Now this is funny

Apparently now exercise in an exercise in "white supremacy".   I guess somebody had better warn all those wonderful black athletes out there about this.  With this logic, Jesse Owens wasn't a hero who destroyed Adolf Hitler's attempts to portray Germans as a "master race", but rather someone working to further enshrine Jim Crow.  I'm guessing this would have come as something of a surprise to him, to put it mildly.

Really, one has to wonder whether progressives really believe the things they say, or whether they're really Klansmen in disguise trying to get black people killed by worsening an already horrific rate of cardiac disease and diabetes.  The more I see out of these guys, the more that second hypothesis makes sense.

File under "collusion"

Apparently officials at the Centers for Disease Control removed statistics on defensive firearm use from public view after pressure from the Brady Campaign/Handgun Control/Violence Policy Center.   But don't worry, public officials aren't in the pocket of leftist interest groups, except they are, just like with the Twitter censorship files.

In related news, Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg did the nation a favor by going on maternity leave (again) during tense negotiations for rail union contracts.  Ordinarily, I'd be in favor of him, say, actually being on the job during a tense time like this, but given the condition of the streets of South Bend, maybe it's better he was sipping port instead.

Interesting bit of smuggling

Five Russian nationals (and two emigres) have been charged with arms smuggling into Russia, including about 375 pounds (thousands of rounds) of  what appears to be .338 lapua and 6.5mm Creedmoor sniper ammunition.   Now granted, these are two of the best long range rounds out there, but it's also worth noting that Creedmoor and Lapua ballistics are actually fairly comparable to that of the 30.06, a round which Russia has had access to for 80 years.  It's also worth noting that the Lapua was developed in the 1980s, and the Creedmoor in 2007.  There is really no rocket science to effective long range rounds, so it's telling that Russia desires to import this.

I don't know exactly what is going on here, but reports like this, as well as those suggesting that Russia was starting to use 40 year old artillery ammunition (have they never heard of "FIFO" in the Russian Army, use the old stuff first?), suggests that Russia has been dealing with some serious issues that are only now coming up.

Wouldn't like to be a Russian soldier in Ukraine, to put it mildly, with this kind of record.

Genius in administration

Secretary of Transportation Peter Buttigieg, tasked in part with nagging the rest of us to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to stop global warming, apparently is flying around in private jets.  As I've said more times than I care to count, I'll start taking global warming seriously when guys like Buttigieg do.  

Genius in legislation

Oregon's new gun control law apparently bans pretty much every weapon used by the police, and does not have an obvious exception for the police.   Oopsie.  Or maybe it's by intent to turn the whole state into a "Mad Max" kind of war zone?

No matter where you stand on guns and the Second Amendment,

...you've got to be scared at President Biden, who noted yesterday that he's trying to "limit the number of bullets in a cartridge."  Given that the number of bullets in a loaded cartridge is always 1, or possibly zero in the case of a "blank", the only thing that could be done by passing a law or regulation to "limit the number of bullets in a cartridge" would be to possibly ban shotgun shells, which are (along with other long guns like rifles) responsible for the fewest firearm murders, accidents, and suicides.

It's bad enough that our President does not apparently know what "shall not be infringed" means, but it's even worse that Biden doesn't even know basic terminology and facts about the debate.  If you want to reduce gun (and overdose) deaths, you stop allowing "big players" (including government) to bend markets to their whims, reduce barriers to effective mental health care, and finally you prosecute the "minor" gun crimes like straw purchases and illegal possession of a firearm.  

On the flip side, even if you completely banned assault weapons, and were completely effective and nobody substituted another weapon for an "assault weapon", you would save maybe a few hundred lives per year.  Let's go with what might work.

Brilliance in rhetoric

Putin's New Stalin's cook, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has "warned" the U.S. not to designate his "Wagner Group" as a terrorist organization because, apparently, organizations designated as terrorist organizations sometimes act like terrorist organizations.  Yes, I'm sure that it wasn't the desire to attack the U.S., but rather the shame at being called what they were and are, that inspired Al Qaida to attack the Twin Towers.

In related Stalinist news, Russian troops are being sent into battle with "stylish" uniforms (some designed by Raisa Gorbacheva, a.k.a. Mrs. Mikhail Gorbachev) and gear that is leading to.....Russian soldiers dying of hypothermia.  Writing as a guy who's camped at -20F while hunting (starting the day at about 0F), let's just say that it's not a good sign that Russian uniforms are not working when the nighttime mercury is getting to 20F in Kharkiv.  They have apparently taken lessons from the Wehrmacht instead of Tolstoy.  

(for reference, one of the blankets I used while camping at -20F was a Soviet surplus blanket....I'm guessing some of those poor guys would love to have that about right now)

Say what?

Navy spokesmen have admitted that none of the 18 midshipmen who asked for a religious exemption to the vaccine mandate received one, but that none of them are being denied a degree or a commission.  One has to wonder exactly what is meant by the requirement, then.  Perhaps they're just giving them horrible postings that are not desired?  Somehow I'm guessing that people are being "rather creative" in their public relations in Annapolis.

In other news, the U.S. is still in the World Cup, and Germany and Mexico are not.  Looks like the end times may be upon us.

A bit of help with moral clarity

Pro-Russian outlets have made a great deal of how Vatnika Putina tries to appear to be a "Christian traditionalist", but if one looks below the hood, one can get a much better idea of what's really going on.  You've got Soviet Russian tanks flying the old flag of the USSR, erection of statues of Lenin, establishment of "People's Republics" in Donbas, laws criminalizing free speech, and now, Putina is praising Fidel Castro, all while he's invading a sovereign nation that , if conquered, would expend the realm of Soviet Russian influence closer to the 1989 borders.

As Barack Obama infamously (and wrongly) claimed in his 2012 debate with Mitt Romney, the 1980s are calling, and they want their foreign policy back.  Except in this case, Putina really is a modern day Brezhnev, but with the huge advantage of neighbors that have, to a degree, forgotten the Cold War.

Thinking of sportsball

It was a sad weekend, as my favorite team, Michigan State, (expectedly) lost to Penn State, and my second favorite team, the team playing Michigan, also lost.   But that noted, something caught my eye.  Michigan players decided to "plant the flag" in the Buckeye, and  former Ohio State players were not exactly pleased.

Now as a former cross country runner, I'm not 100% up to speed on the sportsball politics of placing one's team's flag on the 50 yard line, but apparently it's obnoxious, and that brings to mind two other incidents involving the Michigan concussion-ball players; fights in the tunnel with opponents.

I'm not trying to excuse the Spartan players who tried to beat the snot out of some Wolverine opponents, mind you.  My thought is that at the end of a football game, physical superiority is pretty much decided, so trying to do this sort of thing is idiotic, and those who are convicted probably deserve what they get.  Players need to be reminded that you can quite literally throw away your future employability in five minutes or less.  Most of them are not going to the NFL, after all.

But that noted, this is the third such incident I've heard about this year, and I've got to wonder whether Harbaugh's team is going beyond the standard level of trash talking to get quite the reputation in the Big 10.  Maybe it's time for them to cool it before things really get out of hand.

And, of course, Go Boilermakers!  

Why I am a fundamentalist

Evangelicalism and fundamentalism have their problems, yes, but we at least are not (yet) envisioning the spear wound in Jesus' side as a vagina.  Nor are we arguing that Renaissance art constitutes Biblical exegesis.

Pro tip for those still in Episcopal/Church of England churches; if your vicar is open to preaching this kind of nonsense, what you do is to walk right out the door and walk down the street to a good, Bible-preaching evangelical church.  They do exist in England.

A hideous picture of a fashion house

Apparently the fashion house Balenciaga, not content to clothe its models in what can only charitably be described as overpriced hobo gear, has proceeded to promote its children's line with teddy bears in bondage attire.

They've apologized, but at a certain level, the thing that comes to mind is that this kind of thing, not to mention the clunky shoes and ill-fitting skirts, pants, and coats that are currently in Balenciaga's line, seems to indicate that the house just really doesn't like any of their customers.  There is little there that actually looks good on any of the models, and the general trend of the house is to ignore things like the "waist" of the wearer.

It's a pattern that seems to pervade houte couture--between the "heroin chic" look of too many models, the hideous ways that their attire does not seem to fit the wearer, and more, one has to wonder what needs to change before fashion actually works for the wearer.  

