An Organizational Immune Response

I just read a very interesting meditation on the sequential organizational response to someone pointing out an error in the organization’s work. Other than being a bit repetitious, it is excellent. 

Perhaps without intentionally doing so, it describes why over time organizations ossify and die. And why the people who compulsively point out errors may be just a bit autistic, if often in a good way.

The author ends up asking organizations to stop being defensive and correct noted errors. This may be a forlorn hope. He is, of course, pointing out a set of errors in how organizations respond to error correction, in the service of maintaining stability-at-all-costs.

Economic Exodus ... Continues

Victoria Taft, who does the weekly West Coast, Messed Coast column for PJ Media, has some interesting CA data. She writes:

Since Gavin Newsom's radical reign as governor began in 2019, an assortment of high-tech, founding Silicon Valley companies, retail outlets, and other companies have fled due to his and his party's greed. They include:

• McKesson
• Chevron
• In-N-Out Burger
• Tesla
• Charles Schwabe
• Palantir
• Toyota
• X
• Hewlett-Packard Enterprise
• Realtor.com
• SpaceX

She left out Yamaha, headed to GA. Many of these are really big firms. Driving big employers out of state is economic suicide. And yet ... CA Democrats persist.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics'

Cartoons of the Week.

The SAVE Dilemma

Two days ago we wrote about the SAVE act which aims to prevent non-citizens from voting, citizens from voting multiple times using false identities, and vote fraud generally. As we noted, most Americans favor the act's provisions, yet it hasn't passed thru Congress and ended up on the President's desk.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who favors SAVE, has said he hasn't the votes to pass it, and has been widely criticized for his comment. Writing for Hot Air, Duane Patterson does a good job of explaining why Thune is correct, concerning the "talking filibuster" ploy.

To pass it would require dumping the Senate's long-standing rule requiring a supermajority (60 votes) to shut off a filibuster. This the Republican majority could do with a simple 50+1 majority.

So why do quite a few senators refuse to take that step? Senators tend to be long-serving. Senators who are reelected even once serve during at least 3 presidential terms. They know it is likely they'll end up in the minority at some point and that the 60 vote rule is all that keeps a 'trifecta' administration* from going crazy and destroying the country, doing stuff like nationalizing all private property, or conversely banning abortions nationwide.

It seems Democrat senators are willing to act against majority opinion in this case because they know the issue isn't topmost in their voters' minds.

*My term for when one party has majorities in both houses of Congress and has the presidency.

Afterthought ... I'm certain it has occurred to many senators that one of the primary roles of the Senate is to keep US enacted policy in the middle of the ideological spectrum. To damp down extreme impulses that may temporarily electrify the populace.

The HOA Model

Richard Fernandez writes a column for PJ Media and blogs as wrechardthecat. Today he has an insight about Trump’s approach to foreign policy that I find useful and worth sharing with you.

Instead of invading hostile states with large ground forces, it has used a discontinuous series of actions to continuously nudge states in a preferred direction, rather like a tugboat pushing a ship rather than boarding it and seizing the helm. 

To use a construction industry metaphor, the Trump approach to regime change more closely resembles renovating and remodeling an old building rather than demolishing it and replacing it with a new structure.

We see this in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran. We’ve tried nation-building and, since the World War II after-action clean-up ended, we haven’t been good at it. Trying something else makes perfect sense. 

Think of the new approach as “post-Pottery Barn,” we don’t quite break it, and don’t end up owning it. It more nearly resembles the action of a muscular HOA, coercing a misbehaving homeowner to stop being a neighborhood nuisance.

Consequential

Writing for the Brussels Signal, Canadian essayist Conrad Black notes that Trump has been taking down the few allies Russia and China have attracted. He concludes:

No one should underestimate the psychological and strategic importance of the disappearance as Russo-Chinese allies in the first half of this year of Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, on the heels of Syria. This is a seismic shift that has gone largely unnoticed and is not over.

Unnoticed only in the West, I might add. Be certain it has not escaped the attention of both Moscow and Beijing. Trump is altering the worldwide balance of power.

A man in a hurry, Trump bids fair to become the most consequential president since Ronald Reagan, perhaps even since Lyndon Johnson. Like Trump, both of those were also widely hated.

Defying the Popular Will

COTTonLINE readers obviously follow politics so you know polling shows the SAVE act now stuck in Congress has wide public support. Most Republicans, over two-thirds of Independents, and half of Democrats - something like two-thirds of all voters - favor requiring ID to vote and limiting voting to US citizens.

And yet Senate Democrats are refusing to vote for something everyone admits is widely popular. If you needed proof that our government is not always responsive to voter demands, you have it here. 

