Year-End Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's 

The Nation's Cartoonists Look Back on the Year that Was.

Happy Anniversary & Merry Christmas.

Tuesday marked the 19th anniversary of COTTonLINE. We dropped our first substantive post on December 23, 2006. 

I meant to recognize the anniversary on Tuesday but, as you know, things get busy at this time of year. Still, better late than never.

In those nineteen years we’ve posted in excess of sixteen thousand items. Just for fun I’ve looked back at some old posts and they seem to hold up reasonably well. All are still there for us to see.

I suppose you could call what I’ve done here my second career, that of an essayist. I’ve enjoyed the work, making the process indistinguishable from play. I hope you’ve found a few things to enjoy as well, they are my gift to you.

And I wish you a very Merry Christmas. I hope the joyous season finds you in good spirits, enjoying the company of kinfolk and friends.

Understanding Russia

I just finished reading the most sensible appraisal of what drives those who command Russia that I have seen. Written for Real Clear Defense, it argues Russia is best understood as an empire with top down leadership using compulsion to make it work. Its enduring drive is expansion, with everything else subordinate to that urge.

The author harks back to the analysis of George Keenan who held that the only way to deal with Russia is containment via military force. I find the reasoning displayed in this column persuasive, see what you think of it.

Vance Realistic About Ukraine

When interviewed for UnHerd recently, Vice President Vance sounded far from optimistic about a peace deal for Ukraine. Politico has the story. Here is the key Vance quote. 

We’re going to keep on trying to negotiate. And I think that we’ve made progress, but sitting here today, I wouldn’t say with confidence that we’re going to get to a peaceful resolution. I think there’s a good chance we will, I think there’s a good chance we won’t.

The VP sounds realistic, and his skepticism echoes what we've written here. When the war finally ends one or both of the leaders involved - Putin and Zelensky - may not live to tell the tale, and I bet they fear this.

Enemies Old and New

The Soviet Union was in many ways a theocracy, belief in communism being required and other faiths suppressed. And like many faiths it had missionaries all over the world, preaching the Marx/Lenin gospel. 

The US considered the USSR dangerous. The successor state Russia is smaller, not evangelical, and we consider it troublesome but do not fear it.

Today's China is supposedly communist but doesn't work very hard at selling its ideology outside its own boundaries. I suspect they believe non-Chinese are too dumb to understand their system's merits. 

However, China has a huge population and a rapidly expanding military. We now consider it dangerous and potentially fearsome.

The evangelical faith endangering us today is militant Islam. It wins some converts, feels free to kill those who won't, and scatters its adherents all over the world. Not precisely an existential societal threat, more of an infestation like fire ants or poison ivy, something to keep out of our society.

Later ... it seems Glenn Beaton of Aspen Beat fame has been thinking about this same set of issues. His treatment is more eloquent but his conclusions don't differ markedly from mine. He perhaps admires China more than I do, but his view of Islam seems right. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.

Welcome the Winter Solstice

Last night was the longest night of the year, in the northern hemisphere, 5 pm looked like midnight. The North Pole is leaning as far from the sun as it goes. In the Southern Hemisphere the foregoing is reversed. 

Here winter begins today; down south summer begins today. North of the equator we call today the Winter Solstice.

In our nation's great southwestern desert midday today was quite mild, comfortable in a long sleeved shirt. This is our normal winter weather.

Up home in WY there wasn't much snow on the ground when I looked earlier this afternoon. Western WY won't have a white Christmas this year, the high is predicted to be 42℉. That will be weirdly warm for our combination of altitude and latitude. 

VDH: Is Another Dark Age on Our Horizon?

Historian Victor Davis Hanson asks this question, for RealClearPolitics, “Can the dark ages return?”Spoiler alert, he concludes there is considerable evidence it could do just that. 

Hanson marshals the evidence that our Western civilization is exhibiting several of the same signs of decay the late Roman Empire had, before Europe sank into the 500 years of societal retrogression we call the Dark Ages.

I hope you join me in wishing that he is unduly alarmist in this view. Sadly, all our wishing won’t make it so.

Thinking of ArtificiaI Intelligence

Who knew Frank Herbert was a prophet? In his epic doorstop sci fi novel Dune, he relates history from the perspective of roughly 8 thousand years in mankind's future. In that time's far past (our near future), mankind rebelled against thinking machines, destroyed them and banned their manufacture more or less successfully. This war of extermination was called the Butlerian Jihad.

One online source has called what now comes the AI Apocalypse. The current movement to AI or artificial intelligence threatens to replace many current office workers, as well as most factory workers. Expecting no Luddite response is asking too much of people. 