Note; this was planned

Given that it takes a few days for Russian armed forces to prepare missiles for launch, it's almost certain that they planned their "response" to yesterday's Ukrainian refusal to consider peace talks, a launch of about 100 missiles predominantly aimed at key military targets like apartment buildings, power generation, and at least one town in eastern Poland.  Here's a map:unless you've got a much better eye than I do, I don't see any plausibly military targets within 20 miles.  Given that "wounded birds" don't fly well, I'm guessing this is a problem with the guidance system, not that Ukrainian anti-aircraft missiles hit it.

Pro tip for Russia; if your missiles can't hit within 20 miles of the intended target, it's a war crime to launch them because it's indiscriminate attacks that will kill civilians, as tragically occurred today.  Time to send your generals to Den Haag for trial.  And their boss, of course.  Putina delenda est!

Update: it turns out that the missile was a S-300 fired by Ukraine to intercept incoming Russian drones and missiles.  But that noted, you don't blame the defender when his defense measures go awry; you blame the country that launched missiles at the defender.

Well, that's interesting....

Apparently in New Hampshire, a young transgender man who's got to be pushing 300lbs  has won a beauty pageant.  Even apart from the propriety of young men participating in beauty pageants for women, didn't beauty pageants used to be about....beauty?  Unless there is huge demand out there for what will soon resemble "drag" shows, I'm guessing this pageant is going to destroy its own clientele.

(side note; I am one who is not terribly impressed by the body types favored for most beauty pageants, and would agree that more realistic body types ought to be represented....but that said, more realistic body types for a woman ought to be respresented, ahem)

Brutal, brutal sanctions

The Daily Record claims that Russia is working to secure imports of a vital commodity--Scotch Whisky-- I would guess because domestic supplies of spirits cannot keep up.  That's wild, because even during the Soviet years, they generally managed to make enough vodka to keep the BWC (blood water content) of thirsty Russians down.

Wow

President Biden argues that electricity produced by solar and wind is much cheaper than that produced by burning coal (the opposite is true when subsidies are excluded), and moreover argues that anyone who can mine coal or even shovel it into a furnace (a job that more or less ended 80 years ago in most areas) has the ability to learn to code.

Writing as a guy who interacts with people who write code every day at work, let me simply say that if learning to code were as easy as Biden thinks, we wouldn't need nearly as many talented immigrants to do the work.  It certainly isn't something that everyone who can handle a shovel can do.

With thinking like that, I'm going to say it about President Biden: 25th Amendment.  He either is totally unashamed to tell blatant lies, or he's mentally incompetent.  The sad thing is that the next two people on the succession list, Vice President Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are probably worse.

So what are Russian casualties, really?

Warring nations almost always "fudge" some of the data, but in the Ukrainian war, the gap between official and Ukrainian numbers seems to be huge.  That noted, I'm starting to believe the Ukrainian numbers without much reservation.  For starters, they're not that far off from those produced by NATO, and going further, look at this article about a doctor who worked on Russian casualties before escaping to freedom.  More or less, soldiers were coming to his hospital in Belarus (there does not appear to have been a good set of field hospitals in the north of Ukraine) with wounds that had turned gangrenous.

In other words, wound care in the Russian army is errily reminiscent of the conditions found before Florence Nightingale cleaned things up....in the Crimean War nearly 170 years ago.  So I suspect that the Ukrainian numbers, while probably still a bit optimistic, might have more truth in them than any Russian mother would want to know.

Side note; Dutch open source investigators Oryx have apparently verified that about 7500 Russian heavy armored vehicles (tanks, armored personnel carriers, self-propelled artillery) have been destroyed or captured.  The Ukrainian numbers are similar, about 10,000.  

Long and short of it is that Russian losses in their war against Ukraine, when scaled for population, are approaching the impact of the Korean and Vietnam Wars on the U.S.....combined.  In terms of deaths and losses per month. they're approaching U.S. losses in World War Two.  And it's only going to get worse as more and more of their irreplaceable systems get used and destroyed.  Estimated Russian losses per day have risen from ~100-200/day to about 400-500/day.  

I can only pray that the angry grieving mothers and widows find the information that enables them to take out the FSB (the new KGB) for good when this is all done.

A good candidate for "de-nazification"

Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov argues that Ukrainian cities ought to be erased from the face of the earth.  Sounds like Kadyrov more or less wants Auschwitz without the trouble of actually setting up the death camps, so if Putin really wants to "de-Nazify" any area, maybe start with Kadyrov's dacha?  Just sayin'. 

Also praying that Putin retreats to his bunker with his Walther PPK and does some target practice on his dental work like his role model did.  Hopefully Kabaeva has the good sense to stay in Switzerland while he does this.

And it starts...

I've been noting for a while that it's only a matter of time before a "trans" person on a women's sports team got someone hurt, and people responded negatively, and now it's happened. A "trans woman" on the girls' volleyball team from one school spiked the ball so hard, another girl got a concussion.  

Thankfully the response is not what I've predicted yet--the trans person getting severely beaten or worse--but the school with the girl with the concussion is pulling out of competition with the school which allows "trans" participation.  When men have all kinds of advantages-height, skull thickness, bone density, strength, bone structure, etc.--it is simply wrong to subject girls' teams to male participation.  Next time, the response might not be so gentle.

Paging speechwriters in Moscow....

General Sergey Surovikin argues that Russia's goal is a friendly Ukraine that is independent of the west, and that the Russian method is to "protect each soldier and methodically grind the opposing army."

In other words, Russia will methodically kill and maim as many Ukrainians as possible, and somehow they think that the Ukrainians that survive that are going to love them for that, as well as for taking 20% 18% whatever they can get of Ukraine, including the main industrial heartland of the country.

Honestly, what color is the sun on these peoples' planet?  Are there no people who will tell them "This is not exactly what Dale Carnegie was recommending for making friends and influencing people!" ?  

Putin delenda est!

Update: Gen. Surovikin looks a LOT like King Kong Bundy!

Now this is scary

The case of the Russian SU-34 that crashed into an apartment building in Yeysk  should be troubling to Russia for many reasons.  For starters, you've got the possibility that Ukrainians took it out, or worse yet, it's an example of poor maintenance leading to disaster.

But if you look at the map, and contemplate the reality that a plane without power cannot steer, you come to an even scarier issue; the Russians may have been taking off towards the city with suspect maintenance.  Take a look at the map; you can see the SU-34s based there in the satellite view, and they should be taking off to the west.  The city is right in the flight path to the east, however, so it would be a remarkable "bank" for a stricken aircraft to take off properly and yet end up in Yeysk itself.

Whether it's partisans in the fields with Stingers, or just disregard for their hosts, the Russian Air Force has some huge issues here.

You know, they're right in a way

Austria is suing the EU because the EU, trying desperately to salvage their "green" agenda, has declared natural gas and nuclear power to be renewables. Now of course, there's a given amount of natural gas in the earth, a given amount of uranium in the earth, and once the economically recoverable reserves are gone, they're gone.  So in a way, the Austrians are right--the EU is playing games to salvage their so-called "green" agenda.  Apart from methane from garbage dumps and decay of things like agricultural wastes, natural gas isn't renewable, and neither is uranium.  You can increase the capabilities of the latter through breeder reactors and such, but and the end of the day, when it's lead, it's gone.

Now the obvious question, then, is whether, even apart from the question of whether natural gas and nuclear qualify as renewables, we can achieve a renewable economy in the near future.  In that light, we need to remember the sun goes down at dusk, and the wind generally dies down at that point as well.  So without large energy storage devices, "clean energy" is at an impasse--at least until we get breeder reactors to work without a risk of proliferation, fusion, and massive battery banks.

That noted, let's consider that hypothetical "green" future.  We would have, since the sun goes down at night, and since the wind dies down during the day, more or less two systems that, if they kept going 24-7, would theoretically be able to power the whole system.  Then, since neither system works at dawn or dusk, peak power usage times, you've got a third system--renewable or otherwise--that is fully capable of carrying peak load.

In other words, you are paying for three systems (all of which could be far more expensive than the one they've got now) that almost do the job of one, and that simply doesn't pass any ROI test--and accordingly, Germany's partial implementation of the same has resulted in far higher electric bills than they ought to have.

