failures, the Constellation class was to be based on a successful European frigate design currently in service with the navies of France, Italy, and Egypt. The US variant was to be 85% similar to existing ships in service abroad.

As finally approved for construction the US version only shares 15% of its components with foreign designs. It is already seriously over-budget.

I want to float a theory about one of the things wrong with the US Navy ship design/construction offices. My hunch is that technology - especially dealing with drones and stealth - is evolving so rapidly designs are obsolete before the keel is laid. 

Instead of making the best of a bad situation, the designers keep changing the design. This has secondary and tertiary ripple effects throughout the ship and causes compromises and cost overruns. 

However, for a superpower failure is not an option. You go to war at sea with the ships you've got and make the best of a less-than-optimal situation. 

The Navy needs more ships than the Congress will fund, the designers try to make up for the shortfall by optimizing the design of each ship. It must do the duty of two (or more) ships so it must be perfect and modern and multi-functional.

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Sadly multi-functional seldom does a great job of any of its assigned tasks. The DrsC learned this with our first RV. It was a 21 ft. mini-motorhome, on a Dodge van chassis. It had multi functionality run wild.

The sofa unfolded to become the uncomfortable bed. A dining table folded up from alongside so we ate sitting on the sofa. 

The toilet, shower and basin all occupied the same tiny phone booth space. The toilet folded up which made it only marginally functional. Actually the shower was okay, if you remembered to remove the toilet paper and towels first. 

We put up with the inconvenience because we loved traveling. However our subsequent RVs had separate places for bed, dining, sitting, and the real toilet and basin were not in the shower.

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The lesson we learned ... multi functionality means compromises, not doing anything particularly well. It's tolerable if you are traveling and having fun, insane if you are trying to win battles against a determined adversary or survive a stormy sea. The US Navy needs a new paradigm.

To see this problem from the other side, consult a comparison of US and German tanks in World War II. One on one, the German panzers were better tanks but too time consuming and expensive to build. We built so-so Shermans in the thousands and won the war. 

Now, with ships, we're following the German model and the Chinese are following our former model. Do we believe it will turn out differently this time?

Another Nothingburger

A week ago Democrats had momentum; they'd won three off-year elections in blue states in November and believed they were "on a roll." What a difference a week makes, to borrow a lyric line from Dinah Washington.

Today a leftist Democrat - Aftyn Behn - was running in a special election to represent Nashville. She sought to replace a Republican who resigned his House seat to start a company. She lost to Trump-backed Republican, Matt Van Epps. 

Tennessee is of course a red state, as the legacy media will hasten to inform you. Funny how they failed to mention VA, NY and NJ were blue states, isn't it? 

The legacy media will tell you Van Epps was supposed to win in TN, and did - no biggie. The Ds who won in VA, NJ, and NYC were supposed to win, and also did. But to hear the media tell it, that set of wins was a big deal. Bias much?

Stupidly, the legacy media believe we imagined MAGA mouth-breathers won't notice the spin. How self-indulgent is it to choose to forego half the electorate as readers? Very, it's their funeral at which we won't be mourners.

Bottom line ... when the people who should win actually do win, nothing has changed, no great insights can be drawn. In each case the constituencies voted the same way they did in 2024. That in itself is a portent, of sorts.

Negligent

I have no inside information but … some believe it possible, perhaps even probable, that Dr. Fauci was complicit in ordering and providing government funding for the Wuhan gain-of-function research that produced Covid-19.

If his involvement could be proven, he might then be guilty - morally if not legally - of causing the many thousands of deaths attributed to the virus. Call it what … wholesale negligent manslaughter?

Humidifier Update

A quick follow-up note. You'll remember we were getting excessive dust on our furniture while using a "cool mist" humidifier? That problem is gone.

The new evaporative humidifier has solved the problem while using regular, hard tap water. In design it is basically a small "swamp cooler." The water evaporates and leaves the mineral content behind inside the machine.

If I remember, I'll do another follow-up when we clean the machine for the first time. It is, by the way, a chore which I am not anticipating with pleasure.

Update

At midnight eleven twelfths of 2025 will be in the history books. We then will be three weeks from the winter solstice and the technical beginning of winter. Just imagine, in another month we'll be a quarter of the way through another century ... the mind boggles.

Here in the high desert, on the eastern rim of the Mojave, this is our nicest time of year - requiring no air conditioning. Shirtsleeve weather at midday, a light jacket in early mornings and evenings. 