And yet, needing acreage, huge hangar-like buildings and enough electricity to power a small city to replace what the human brain can do on 2500 calories a day, clean water, and a place to sleep isn't so very impressive. When you think about it, AI seems downright inefficient.

Just because we can build AI is not a necessary justification for why we should do so. However we may have no choice because our near-peer adversary China is doing so.

To the End of the Road

I have a fun article for you to read, it's from Motor Trend, link provided by Instapundit. The author took a 2025 Toyota Land Cruiser with roof rack tent on a roundtrip drive from the Los Angeles area to the end of the road at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. His wife joined him for roughly the last 60% of the drive. They tented much of the way with hotel rooms in a few places. It is a good read.

He drove really far each day and did the roundtrip in 18 days. He saw a lot of wildlife, fed more than a few large mosquitoes, and found the vehicle reliable and comfortable if something of a gas hog. 

In my heyday some decades ago I'd have taken 6 weeks to 2 months and driven fewer miles each day. I'd also choose ideally to do it in a one ton pickup with a camper, no tenting for me. 

When the other DrC and I drove the Alaskan Highway sometime in the early 1980s little was paved until you got to Alaska. the Dawson Highway wasn't open then and Fairbanks was as far north as we got. We did it in a small class C motorhome and it was an adventure for sure. To learn more about our RV adventures up north, search "Muncho Lake" on the website's Search feature.

Friday Snark 2.0

Images courtesy of Real Clear Politics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Friday Snark 1.0

Wisely, he doesn't drink.

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

The Common Denominator: Physics

Authorities are claiming 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente committed both the Brown University mass shooting and the murder of MIT physics prof Nuno Loureiro, 47.

Neves Valente was found dead by his own hand in a storage unit in Salem, New Hampshire. He was a citizen of Portugal who got legal permanent residency in the US in 2017.

Neves Valente appears to have known Louriero in Portugal when both were students there. He was a physics grad student at Brown some 20 years ago, on a student visa. So he was apparently familiar with both the Brown campus and with the murdered MIT physics prof.

His motive is unknown. I will spin a scenario which, if true, would give him a motive for both.

Imagine Neves Valente and Loureiro were bright, math-savvy students close enough equals in age and specialty to have known each other back home in Portugal. Later Neves Valente dropped out of physics grad school at Brown without getting a degree.

Loureiro obviously earned a PhD in Physics, a research position at world-famous MIT, and was considered one of the science's stars. Resenting and envying a former study partner's success when one has not achieved a desired career creates resentment.

Not "making it" in grad school creates resentment toward the school. Pehaps Neves Valente had become despondent and was considering suicide anyway. Getting revenge on two major sources of his anger and self-loathing before ending his life could be a way to feel his death meant something, to cause two sources of his resentment to also suffer.

I don't claim this is what happened, but as a scenario it offers a possible explanation for two seemingly unconnected acts. And it can make one wary about simmering anger and resentment in those left behind decades ago.

European Defense Questioned

Can Europe defend itself against a Russian threat? Are there any significant number of young men there who are willing to fight and die for "Europe?" Writing for The European Conservative, Javier Villamor believes the answer to those questions is "no."

He argues post World War II history shows, when things get ugly, European nations have tended to go their own individual ways. The EU project has been a way to "paper over" the differences by ignoring the will of the various peoples of the continent. It has not created a European patriotism or identity, which lack he believes is intentional.

He likens EU promises to spend money on defense to a sort of modern Maginot Line, and believes it will be as ineffective, in the absence of a "will to fight." Villamor's view in one sentence:

Dying for one’s country is one thing; dying for Brussels is quite another.

Bongino Out?

The New York Daily News reports FBI Deputy Director and former media personality Dan Bongino will be leaving that post soon to return to broadcasting. His acquaintances are not surprised, he's not been happy in the role.

The Darwin Principle

I’ve been thinking about the persistent attraction of socialism in the face of so many examples of it not working. It reminds me of the sort of ‘magical’ thinking in Peter Pan where Peter turns to the children in the audience and says something to the effect of  “if you believe in her, clap your hands and Tinker Bell will live.”

Socialism's supporters asks us to believe in the human selflessness required for it to work. Magical thinking is fine in a happy fantasy like Peter Pan. It is absolute crap as an organizing principle for economic life. 

Most of us aren’t selfless saints. If ‘sainthood’ were common, we wouldn’t prize it so highly but would take it as a given, as socialism implicitly does.