Really, what needs to happen is what I remember from a quarter century ago; manmade carbon dioxide emissions and methane use needs to be "scored" vs. natural emissions of carbon dioxide and methane with a sober eye--as in "if manmade emissions are only a small portion of natural, let's not sweat it so much".  There will come days, most likely, when we no longer have sufficient fossil fuels to supply our needs, and we'll need to have something else in store.  That day, however, is not tomorrow.

Let's walk this through

The usual hypothesis for the destruction of a portion of the bridge to Crimea is that Ukraine had something to do with it, but upon looking at the evidence, I'm not so sure.  For starters, a truck bomb being driven by those who wished to destroy things is not the general pattern of non-Islamic militants.  To continue, the truck was westbound and came from Russia, was in the right lane (the worst lane to cause damage to the bridges), and the damage was to the road rather than the vital rail line for the most part.  Moreover, the truck was far enough away from other vehicles that only three people were killed, and with little time to investigate, the Kremlin has announced they know who the suspects are.  

Going further, the "retaliatory" cruise missile strike launched 84 cruise missiles, many of them at residential areas and even embassies, but so far only ten people have been killed, and Ukraine reports that they learned of the attacks being planned on October 2 & 3.  Preparation for attacks would seem to give us some hint of why so few people were killed.

I can't absolutely prove it, but this looks like classic Kremlin misdirection and misinformation to justify a new series of war crimes.  If it were a Ukrainian act instead of a Russian, the truck would have been eastbound, would have been near a Russian troop transport when it detonated (if possible) , and would have been aimed to take out the rail line, too.

Evidence suggests that the FSB (KGB) did this and murdered three innocents in the process, followed by the murders of other innocents in the pre-planned cruise missile strikes.

So they didn't teach this at Russia's military academies?

This little bit from the Ukrainian Army details a bit of how the Ukrainian Army quickly forced a Russian retreat in Kharkiv Oblast.  More or less, it's the same kind of blitzkrieg that the Germans inflicted on the Russians at Tannenberg in 1914, and again on the Soviet Union in World War Two.  It's also about the same tactics that Russia's army used to plague Austria-Hungary in World War One.

Pretty ominous that the military academies of Russia don't appear to be teaching this.  Even more ominously, the new conscripts for Russia's army are being issued summer uniforms.  Haven't they ever read Tolstoy?

Snicker

The Russian Army is still using the foot wraps that Leo Tolstoy described being used...in Russia's war against Napoleon over two centuries ago.  Apparently the concept of "socks" has not yet been introduced there.  In other great news of modern technology, apparently Russian conscripts are being issued the 1891-designed Mosin-Nagant, apparently because they don't have enough Kalishnikov variants anymore.

Looks like if we want to help Ukraine, we're going to have to break out the strategic reserves of the 30-40 Krag, or perhaps (for the British) the .303 Enfield, and maybe some of the old steel bucket helmets from WW1.

New logo for Tesla?

....perhaps ought to be a foot stepping in a noxious pile of manure, as Elon Musk has apparently enraged many Ukrainians by suggesting that a good "peace plan" ought to include ceding territory to Russia because it's unlikely that Ukraine could defeat Russia in total war.

Well, yes, but as those who study history have noted, the smaller nation of "Germany" decidedly defeated Russia in WW1, the smaller nation of the "United States" defeated Great Britain in her war of independence, Scotland at times took it to England, Russia defeated a monstrously more powerful French army in the time of Napoleon, Israel defeated the Greeks in the Maccabean Wars, Ethiopia defeated Mussolini's Italy, Albania defeated Mussolini's Italy.....

I don't guess that he's reading this, but in case he is:  Elon, you're a great miner of government subsidies to make yourself one of the richest men on earth, and you've done well at providing Starlink to help the Ukrainian resistance to the Nazi-esque Putin regime, but maybe bone up on some history before you tweet on it?  

Here we go again

Another 1100 bodies, mostly civilians who had been tortured, have been found near tank emplacements in Izium, Ukraine.   If we want people to believe us when we say "Never again", we probably need to say it with a few A-10 Warthogs and some M1A1s, and definitely with those MIG-35s that Poland offered.  

Watch the attached video.  It's Katyn all over, except that the Russian army doesn't even have the excuse that their victims were combatants.

An interesting question

I grew up taking (as far as I know) the full vaccine schedule of the time, and also grew up with asthma--thankfully a mild to moderate severity.  Now doctors have found, apparently, a correlation between asthma and aluminium in vaccines.   The obvious question, given that I also grew up eating food that was cooked in aluminium pans, is that would be the effect of other sources of aluminium.  Other studies apparently do not find a correlation between other sources and asthma, so what we could have is a statistical anomaly or an interaction of aluminium and the immune system.

That noted, it strikes me that prior to mass vaccinations, polio killed 2000 annually and paralyzed 1600, and then you've got measles,mumps, rubella, diptheria, pertussis, and other diseases we no longer fear due to vaccination.  So even if aluminium is a fairly significant contributor to asthma, I think I'll take my chances with vaccines for now.

(side note; yes, I am very aware that one major reason infectious disease isn't as bad as before is that we no longer live in tenements and boarding houses, thank God.  But there's a good argument that vaccines have been pretty helpful, too)

Pro tip for Russia

If you're going to lie, at least make it a believeable lie.  No, no sane person believes that the "referenda" for inclusion into Russia got 97-98% support, especially when pre-war surveys showed no more than 20% support for political union with Russia in any district of Ukraine.  Certainly shelling people's homes, schools, hospitals, and churches didn't win 80% more support than was previously the case, and reputable sources note that voting is not by secret ballot, and is often in the presence of armed Russian soldiers.  Putinozhka delenda est!

In related news, in addition to the tens of thousands of Russian men who have fled to Georgia, Finland, Sweden, and other countries, 98 thousand Russians (apparently mostly young men of draftable age) have fled to Kazakhstan.  Let's just say that the Russian response to Putin's draft resembles the U.S. response to Vietnam era drafts a lot more than it resembles the response during WW1 and WW2, or even Korea.  Going way out on a limb (right by the trunk), it suggests that the claims of high support for Putin's war are "bovine scat."

Pro Tip for those Russian men unable to flee; "Lake Como, Italy."  

And in related news....

Vladimir Putinozhka has granted full Russian citizenship to Ed Snowden, and rumor has it that that to prevent Snowden from repeating his stunts and victimizing his new country, he's just been drafted and is on his way to fight in Ukraine.

Recycling an idiotic idea

Author Sophie Lewis is arguing that the family ought to be abolished because it's somehow a terrible way to enshrine love and care.  Lost in the equation is the question "Didn't we try this before in the Soviet Union?", and the answer to that is "Yes, and it led to widespread poverty, economic and moral stagnation, and the world's highest abortion rate to this day."

Apparently being a "feminist" means that you don't need to learn lessons from when your ideas are actually put into practice, under the notion that "well we must not have had the right people running things."  It's pretty amazing, given all the state run childcares in the old Soviet Union, China, and the rest of the Warsaw Pact, as well as many of those in the U.S. run along the same lines, that they've never, ever found the right people to run things.

So I guess the family is indeed the worst way to assure love and care, well, at least except for all the others.

Not from the Babylon Bee

I had the thought that, with Putinozhka's draft, some enterprising young man in Russia ought to translate part of Alice's Restaurant into Russian and see if some young men would walk into the  recruiting officer's office and sing a bar of Alice's Restaurant, then walk out.  As Arlo noted, if one person does it, they might think he's really sick sane, and they won't take him.  If two people do it, in harmony......

Putinozhka delenda est!

A plea for Logic 101...

....to be taught at the Air Force Academy.  How so?  Well, a new big of guidance tells cadets to avoid "gendered" language, even to the point of referring to "Mom" and "Dad".   Apparently someone desperately needs to tell administrators that referring to group A does not necessarily disparage group B, though if group B, the alphabet community, truly believes that referring to mothers and fathers as a biological reality disparages them, perhaps they need to be acquainted with some real disparagement.  It reminds me of the assurances we had with the decision that mandated same sex mirage that it would not impinge on the rights of the majority.  I dare say that perhaps we need to revisit that decision, because that obviously was not true, and advocates knew it at the time.