I have labeled our winter home-away-from-home "the Palm Springs of the Rockies." At this far eastern edge of the Pacific Time Zone our days end very early. Five p.m. looks like midnight.

We turned on our outdoor Xmas lights last night, our Thanksgiving visitor has headed home, and another half-day drop-in shows up tomorrow. Friends and relatives come to Las Vegas and we become a side trip from there, which we enjoy.

The webcam shows our WY area finally has snow on the ground, it should persist for the next four plus months. We are happy to be here instead.

Have a Happy Holidays season.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Friday Snark, a Day Late

Images courtesy of Politico's 

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

A Least Bad Choice

Seventy plus years of Communism and the almost forty years since have largely extinguished the Russian public’s optimism about its influence on public policy. Thus I have been persistent in my pessimistic view of the chances of peace in Ukraine.

Relatively few voices in the media have shared my pessimism. Today comes a column for Vox, echoed by msn.com, which says a lot of what I’ve been thinking and writing.

Misled by his deceptively easy successes in Georgia and the Crimea, Putin painted himself into a corner in Ukraine. Now his least bad choice is making the reconquest of Ukraine the hill which he must defend to the death, regardless of cost to the nation.

I’d like to be wrong about Putin’s obsession and Trump’s efforts to achieve peace for Ukraine. That liking is part of what fuels my pessimism.

Our First, Failed Socialist Experiment

Each year at Thanksgiving Power Line reprints an evergreen column written in 2009 for PL by history prof Paul A. Rahe. He relates the Plymouth Colony’s failed experiment with communal ownership aka socialism, and subsequent success with private property, quoting freely from the writings of William Bradford, Governor of the Colony.

As we celebrate our national harvest festival by emulating their feast, we need to remember this part of our history. Socialism didn’t work then, nor has it since. 

When … Not If

September 11, 2001, October 7, 2023, the National Guard shooting in DC, the San Bernardino and Bataclan massacres and so many more. You have to wonder when supposed Islamophobia becomes redefined as patriotic prudence? 

With his condemnations of Somali corruption, CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, it seems President Trump begins to sanction the threat posed.

Later … See the following quote from Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL):

We must IMMEDIATELY BAN all ISLAM immigrants and DEPORT every single Islamist who is living among us just waiting to attack.

That didn’t take long. I am reminded of an Ian Fleming Goldfinger quote.

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

As noted above, we are far beyond the third time. 

Why Turkey?

MSN.com echoes a Vox.com column about how the turkey got selected as the entree for the Thanksgiving feast. Spoiler alert. It did not start with the Pilgrim colony in MA, they probably ate venison.

Out of my family history, I’ll add something the article doesn’t mention. During World War II the US had meat rationing for civilians. Big roasts and hams were basically unavailable, unless you knew someone in the butchery business. 

Curiously, turkeys were not rationed; something of which one of my uncles took full advantage. He and his wife raised and slaughtered hundreds of turkeys annually in rural SoCal, with the aid of a cluster of neighborhood women who earned money for Christmas shopping by ‘dressing’ the birds for cooking. 

Uncle sold the turkeys from a store at their farm throughout the Thanksgiving - Christmas - New Years - Easter season during and briefly after the war. When the production of beef and pork caught up with demand, the market for turkey contracted to basically Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I conclude that among the factors making turkey the entree of choice for Thanksgiving, rationing during WW II must be included.

Thanksgiving

Have a happy Thanksgiving Day, as we pause to savor the good things in our lives. I feel very fortunate, I hope you are able to say the same.

Review: The American Revolution on PBS

The new Ken Burns opus for PBS is The American Revolution in six installments. I watched (most of) it and was pleasantly surprised at how little heavy-duty woke was on display. The first 15-20 minutes of the first episode and the last 15-20 minutes of the last episode were preachy and woke, in between it was remarkably free of woke considering it is on PBS.

I viewed "most of" it because I fell asleep a couple of times. That isn't a criticism, I'm old and Burns style, while elegant, is ponderous. 

The other DrC felt it overemphasized the involvement of Native American tribes and enslaved black people. While accurate, I took that as a given on PBS and could mostly ignore it. 

If I have a complaint it is that, with the exception of Washington who was lionized, the other influential architects of our form of government - Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Adams - were downplayed. 

It is fair to say this program is the history of the fighting as both civil war and uprising against authority. Designing a form of government substantially without historic precedent happens 'off stage' and isn't a major focus.