We are the descendants of thousands of generations of humans who selfishly took their personal and family survival seriously. Expect that, not sainthood, to be our default setting.

We harness and channel that selfishness with societal constraints - laws, rules, systems - to keep it from turning into banditry, and the result is capitalism, based on markets where people exchange value for value in swaps that benefit both parties. 

Taking us as we are, instead of as some would wish us to be, is why capitalism works and produces rising standards of living.

Europe’s Choice

The emergence of a new National Security Strategy reflecting a reduced US commitment to European affairs brings a pithy comment from foreign policy wonk George Friedman. Check it out.

We are now at the point where Europe as a whole must decide what it is to be. Inaction is certainly a decision. The Continent must recognize that being European is a meaningless phrase if Europe is merely the name of an inherently vulnerable and unstable geopolitical region. Or it can choose to be a great power itself.

History indicates that the most likely result is that Europe will continue as it is, becoming one of the most dangerous things a nation can be: rich but weak and vulnerable. This was the choice at the end of World War II, and it is the question Europe has refused to answer ever since. Now that U.S. interests have changed, Europe faces the crisis it has tried to evade for the past 80 years

Solving Our Problems

For PJ Media, Stephen Green writes about solving our societal problems. It is oversimplified but brilliant.

Everything really is going to hell. But only because the most capable, innovative, and powerful people in the history of the world chose to allow it.

We can choose differently. It requires just four steps, very broadly defined — and only three of them require actually doing anything.

Here they are:

• Institutionalize the crazies.
• Lock up the criminals.
• Blow up the terrorists.
• And leave the rest of us alone to enjoy our liberty and pursue our happiness.

Easier said than done, for sure. But as the outline of a plan, I like it a lot. 

Chile Voted

Chile has elected Jose Antonio Kast as President; virtually every legacy media outlet calls him far-right. He is more conservative than any president elected since the Pinochet era, favoring such things as toughness on crime, controlling immigration, and expelling illegal immigrants.

Both members of the "Southern Cone" now have conservative leaders. Argentina already has Javier Milei as their leader. As you might expect, we wish both of them well.

A Call for Action

Shootings at Bondi Beach in Australia, planned bombings in Los Angeles, attacks on Christmas markets in Germany, France cancelling their New Years Eve concert fearing violence, attacking a concert in Amsterdam, the twin towers, San Bernardino and so many more. All these things have something in common, what that might be is obvious.

The perps in all of these share one characteristic, one belief: that killing non-believers is pleasing to God. Connect the dots, see the pattern, spur our government to act to protect us from those acting out this Thuggish belief. 

After all, how many murderous examples do we need to get over our squeamishness? Our fear of being called "murder cult-phobic?"

Multiple Possible Explanations

With regard to the shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island, several have raised questions about how they could arrest someone as a “person of interest” and then release him. They detained a youngish man who had driven there from Wisconsin and had two handguns in his hotel room.

My guess is ballistics showed the bullets fired on campus didn’t come from his weapons. Or a trace of his cell phone whereabouts showed he wasn’t on campus during the shooting. Or even checking his alibi found he had a lawful reason to travel to RI. Any of those could signal “cut him loose.”

Detectives claim not to believe in coincidences, but if pressed will admit they occur.

Sunday Snark

Images courtesy of Real Clear Politics'

Cartoons of the Week.

Saturday Snark

Looks like the alien ship from the Cowboys and Aliens film.

Remembering the Great Recession of 2008.

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments Section.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Pictures.

Europe's Most Influential Person

In a column freshly out from behind their paywall, Politico founding editor-in-chief John Harris dubs President Trump as Europe's most influential person this year. He accurately adds that "The most important European policymaker for the first time in a decade is not a European and, increasingly, doesn’t even much like the place anymore."

You know Harris dislikes Trump but is relatively fair and accurate in describing the problems Trump has with current and recent past European leadership. Trump views most as "weak" and therefore not consequential or worthy of respect.

I tend to share the skeptical views Trump has of much of Europe's leadership, and of the EU in particular. In recent years both Paris and London have been real disappointments, dirty and overrun by third world migrants. Oslo and Brussels ditto.

Wednesday Snark

Replying in kind.

Image courtesy of Politico's Matt Wuerker.

Coincidence or Something Else?

File this story under the heading "Things we find puzzling." Ed Driscoll who posts at Instapundit has a map from the CDC Wonder website which shows births to foreign-born women in each state increasing or decreasing.

With current efforts to get those in country illegally to self-deport plus actual deportations, the overall national birth rate for foreign-born mothers is down 3%, and down somewhat in 41 states. In four states (NY, VA, NM, TX) it declined by 10% or more.