Along the same lines, the Michigan Department of Education is encouraging school employees to enable students to start transitioning without their parents consent or even notification.  Suffice it to say that this is first of all a great reason to choose private or home education, and secondarily, it ought to be noted that participants in the maiming of young people ought to fear "acute lead poisoning" at the hands of the parents.  

Now that's a neat trick

Looks like we might be seeing, thank God, the twilight of Soviet armaments, as one response to Putinnozhka's call-up of  reservists is met with "that's weapons they don't have."  So if NATO chief Stoltenberg is correct, that means that the country that flooded the entire developing world with AK-47s and RPG-7s is suddenly unable to provide the same to new conscripts.

The Ukrainian defence ministry notes that the last mobilization for Russia was in August 1914, and somehow a nation that today cannot provide rifles, uniforms, and body armor for its soldiers seems analogous to the last mobilization of the Tsars.  Again, hopefully someone gets to Putin before hundreds of thousands of Russians (and Ukrainians) are needlessly dead.

Putinnozhka delenda est.

Time for a hamburger or some BBQ

An executive for "Beyond Meat" was arrested after an Arkansas football game for biting another man's nose.  Now I want to be as nice as I can to vegetarians, but perhaps this is simply a sign that they really need a bit of real food to eat.  Get a burger, friend, and maybe some of this will be better.

More bad signs for Russia

They're apparently buying weapons from North Korea, where....let's just say quality is not the biggest deal.   

Worse yet, it's about 150,000 or so tons of material, meaning about 1500 train cars, so if Ukrainian partisans just might to have some operatives along the railroads of Russia, the opportunity for mayhem could be huge.  All you need to do is track cargo ships leaving North Korea for Vladivostok or St. Petersburg, then figure out what railroads are going to be used to get the weapons to Ukraine.  There aren't a whole lot of them going west from Vladivostok, or south towards Ukraine.

And if you could, say, get a nice incendiary round hitting one of the carriages right, difficulty getting ammunition to their army in Ukraine could be the least of Russia's problems.

An inadvertent confession

I've been noting for years that outside of major cities, abortion cannot pay the bills for those operating the clinics, because at ~$500 per abortion and ~500 abortions per abortionist, the revenue cannot possibly pay the bills for a whole clinic.  Enter the state of New Mexico, which is spending ten million dollars to create an abortion clinic in Dona Ana County, about 50 miles from El Paso.

Now I had previously noted that with the then-prevailing wage for obstetricians being about a quarter million dollars annually plus benefits (probably 30% higher today), you can really only justify an "abortion only" clinic when you get to cities of a million or more--assuming that abortion clinics are really pretty "lean" in their operation (not much for buildings or auxiliary staff) and the "doctor" gets a large share of the revenue.

However, with the Governor of New Mexico admitting that building the building and setting it up is going to require about ten times more money than I'd counted on, but the nearby city--El Paso--is really only about 900,000 people.  So Governor Grisham has informed the nation, inadvertently, that the economics of abortion are far, far worse than I would have guessed.  Thank you, Governor.

That which is unsaid

The USDA is apparently encouraging farmers to plant multiple crops to help deal with supply shortages created by the war in Ukraine, but a couple of options don't seem to be on the table; stop subsidizing grain and stop burning it in our fuel tanks.  

If grain were not subsidized, the price of corn would rise, and that would be a far bigger impact for those eating meat and dairy--and all of a sudden, more grain, legumes, and oilseeds would be available for humans to eat.

Leave it to the USDA to skip the obvious and insist on something that could have some pretty big environmental, fuel usage, and capital issues.

And the veil lifts

As I review comments from Russian politicians about the passing of former leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the consistent theme I see is that Gorbachev's role in the end of the Soviet Union is lamented.  This strikes me as strange, because anyone old enough to remember the old Soviet system ought to remember the pervasive surveillance, bread lines, shoddy and nonexistent consumer products, and the like.  

So what's going on?  Well, as far as I can tell, this is another admission by the Russian ruling classes that the KGB didn't go away at the end of the Cold War, and its heir, the FSB (or perhaps a shadow organization in parallel with the FSB) is actually calling the shots, as is evidenced by the Russian Army flying the old Soviet flag in its war in Ukraine, their raising of statues of Lenin there, and most recently as evidenced by the head of Lukoil, a Putin critic, falling to his death out from a sixth story hospital window.

Unless you believe that extremely sick elderly men tend to do this, your best assumption is that, yes, Putin ordered him to be defenestrated.  I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, and yes, I've seen this before.  Pray that Russia loses here, because if they don't, it'll be extremely bad news for freedom in the world.

Putin delenda est!

Some seriously good news for a change

Dr. Michelle Hauser, a Stanford University physician who trained first as a cook and worked at Berkeley's famous "Chez Panisse" restaurant,  is spearheading efforts to help use cuisine as a bulwark against heart disease.  Now since a lot of fine cuisine is, a la Julia Child, a lot of foie gras, butter, and eggs, it's somewhat counter-intuitive that fine cuisine would help with heart disease and the like, but what I've found as an avid amateur cook is that when I cook from Child's cookbooks, I lose weight.

How so?  Well, one explanation comes from the "Journal of the American Dietetic Association" magazines I'd peek at as a teenager back in the 1980s (my mother was a dietician and ADA , now AND, member), and one of the theories for weight loss back in the day was that a lot of overeaters were seeking not a certain amount of food, but a certain amount of taste.  And so the herbs, spices, vegetables, wine, and yes, butter and eggs have a big place in giving eaters that satisfaction, helping with obesity and, transitively, heart disease.

Heart disease?  Yes.  Beyond the reality of obesity's link, there's a fact that my mom taught me as a child; you don't need to worry about getting cholesterol in your diet, because your body will make it for you.  In the same way, your body also makes a fair amount of fat from excess carbohydrates in your diet.  

And so we would infer that to some degree, it matters less what kinds of fats and cholesterol you get in your diet, and more whether your diet is pushing your own body to fill your own arteries.  

Reading, writing, and....what??????

Apparently a book containing graphic depictions of oral sex, sex toys, and the like is seen as having "Literary value" and is "aligned with Common Core Standards."   I guess my generation owes Larry Flynt a big apology for not getting every school library a subscription to his magazines.

Or not.  I'm reminded of a friend I used to work with who commented that his church's youth group generally couldn't read well or do mathematics, but they knew that abortion was a right and that they might be gay.  Priorities, I guess, not including actual "education".

Along the same lines, our next door neighbor boy (7 years old) walked in while Mrs. Bubba was running through some things by Bach and just loved it.  There is hope if we don't forget where we've been.

Get your TP ready!

Regular readers of this site will know well that this author is a huge fan of the British royal family, writing consistently about their lives and adventures, and hence it is of great interest that  the crown prince and his family are moving to Adalaide Cottage, a more humble abode with not as many gilded dolphins on ceiling of the master bedrooms as usual.   What humility, as I realize the huge number (a perfectly round number) of gilded dolphins on the ceiling of the bedroom Mrs. Bubba and I share.  It makes me want to welcome them to their new neighborhood by an old fashioned TP party.

OK, yes, I'm guessing one would not be allowed to show such traditional hospitality to them, and more's the pity.

Dream until your dreams come true

The song by Aerosmith comes to mind as I consider Janet Yellen's dictate that the IRS will come up with a modernization plan within six months, as if the same agency hasn't had several abortive attempts at the same in the past few decades.  

You would figure an old DC hand would know better than to suggest this is possible, but apparently not.  And yes, if you're curious, the big boost in IRS funding terrifies me, too.  It's clearly intended for the middle class, with a hefty helping of "we're coming after conservatives" as well.  Remember, the decision with Lois Lerner ended up with the conclusion that the IRS's criminal activities were "mismanagement", but there were no management changes made.  So they're primed and ready for a repeat.

Looks appropriate to me

Well, with most long range artillery targeting civilian targets, and most Russian air attacks also attacking the same, and with the whole war predicated on the nonsense idea that a nation with a Jewish President somehow needed to be "de-Nazified", I've known since March that pretty much every commissioned officer in the Russian Army, Air Force, and Navy, along with their diplomatic service, belongs in jail.

So if all the higher-ups belong in jail, I guess it was only a matter of time before the privates, corporals, and sergeants were the same, and Russia has delivered by opening up enlistment in their army to convicted criminals.  My guess is that they'll be driving T-34s and will be issued Mosin-Nagants.  It's still to be determined whether they'll be given rations or ammunition.