That refusal is rich fodder for conspiracy theorists, playing right into their hands. It is the Deep State in action, forced out from behind the bureaucratic 'curtain' behind which it normally operates.

What actually fuels the Democrats' stonewalling of SAVE is the "soft bigotry of low expectations" in action. They distrust the motivation of a large percentage of their voters. 

They fear many of their voters will be dissuaded by the minor effort of showing citizenship to register, making voting too much hassle to bother with. Actually their fears are probably baseless as their typical voter is no longer Joe Sixpack, more likely to be someone with blue hair and a B.A. in Non-binary Studies.

MAGA Not Split

Is the MAGA movement split over the attack on Iran? Power Line's John Hinderaker examines the evidence and concludes it is not. 

Recent polling shows strong unified support for our actions in Iran. Hinderaker has the polling numbers for you. 

I believe the opinion you read claiming such a split is wishful thinking on the part of left-leaning journalists and op-ed writers. These cite the viewers of Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens as their evidence. 

Those two are outliers on the right in much the same way that Sen. John Fetterman is an outlier on the left. I bet Fetterman has followers who are MAGA but who like that he agrees with their program. Who's to say Carlson and Owens don't have a bunch of lefties who follow them for the same reasons?

Polling Hinderaker cites implies strongly the "crossover followers" hypothesis could be true.

Philosopher as King and Teacher

The Washington Free Beacon posts a remembrance of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It takes the form of a review of his Meditations, this edition newly translated by Aaron Poochigian (2026). 

For a book written nearly two millennia ago, Meditations is still in print in several different translations. Other than the Bible and Koran, there are few books with such staying power.

Marcus Aurelius is remembered as a successful philosopher king. If this review describes his philosophy accurately, it feels somewhat like my own. A coincidence, I admit. 

The review is good, without being heavy or overlong. It tempts me to go read his Meditations, at this very late stage in my long, interesting, and mostly successful life. 

Saturday Snark

In WY we call that a "headwall."

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Retraction

With regard to the claim made in the previous post about Esmail Qaani, it should be disregarded. I cannot find any corroborating source online. The source I cited - Power Line - has posted the following retraction-of-sorts.

UPDATE: Too stunning to be true, apparently. It now looks like this was a false rumor that existed only on Twitter. Sorry.

File under “too good to be true.” Rumors apparently started because Qaani was nearly the only top regime official to survive the initial bombing. 

Given the Mossad’s fearsome reputation and a Persian culture prone to conspiratorial thought, regime members suspected Qaani had prior knowledge of the attack that he obviously did not share. His actual current status is unknown, and subject to rumors.

The GOAT Mole [updated]

Wow! Amazing! It is reported that the top general of Iran's Quds Force* Esmail Qaani was a Mossad spy from the get-go. He was recently reported shot by the regime but is now said to be safe in Israel. 

I have long suspected that there are deep cover Mossad moles living in all of the Middle East countries, practicing Islam, married to locals with wives and children who believe their husband or father to be a devout Muslim. Some may even do the hajj or volunteer at the mosque. 

Israel routinely pulls off stunts like the pager bombs that require knowledge known to only a few insiders. They have to have people inside the deeply ideological circles of power - governments, the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, ISIS, etc. 

More evidence, if needed, that the Mossad is the world's top intelligence agency.

*Per Wikipedia,

The Quds Force is one of five branches of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It specializes in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations.

Update: See Retraction above, which applies only to the title and first paragraph of this post. I stand by the balance, which reflects my view of Israeli intelligence.

Why China ♡ EVs

As the main geopolitical competitor of the United States, China appears in our news with some frequency. We learn China domestically produces and burns a lot of coal. It produces almost no petroleum, but imports and consumes quite a lot. 

Current fighting in Iran compromises China's supply of imported oil, as much oil is shipped through the narrow Strait of Hormuz* which flows alongside Iran's western border. Ships passing through are within easy range of artillery or rocket fire, and the somewhat shallow waters also can be mined.

Separately, you'll also read that China is the world's leading producer of electric vehicles. I ask you to consider these two apparently separate factors are in fact quite related. 

EVs are less practical than ICE vehicles but they do work for short haul transport. For longer trips China has electric rail, also coal-powered. China generates most of its electricity by burning coal. 

If China can power much of its vehicle fleet using domestically mined coal instead of imported oil, they become less dependent on others. Autarky is attractive to China's leaders.

*As our cruise ship passed through en route to Dubai some years ago, I could clearly see both shores - each 6-10 miles away - the eastern shore being Iran. 