A few states experienced increases in such births, most of them in the far north - examples: AK, ND, ME, VT, NH, MA, plus WA and MT to a lesser extent. What is there about these northern tier states that attracts pregnant foreign-born women? 

Do Canadian women cross the border to give birth and, until the change becomes official, get their children US citizenship? I admit to being puzzled by this geographic clustering.

A Warp (with no Woof)

Humankind is never going to be a star-faring species using rockets, which may take us to the Moon and Mars. Interstellar distances are too great and human lives are too short. 

For an interstellar civilization to exist we needed faster-than-lightspeed (FTL) propulsion, or what science fiction has called “warp” drives. These imagined drives many scientific skeptics have labeled theoretically impossible.

It turns out there are more optimistic scientists working on warp drives, believing them possible. Here is an article describing some of that work. It won’t happen in my lifetime but perhaps in our grandchildren’s lifetimes? Hat tip to RealClearScience for the link.

Elon, are you listening? Seed money could help make the dream a reality.

Perhaps once we humans develop warp drives, other-than-human intelligences will send us an ambassador, as we will have gained the coin of admission to citizenship of the galaxy. I hypothesize that until we do so they will continue to observe and keep hands (or equivalent) off.

Tuesday Snark

Image courtesy of Instapundit.

Rethinking Ukraine

Trump’s new National Security Strategy document gives us insight into why he may be willing to pressure Ukraine to accede to Russian demands as the price for peace. Of particular note is its greatly increased emphasis on the Western hemisphere, meaning a reduced emphasis on Europe.

North, Central and South America is our “neighborhood,” where we intend to be the hegemon. In that same sense, Ukraine is very much Russia’s “neighbor,” the two nations share a long border.

Lord Ismay, the first Secretary General of NATO, said it exists to “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” NATO began as an anti-Russian alliance. Putin has been clear he viewed talk of Ukraine joining NATO as a casus belli, reason enough to go to war.

To understand Putin’s thinking, imagine if Mexico talked of joining a Chinese-led military alliance having an overt anti-US mission. I think it likely a US president might invade Mexico under those circumstances, don’t you? 

Putin’s action becomes at least understandable if not excusable, from the perspective of the leader of a nation invaded by both Napoleon and Hitler. You and I know there is zero chance of NATO invading Russia. That isn’t so easy to believe sitting in Moscow, remembering the rumble of German guns within earshot.

Paradoxically, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has stimulated two former neutrals (Sweden, Finland) to belatedly join NATO as well as the rearmament of key NATO nations, notably Germany and Poland. This makes them even more fearsome in Putin's eyes. I don't think Putin has gained much peace of mind.

Our Stranger Things Experience

The first half of the final season of Stranger Things dropped several days ago. The DrsC watched this tranche in semi-binge fashion. My conclusion at the midpoint of this final season - I hope it gets better because so far it is a let-down.

Let me summarize our viewing history. We made an abortive start on the series shortly after the first season dropped. A friend who liked it recommended it to us, and we viewed 2-3 episodes and said "nope." 

Over a year later we went back, started at the beginning, and this time it mostly worked for us. Honestly, it has been uneven, some parts really good, other parts not so much. 

Perhaps we're having trouble getting back into the show's peculiar vibe, but this last set of episodes feels like "we need to make some more ST for the money it brings in, but we've moved on professionally and our heart isn't in the work." 

The DrsC will see the remaining episodes when they come out at Christmas time. However, I can't say we're excited about the prospect. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

When Did We Peak?

There is a literate dude who posts on X as Cynical Publius and is said to be a retired Army colonel. Normally he writes with style and asperity about weighty matters. Today he tackles quite another issue, namely whether the 1980s and 90s were America at its apex. Spoiler alert, he and his wife conclude those years were exactly that.

I don't necessarily agree but I do believe he makes a good argument. He cities a lot of cultural and political evidence in support of that conclusion. For those old enough to clearly remember the period, you may find his column length trip down memory lane evokes a cloud of nostalgia. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.

Remembering Pearl Harbor

Eighty-four years ago, on a Sunday like today, naval aircraft of the Empire of Japan attacked the US Pacific fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. They sank several major ships, bombed the airfield, killing and wounding thousands. Then-President Roosevelt memorably described it as "a day that will live in infamy."

It was brilliant tactics, but catastrophically bad strategy. Japan won the battle but lost both the war and their empire. Their surrender was unconditional.

We need to not let this sort of sneak attack happen to us again.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.