Seriously, what it means it that public support for the war is paper thin, available soldiers are rapidly assuming wheat field temperature (over 42000 by Ukraine's estimate), and Moscow is pulling out all the stops to get willing soldiers cannon fodder to keep the war effort going.  At the same time, Ukraine is sending volunteers to be trained by NATO soldiers in Poland, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.  It does not bode well for Russia's war effort, especially given the generally horrendous performance of conscripts and criminals in battle.  Conscript batallions will form weak points that the Ukrainians will destroy, using the space they filled to pull a Hindenburg envelopment a la Tannenberg.

I know Russian jails are awful, but if I were a Russian criminal, I might just stay where I was.  Also: if I were a Russian citizen who knew that thousands of dangerous criminals might soon be on the streets because they'd survived half a year in Ukraine, I would consider emigration.  This is bad news on all fronts.

Shades of the late 1980s

An epidemiologist who noted, apparently correctly, that monkeypox is predominantly a disease of the homosexual community appears to have been reassigned to a different division.  Because if you're hoping to reduce a disease that is disfiguring to lethal, pointing out the current demographics is of course the very last thing you'll do.

If you're politically correct in Gotham, that is.  It is not clear whether the powers that be hate honest men more, or those likely to contract monkeypox.  I'm calling it a tie.

One other thing that comes to mind is that, as monkeypox leaves a pattern of lesions that resembles little so much as its related smallpox, it's unclear to me why anyone would decide to sleep with someone with signs of the disease. 

A bit of wisdom

For a while, I've been urging my family to take it easy on air conditioning because, quite frankly, the environmentalists are working hard to cut us off from abundant supplies of fossil fuels required to keep the A/C going.  Hence, we might do well to get used to a little wider range of temperatures than is today typical in various ways.

Ways I've recommended to my family include natural fiber clothing, learning to use fans well (75 watts for a fan is much better than the kW used for A/C), and conditioning ourselves through exposure to thermal extremes.  Today, The Art of Manliness presents us with a list of ways to recognize the signs of heat stroke, and to avoid them.  One interesting fact that I'd not previously known--odd because I grew up running cross country, track, and road races--is that a healthy marathoner can be as hot as 104F and still be OK.

And that's a key issue for us, really.  The recommendations linked indicate that being physically fit is a key part of this, and that's intuitive because (think whales and seals) fat is a great insulator.  Along with that, it's key to nourish ourselves well, especially with fluids, and then bit by bit get used to the higher temperatures.

This could go really badly

While it's been known for decades that the state-supported "Catholic" churches of Europe aren't terribly "Catholic" in practice, apparently "Catholic" authorities in Germany are contemplating rewriting Catholic doctrines to suit their preferences.  The Pope is, not surprisingly, not amused.

Really, Germans of all people ought to remember, ahem, how things went down the last time German government authorities tried to redefine their churches.  Do they really want to go there?  

Here in the U.S., we are so blessed to have a First Amendment that (at least for now) puts the kibosh on this sort of thing.

Russia's real aims

BS Artist Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is admitting that their real territorial aims go well beyond Donbas, and that their end goal is a Ukraine with, in effect, no weapons systems in range of Russian territory.  But on the flip side, as the Russian lines advance, Russia is arguing that they are assimilating Kherson and other territories into Russia.

Doesn't sound like there would be much to Ukraine when they get done, if they're allowed to.  Praying they won't be allowed to do it, as it would put not only Ukraine, but also Russia, under totalitarian rule for another generation.  Hopefully somebody gives Mr. Putin a case of "acute lead poisoning" before too many good men are dead.

Putin delenda est!

The end of Soviet era weaponry?

The Russian assault on Mykolaiv, Ukraine--ahem, predominantly on civilian targets--is apparently being done increasingly with S-300 antiaircraft missiles.   Having worked a bit with defence related contracting at two different jobs, suffice it to say that the guidance systems for antiaircraft missiles, which need to hit a moving target, are most likely far more complicated (and expensive) than ordinary surface to surface missiles.  

Implications; the Russian supply chain for relatively inexpensive surface to surface missiles is breaking down, so they're burning precious surface to air missiles instead.  Along with using ancient T-62s and such, this is not a good sign for Russia.  Putin delenda est!

Translation guide to green energy

This Fox News article about solar panels illustrates, inadvertently, something I've suspected for a long time; that when we're talking about green energy, one ought to double the estimated cost and halve the benefits, and then the numbers are a lot closer to reality.  How so?

Well,  the article states that in California, mass deployment of solar panels started in 2006, and that now, these solar panels are reaching the end of their 25 year lifecycle.  Now, of course, 2006 to the present is actually only 16 years, so we would infer that the actual useful lifespan of solar panels is not 25 years, but rather 16 years or less.  So if we divide the prospective benefits by two, we're a lot closer to reality.

In the same way, how do you dispose of a used solar panel?  Well, due to the toxic heavy metals like selenium and cadmium in solar panels, you need to handle them as hazardous waste.  Now yes, manufacturing solar panels is expensive, but so is creating a hazmat site with a clay underlayer to prevent leaching into the groundwater with containers that will prevent leaching.

In other words, double the costs, and you're just about there.  And how, precisely, it is better to make solar panels with coal fired power plants (no scrubbers to pull sulfur out of the exhaust there!) in China than to simply burn the coal here (with scrubbers and bag houses) to create electricity is not altogether clear to me.  And yet we are subsidizing one and penalizing the other.

Let's go back to Econ 101

While even the Austrian School of economics (lewrockwell.com, mises.org, fee.org) agrees that a primary driver of high prices is the Federal Reserve and loose monetary policies, I half wonder whether we ought to simply consider the basic supply and demand graph as indicative of how to solve the problem.  We have closed off oil drilling and pipelines, paid people not to work, and a whole bunch more, all while providing generous  subsidies to all those people who are not working.

Looks like we're suppressing supply and increasing demand, and then we're wondering why prices are rising.  Maybe it's time to change our approach.

Counting on the scientifically illiterate

Russia responds to Ukraine hitting one of their ammunition depots, creating a monstrous explosion, by claiming that what had actually been hit was a storehouse for saltpeter.

Problem:  saltpeter is not explosive.  Congratulations, again, to Russia for failing to run their propaganda past anyone who had passed basic chemistry to the point of being able to decipher, say, the CRC handbook and related materials.  

Update: if you look at the image of the ammunition dump getting hit, you will see any number of secondary explosions that occur as ammunition is blown up into the sky by the initial set of explosions.

They also appear to have a problem figuring out that, yes, when they've invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian defenders are indeed going to attack the very Ukrainian cities the Russian army has taken.  In other words, they believe that they can pull the wool over the world's eyes, and the front page of Pravda is increasingly looking like it did back in the 1980s--a pure mouthpiece for the ruling officials.

On the light side

Gwynneth Paltrow's Goop line apparently makes candles that not only smell like, well, remember that painting from Gustave Corbet, but also appear to be flammable in a way that, well, ordinary paraffin and beeswax are not.  As a result, a couple of customers are dealing with some fairly significant burns.

I would dare say it's one of the greatest moments in quality assurance by a company since Lululemon decided not to control the sources of the fabric used for their products, or since the Russian Army decided that routine maintenance wasn't that necessary for their trucks and armored vehicles.

Putin et Goop delenda est!

Looks grim for Russia

Now yes, the Russian terrorist force Army is making slow but steady progress in Donbas, but these comments from Vladimir Putin do not, despite their apparent bravado, bode well for Russia.  The reason here is that any officer worth his salt knows that the artillery is targeting mostly civilian targets, T-72s subjected to the "Jack in the Box" treatment by the Ukrainians are being replaced by T-62s (obsolete since the 1960s) with untrained crews, and the Russian Air Force Al Qaida is reduced to launching missile attacks (again, at civilian targets) from over the Caspian Sea, 500 miles from the border of Ukraine.

Any officer worth his salt knows the number of BTGs in the army, and that 70% of them went to Ukraine, and that there's no way in H*** that conscripts are going to replace the 30-40,000 soldiers who are dead, and tens of thousands of others who've been wounded or maimed.