Friday Snark

 

Image courtesy of Power Line.com

Images courtesy of Politico's

The Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

The Need: Cheap Anti-Drone Defense

We are hearing a lot about the Shahed 136, a cheap drone designed by Iran and copied by Russia (and recently the US) that is causing a lot of damage. It is basically a small unmanned plane that carries an explosive charge and makes oneway trips to the target where it crashes, kamikaze style. 

Some models have a significant range, as much as 1200 miles. Cost estimates of the Shahed 136 range from $20k to $50k. By comparison cruise missiles and ballistic missiles start around $1 million each. 

Shahed flies low and slow and should be easy to hit, except the ground-to-air missiles which can hit it cost much more than it does. The idea is to fire many drones at once, so a few will get through to the target and knocking down the rest will cost your enemy millions he may not have.

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I think the ideal weapon to knock down this sort of drone is a modern day version of a World War II fighter with machine guns, whose ammo is truly cheap by comparison. Such a fighter cannot survive in 21st century contested airspace but shooting down drones mostly happens over one's own territory where high tech enemies aren't so prevalent and enemy AA fire non-existent.

Directed by ground-based radar, drones like the Shahed should be easy targets for quick, gun-slinging prop planes or maybe the A-10. These can loiter awaiting the arrival of drones, and pounce on them, no dog-fighting required. 

RAF fighter pilots had some success shooting down V-1 flying bombs in the latter stages of World War II. They were a similar target but faster. The V-1 was the world's first mass-produced jet powered aircraft.

Kurds and Way

A very interesting column in Asia Times concerning the potential role of Kurdish forces based in Iraq on the future of Iran. Recent reports suggest some Kurdish fighters have infiltrated across the shared border with Iran in hopes of supporting their ethnic cousins in Iran against what remains of the regime there.

The column suggest an entire cascade of potential outcomes resulting from a significant Kurdish involvement. It could trigger a major Turkish ground offensive and possible moves by the Saudis and the Pakistanis.

At least one outcome could be the balkanization of Iran into ethnic enclaves, either freestanding or attached to neighbors.

N.B., A web search finds the following about Iran's population.

Iran's ethnic composition includes Persians (approximately 61%), Azerbaijanis (16%), Kurds (10%), Lurs (6%), and smaller groups such as Arabs, Baloch, and Turkmen, each making up about 2% of the population.

Sources cited include the World Atlas and the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Please excuse my pun in the title, apologies to little Ms. Muffet.

Thursday Snark

Image courtesy of today's Lucianne.com.

Doing Fine

You can read that President Trump’s approval ratings aren’t very good. When you read that, you should ask yourself, "Compared to what?"

Here is the actual polling data for the most recent three presidents who had a second term, all done on March 5 of the second year of their second term.

🔴Trump: 43.3%
🔵Obama: 42.5%
🔴Bush: 38.7%

Looks to me like Trump is doing better than either of his two predecessors who had a second term, certainly not worse. 

A Good News Poll

Power Line has posted the tabular findings of a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll. Many of them are very positive for the GOP. The print is too small to post them here. 

The poll finds widespread popularity of immigration control and illegal alien deportation. These are things people want from their government and should be good campaign issues for this autumn's midterm election.

Update

There is a webcam near our home in Wyoming that I check while we’re wintering in Nevada, and before that, in CA. It is normal to see the ground covered in snow from November to April.

This has not been a normal year for western WY. We’ve had snow but as much as half the time the ground has been bare, it is so now. Snow falls but no snow pack builds up, and it melts. 

Temperatures have been plenty cold enough but no serious snow. I fear we may have water shortages come late spring to early fall when we’re in residence. 

We’ve had dry summers before, I remember times twenty years ago when we weren’t supposed to water our landscaping, I hope this won’t be another of those.

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Meanwhile spring has come nearly a month early to the Mojave, which is typical. Monday in St. George UT we saw fruit trees in full bloom. The desert has taken on a faint green sheen, which lasts for maybe a month or two. Current weather approximates that in WY in June.

Our Mojave isn't a "cactus" desert, it is bare ground with low chaparral (waist high) and occasional Joshua trees. Both turn a bit green as this is their quite short growing season. By the first of May they'll be hunkered down to survive a ten month drought and withering heat up to 120℉ (49℃). The Mojave is said to be North America's driest desert.

Cactus and palm trees thrive here but they are imports, mesquite is local but not widespread, except where included in landscaping. Native plant life is relatively uninspiring, dreary even, hard to love. 

Cactus - saguaro, barrel, cholla, ocotillo, prickly pear - are native to the Sonoran desert around Tucson, and are imported landscaping hereabouts.