And now the Russians are facing an enemy whose artillery has a far greater range than their own while they see a terrorist in chief making comments they know full well are BS.  As officers, at least those below the general staff rank, wake up to what Putin has done to them, there is going to be H*** to pay.

Putin delenda est!

Now this is interesting

Apparently urologists are seeing an uptick in inquiries about vasectomies in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision.   Well, it's not quite the result I'd like to see--people deciding that maybe promiscuous sex is a bad thing--it is at least a start to a touch of responsibility on some peoples' part.

On the pro-life side, it strikes me that our challenge in fighting abortion is twofold; first,  eliminate subsidies for the likes of Planned Parenthood on the grounds that it's simply wrong to tax pro-life people to support abortion clinics.  Second, keep emphasizing that promiscuity is the fast road not only to unwanted pregnancies, but also STDs, mental illness, and more.

We'll never win 100%, but we can come a lot closer than we are now.

Great moments on the Supreme Court

Apparently Supreme court Justice Elena Kagan has written in a dissent from the court's decision to strike down portions of the EPA's Clean Air Plan by claiming that it would cause portions of the East Coast to be swallowed by the ocean.  

Now of course, the  smart aleck in me says "and what's the problem with that?", the realist remembers "I've got friends in Florida", and then the scientist in me looks up the actual data and says "even the IPCC is only estimating 55cm or less (two feet or less) over the next century.

In other words, it would likely put a crimp in the style of those whose homes are on the seacoast (e.g. Barack Obama's homes in Martha's Vineyard and Hawaii), but for the rest of us, it's really no big deal.  So even with the well-known tendency of many to select law as a career beause they're not good at science, Kagan's showing her ignorance in a mighty way here.

Paging George Orwell

In an episode of "Newspeak" that would make George Orwell proud make George Orwell scream It was a warning, NOT a recommendation!!!!, Russian Deputy Chairman of the Security Council  Gauleiter und Propagandaminister Medvedev has "warned" Ukraine that attempts to retake Crimea would be seen as a declaration of war. 

Apparently all those tanks, soldiers, airplanes, and artillery pieces trying to pound Ukraine's residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, and shopping malls into rubble were just a mirage, or else I've got a great picture of Comrade Medvedev right here.

Yes, there's a country in the region that needs to be de-Nazified, and its capital is "Moscow."  Putin delenda est!

When is enough "enough"?

Russian (OK, TBD, but safe bet) airstrikes hit a shopping mall in Kremenchuk, a location with no military value over 100km from the nearest fighting on the ground.  If it is as represented, this is a clear war crime, and five will get you ten we know exactly what airfield those planes launched from, exactly what munitions they used, etc..

This in addition to incessant shelling of residential areas, hundreds (thousands?) of bodies found in the suburbs of Kyiv, and pending famine in developing countries due to Russia's blockade of Ukrainian ports.  When do we decide enough is enough?  

Yes, I realize Putin's got nukes, and we can't go in like we did in Iraq, but I'd at least hope that we could say "we're going to take steps to stop the biggest war crimes, starting with ensuring the freedom of shipping to Odessa, and continuing with treating flights over Belarus towards Kyiv as imminent terrorist attacks."

Happy Dance!

Roe v. Wade delenda est!

Now for Putin..... 

Snicker

Snicker, but groan.  Michigan Governor (and sigh, fellow Spartan) Gretchen Whitmer has, in response to the possible repeal of Roe v. Wade, promised to file a lawsuit on behalf of "menstruating people".  Now to be fair, she is correct that abortion rights are probably most relevant to women who are actually still having that time of the month, and she's probably got a decent estimate of the proportion of Michigan's ten million residents who are still having that time, but....what ever happened to simply saying "women"?

Ah, yes.  Got it.

Risk factors for domestic violence

A study out of Penn of domestic violence incidents in  Philadelphia finds that over 82% of domestic violence incidents are among people who are only "dating", versus about 18% for those who are, or have been, married.  Granting the caveat "this is just Philadelphia and they may be culturally different from other Americans", we would infer that the ~50% of single adults have 82% of the problem, while the 50% of married/divorced adults have only 18% of the problem.

Long and short of it is that the relative risk for domestic violence among the single appears to be, at least in Philly, about 18x higher than that for the married.  Just one city, and likely skewed towards the young, who are more likely to commit crimes.  That noted....wow.  It's pretty scary IMO.

Not just by ones and twos

Here's a study about the experiences of about 100 "de-transitioners".   The majority felt pushed into decisions that often left key parts of their bodies in biohazard bags.  Hoping many of them find good lawyers to get compensated for the harm that was done.

Now this is infuriating

The Seattle Police Department, with 1800 staffers, has just announced that they will no longer be devoting 12 investigators to adult sexual assaults.   The relevant question; how many officers are on traffic duty?  How much more important is it to them to issue speeding tickets than to put rapists in jail?

Just askin'.

Snicker

This Tweet is actually mostly about universities cheating  to meet Title IX gender equality requirements, but this part caught my eye (as a guy who was born a Buckeye, grew up a Hoosier, and became a Spartan by the Grace of God):

29 of Michigan's 43 women's basketball players were men

Yup, it fits.  Seriously, it boggles the mind that the "leaders and best" "Weenies of the West" thought they could get away with that one.  Their fan base is huge, their detractors even more numerous, and you'd have to assume that somebody would look this up and say "hey, wait a minute....."

And so they did.  Snicker.  

Some good news from Russia

Russian Soviet  foreign minister Lavrov has claimed that Vladimir Putin is not sick, which, of course,  means in "Russian-speak" that the man couldn't even be helped if he were being cared for by the Mayo Clinic.  I've personally seen footage of him with a wool blanket on his lap on May Day (it was in the sixties that day, hardly cold), and I've also seen footage of him hobbling a la Biden across the stage to greet Lukashenko of Belarus.  I perhaps exaggerate a bit, but a good guide to anything coming out of Russia's government these days is to assume that about the opposite is true.  

Really, as I look at what's going on in Ukraine, it seems to me that Ukraine's defence forces have largely solved the puzzle of how to deal with Russian infantry and tanks, but Russia is gaining slowly as they bring artillery to bear, predominantly on civilian targets, as they did in Syria and Chechnya.  More or less, this series of war crimes ( ICC investigations are at 15,000 and rising) is the rhetoric of an abusive ex-husband; "if I cannot have you, no one else will, either."  Praying that someone figures out how to seriously disrupt Russia's supply chain, to put it mildly.  

And in that light, especially reprehensible is the behavior of President Biden, who has repeatedly (MIG-29s from Poland, long range rocket systems, etc..) yanked hope away from Ukraine's defenders.  It is as if the State Department has no ability to work with NATO partners and announce weapons systems deliveries when they are actually available and approved.  Biden and his handlers seem to have no awareness of basic military strategy in this regard.

As always, Putin delenda est.

Mixed reviews

Apparently the Russian Army, having lost more T-72s, T-80s, and T-90s than it can afford to spare, is now deploying T-62 tanks, last built by Russia in 1975.    It's worth noting that what's going on here is that Russia is putting untrained crews into obsolete tanks, as you could bury what remains of most crews of destroyed T-72s in a thimble due to an incredibly stupid ammunition loader--a ring of high explosive and propellant around the edge of the turret.  The only nice thing to say about this design is that presumably death comes very, very quickly.

That noted, it appears that the Russians are, slowly but surely, advancing.  I'm guessing that if the free world figures out a way of dealing with Russian artillery in the way that they've learned how to deal with Russian tanks, there will be a huge humiliation going for the Russians.  And quite frankly, I think that it may be time for the western world to say, very slowly and coldly, We are losing patience with a Russian war effort whose targets are primarily civilian.

And of course, Putin delenda est.

On those protections

 One of the first F-M transsexuals argues that the protections against "wrongful transition" that he (?) enjoyed while transitioning are no longer in place.  Suffice it to say that I don't want to be the person who hears this:

Before you did this to me (my child), you should have made d*** sure that it was the right decision.  You knew d*** well that this kind of thing can not be reversed.

At some point, this is going to be in court--I don't know whether a civil or criminal case--and suffice it to say I'd be a most unsympathetic juror for people who screw things up like this.

A bit of truth salted with a lot of lie by Russia

The Russian Parliament is contemplating raising the maximum age for military enlistment past 40, ostensibly to "take advantage" of critical skills for maintaining high tech systems (that's the lie IMO), but probably more in reality because as of yesterday, estimated Russian personnel losses were closing in on 30,000 dead, and sane young men are no longer signing up to be cannon fodder in Ukraine.

(again, yes, I'm using Ukrainian estimates.  They're updated daily and seem to correspond well with what NATO is estimating)

Regarding the lie that they need to recruit older people to get people capable of maintaining high tech systems, my memory is that when I was attempting to gain admission to my nation's military academies, they were telling me that their 22 and 23 year old graduates were fully capable of strapping on an F-16, tracking Soviet satellites in Cheyenne Mountain, and the like.  You don't need to be 53 like myself to figure out high tech equipment.

Yet another point of reference; things are not going well for the Russians these days.  Hopefully someone in Moscow figures it out in time to save their country by removing Putin and his minions from power.  Putin Delenda Est!

And in "that's more like it", a Russian diplomat has reportedly publicly resigned.  Hopefully he's well protected.  Putin delenda est, and we're also cheering for Putin's cancer here.  Yes, Putin's mass murder of thousands in Ukraine and his own country has me understanding the imprecatory Psalms a lot better these days.

Interesting idea....

A Kentucky swimmer who tied Lia Thomas, the Penn transgender swimmer, has lent her voice to the notion that there ought to be a transgender division in swimming.   At one level, it makes sense--transgender women lack testosterone and thus are at a disadvantage competing with biological men, and yet retain the height/bone structure/muscular structure of men, and hence it's unfair to let them compete with women.  A "trans" division solves that issue.

That said, I think the idea is going to go over like a lead balloon for a number of reasons, all of them centering around the reality that transgender women want to be seen as women, but they generally do not "pass" well as such.  Hence a "transgender" division would be the athletic equivalent of a drag show, which would irritate those with gender disphoria, and probably more importantly, would not sell tickets among those who aren't.

There are no easy answers here.

This one could be bad...

It's not yet breaking into the "responsible" media yet, so take this with a grain of salt, but Tucker Carlson reports that the World Health Organization is pushing a treaty that will give them a huge amount of power over medical care, especially in the area of epidemics.

Now of course, we've got the basic question of whether top down medicine tends to work very well--it's very emphatically not the model that they use at Mayo, Cleveland, Johns Hopkins, and the like--but more importantly, we need to take a look at the record of the WHO and national regulators regarding COVID.

• They missed the fact that coronavirii are transmitted with aerosols, something that any apprentice immunologist could have pointed out. 
• They completely covered for the likely involvement of the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Chinese government.
• They tended to try to shut down the alternative therapies that seem to have shown the most promise in helping people deal with this.
• They failed to raise H*** about states sending COVID patients into nursing homes.
• They promoted plans that simply would not work, like "directional shopping", excluding areas from use (ironically concentrating the "plume" of viruses and the people susceptible to them), and the like.
• They ignored increasing evidence that lockdowns and masks were of little use in preventing transmission.  (this probably has a lot to do with aerosol transmission)
• Dissenters, even with wonderful qualifications, were forcefully suppressed

More or less, there was something very interesting going on with the COVID epidemic where public health authorities seem to have had an "inerring" pattern of making the wrong decision and suppressing dissent.  They have, sadly, made the case that there are many great things we can do to deal with infectious diseases, but granting more power to public health authorities is not one of them.

Don't Californicate our.....country?

(time to annoy Hearthie?  Hope she's forgiving!)

OK, as a former resident of Colorado, I'm of course an expert at disliking the problems Californians bring when they emigrate--gangs, drugs, crime, high prices, liberal politics, tofu, and the like.  And yet even I was surprised when I learned that the Portugese are saying, in effect, "Don't Californicate our nation", as hordes of California refugees have arrived in Portugal and are bringing their particular maladies there as well.  It reminds me of a billboard I'm told got put up in Texas saying "Welcome Californians!  But remember you are refugees, not missionaries."

Now of course, there are a lot of Texans in Colorado as well, and natives also disliked the side effects that Texans brought.  I'm reminded of a joke.

A Californian, a Texan, and a Coloradan (Portugese) are sitting in a bar, talking.  Trying to show off, the Californian takes a sip out of a $100 bottle of cabernet sauvignon, throws the rest of the bottle in the air, and shoots it with his MAC-10.  He then says "where I come from, we've got plenty of that."  The Texan then orders a $110 bottle of tequila and does the same.  "Wheyah ahh come from, we've got plenty of that."

So the Coloradan (Portugese) takes a bottle of microbrew IPA (Port), drinks the whole thing, and shoots the Californian and the Texan.

This'll cause them to surrender

The Russians, that is.  Apparently with the withdrawal of western car companies from the Russian market, they're looking to resurrect the old "Moskvich" brand from the Soviet era.  Now as an avid cyclist, I guess I should be ecstatic that they're giving their citizens such a great reason to ride a bicycle, but at -30F in the winter, I think their subjects will be a little peeved.

But with a bit of (bad) luck, somebody in Russia has the design files to the infamous "Trabant" of East Germany, which will make a great partner vehicle to those T-72s that "pop the cork" on the turret when they're hit.  These two vehicles have something in common; visible emissions.  The T-72 has visible emissions because they haven't been maintained much for the past 30 or so years, and the Trabant has visible emissions because of its two cycle engine.  

Maybe they'll fall in love and get married....or am I getting ahead of myself here?  I'd throw flowers to celebrate, but the T-72 would probably explode from the impact.

If you can't blind them with brilliance....

New White House Spokesman Gay Black Immigrant fails miserably at trying to explain to Peter Doocy how, precisely, raising taxes on corporations might reduce inflation.   Now to be fair, I don't envy Ms. Jean-Pierre's task, as the actual answer to what causes inflation is "various things which suppress supply while increasing demand", so there is no simple answer to how this might be.  Really, most sound economists (e.g. not aligned with Galbraith and the like) would argue that the opposite is true, because taxing corporations will tend to reduce the amount of product they produce (supressing supply) while enhancing demand through increased spending.

There is, however, one way in which President Biden's plan could work, and that is if Biden's "tax and spend" plans lead to a recession.  That noted, it seems as if "stagflation" a la Carter is the more likely effect at this point, because demand for petroleum products is fairly inelastic at a time when every move Biden has made will tend to decrease supply.  

Yes, Biden has, in one short year, achieved what it took Carter three years and a revolution in Iran to "achieve".  

Whoa.....

How badly are things going for the Russian army?  Well, it appears that their surrogates in Donbas are starting to bring tanks from the 1940s out of mothballs to try and keep their offensive going.  I'm no great expert on Soviet tanks, but it looks a lot like a T-54 or a modified IS-2, both developed during World War Two.

I'm not against getting use out of old things--some of my cast iron skillets are probably a century old, and I've got a gun and hammers that are likely that old as well, but there is a certain point where sending men to battle in equipment this old is simply signing their death warrants.  

But the people who would do the things documented here  just might not be terribly worried about that.  With friends like Vladimir Putin--may his name be a shame forever--who needs enemies?

Some people doing things right

 Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, confronted with testimony by Janet Yellen claiming that serious restrictions on abortion would victimize African-Americans most, pointed out that he was the African-American son of a single mother who was fairly glad he wasn't aborted and ended up in the Senate.  He then went on to point out that the "single solution" mentioned by Yellen was a fairly depressing message.  What a beautiful "touch" to put Yellen in her place.

(well, not quite in her place, since she still has her job screwing up the country, but rhetorically speaking..)

On the entertainment front, actress Eva Mendes has noted that if she goes back into acting, she'd wait for roles without gratuitous violence of sexuality.  Amazing how having children often seems to do that.

On the flip side, Russia has demanded a formal apology from Poland after their ambassador was splashed with red paint while visiting a Soviet cemetery in Poland this Monday.  My only thought in response is that if Russia wants their diplomats to be warmly received and protected, maybe.....stop committing war crimes in Ukraine and elsewhere?

Just a thought.  And if you're a diplomat working for a country that's committing war crimes, maybe....consider working for someone else?  If you're afraid of polonium in your borscht, maybe....walk through the door at the U.S. Embassy and ask for asylum?

There are times when we ought to act on conscience, and this is one of them.  And of course, Putin delenda est!

Interesting....

 This article about a woman who voluntarily (and irreversibly) sterilized herself to avoid the possibility of pregnancy speaks first of all to the Dobbs issue and Roe, but also to the question of "transition" procedures.  How so?  Well, the woman apparently had her fallopian tubes removed completely at age 24, making it impossible for her to ever change her mind.  It is, really, the sterilization equivalent of "bottom surgery", and she notes that the doctors did not ask her if she really, really wanted to make that decision so young.

In other words, the notion that a doctor needs to consult with the patient before doing something irreversible seems to be disappearing, and that has especially bad implications when we consider that many states are protecting (sometimes it seems like encouraging) teens to "transition".   Really, massive lawsuits (or far worse) seem likely as we remove the barriers that historically ensured that "transitioning" people really wanted that done.

Brilliant from the Bee

In this article from the nation's preeminent news source, the Babylon Bee indicates that a man who would murder his own child to avoid marriage just might not be husband material, but could likely be a pimp, brothel owner, or politician, especially of the liberal variety.

And really, that indicates what is at stake with the Dobbs case and the possible repeal of Roe.  If the hellish 1973 decision is repealed, women could end up better off because cads would no longer be able to eliminate the evidence of their sin and avoid commitment.  

On the light side, a joke from a college friend of mine; most men are so afraid of commitment, they can't even spell it right, generally adding an extra "t" to it.

This could be problematic

Congressman Scott Wiener of San Francisco has announced that up to 19 states are planning on offering "refuge" to transsexual youth whose home states prohibit doctors from administering procedures and prescribing medicines to help minors transition.  Now apart from the question of the propriety of transition procedures, and apart from the question of whether those 19 states really will enact things into law (it's a few legislators in each case so far), there's an ugly reality.

Specifically, if you offer a minor "refuge" in another state to do something that's illegal in his home state, federal law--transporting minors across state borders--comes into play.  Plus, the bill he proposes recommends "slow-walking" out of state warrants for the arrest of those involved in doing these things--and that sets state authorities up for more conflicts with federal authorities.

Sounds like a great way of getting a few zealous law enforcement officials in California put in jail, whereupon far more of them will decide to change careers because they can't risk their own freedom for the sake of guys like Wiener.

An abuse of science

Here's an interesting column noting that the World Health Organization apparently flubbed one of the most basic questions about epidemiology, the question of transmission and whether airborne transmission is a thing.  Now this is really a question, in my view, of "which hypothesis gets assigned as the null hypothesis?", and there's a corollary question of "if history doesn't strongly suggest one side of the argument as the null hypothesis, what do you do statistically?".  

For the uninitiated, the null hypothesis is the base--the idea you keep if you don't find sufficient evidence to reject it.  If you do not perform a test with adequate statistical strength, you will almost always retain it, even if it's false.

In this case, it was well known that coronavirii transmit through aerosols already, and hence I'd argue that the null hypothesis ought to have been that to some degree, COVID-19 would be transmitted that way.  WHO's estimate that this was false appears to have driven any number of wrong interventions against the disease, sadly, and it's an appraisal that seems to be strongly linked to the reasons why mask mandates (and even masks, H/T Powerline), lockdowns, contact tracing, and the like do not seem to have been effective at slowing or stopping the spread of the disease. 

If it's an aerosol transmission, then you can get it from any number of places and have absolutely no clue about why or where you got it.  That certainly was my family's case.  It also illustrates why admitting COVID patients into nursing homes was so deadly--no matter what precautions you took, it was going to spread simply due to the shared HVAC systems.

The one good thing about this is that it is a good illustration of how irresponsible researchers can "bend" research to their own ends by playing games with which notion is the null hypothesis.  I've seen it a fair amount, obviously most strongly where the taxpayer is paying the bill for the work.

Maybe it wouldn't work

As much as I am enjoying the notion of food poisoning being the cause of Putin's hopeful demise,  upon reading the latest news from the Russian foreign service--claims that the Russian army is attacking a nation that is armed to the teeth, full of Nazis, and developing nuclear weapons--I must conclude that the Russian government has supplanted Russia's fertilizer industry with a massive supply of, ahem, natural fertilizer.  So slipping Putin a Oie a la Depp would probably be less excrement than Putin is already used to injesting.  One has to wonder whether he, in the mode of the Dread Pirate Roberts, has built up his immunity....

But seriously, the fact of the matter is that nations that are actually winning wars rarely resort to "spreading the fertilizer" in this way because they can talk about cities conquered, enemies vanquished, and the like.  Especially funny is the claim that Ukraine is somehow full of Nazis, but none of them have apparently ever bothered to trash a synagogue, set up a death camp, or even steal a yarmulke from a rabbi or harass a little Jewish girl with a ham sandwich.  Wimpiest Nazis ever, and Herr Schicklgruber would be appalled.

My best guess here is that they're hoping that their rhetoric will throw gullible people off the track of what they're really doing long enough to salvage half a decent agreement with Kyiv and, probably more importantly, prevent a day of reckoning with a Russian populace that may someday learn that a needless war against an innocent country has deprived their country of its economy and 22000 + of their sons.

(I am using Ukrainian numbers, yes, as they seem to be closely followed by NATO and U.S. estimates.  They seem to be basically honest)

May that day of reckoning come soon for the Soviet Politburo Russian ruling class.  Putin delenda est!

On the light side....

...an Illinois couple has discovered a six decade old meal from McDonald's in the wall of their bathroom, and amazingly enough, after so long, it was still inedible.   (send it to Putin!)

Also in the "foods I won't touch but will send to Moscow" category, apparently Johnny Depp described his ex-wife as "as full of **** as a Christmas goose".   So completely apart from the question over whether either Depp or Heard is telling the truth in the evidence at her defamation trial, I just have to say that Mr. Depp is a wee bit unclear on exactly how you're supposed to stuff a bird.  But yes, I'd send Depp's cooking to Moscow for Putin to eat.

Hideous picture of nationalized healthcare

In Canada, the wait for routine hip replacements that happen within a few weeks in the U.S. is apparently 15 months--well, they promised 15 months, but 3 years after the diagnosis of operable damage to the hip, a Canadian is still waiting to hear back from their government health authorities.  Thankfully, she was able to go to Lithuania to get it done last fall. 

One wonders how many Canadians are on disability because their national health service isn't getting these important "quality of life" operations done, and what the cost is because these people cannot work.

On a related note, socialized healthcare may be partly to blame for the death of our family friend Sam Perry.  His death came after a large heart attack and about a week in an NHS hospital, but I did not hear anything about stents, open heart surgery, or other treatments typically used in the U.S. to improve the life chances of cardiac patients.  In fact, I'm pretty sure this played a role, as 25% of cardiac patients in the UK wait over four months for these life-saving procedures.

Yes, bypass surgery and stents are expensive, but let's consider the alternatives.  And of course, Putin delenda est!

"Defender of the church", my.....

Apparently Russian forces have installed a statue of Lenin in Ukraine.  So I think we can jettison the notion that somehow former KGB agent Vladimir Putin is working to re-establish religion in Russia (and elsewhere).  Lenin, of course, had unbridled brutality to the churches of the Soviet Union, and hence Putin is showing his hand.  Of course, this is not a surprise to anyone who's been watching the invasion target hospitals, schools, and residential areas instead of military targets.  Real Christians should not be terrorists this way.

Lord willing, when Ukraine triumphs over the Soviet Russian army, that statue ought to be melted down to make chamber pots, yes, with portraits of Lenin and Putin in them.  And of course, Putin delenda est!

Now here's a huge surprise.

 After the prison systems in New Jersey started to allow male prisoners who considers themselves "transgender" to be housed in women's prisons, two inmates are pregnant in a facility that apparently already has a long history of sexual abuse of prisoners by staff.

What a shocker.   Well, I guess it is something of a shocker that in a state with over 20,000 prison inmates, only a few of them actually figured out that they could play "The Dating Game" in the women's prison by declaring themselves to be transgender.  Hopefully those playing this game do not end up "playing the guards" by actually committing sexual assault.

Really, our level of thinking is a step below what my level of thinking was back in middle school, when I and my friends contemplated (in a rather vulgar way I'll not repeat here) what would end up happening when girls started to join wrestling teams.  Why is it that 13 year old boys seem to have a better feel for what the results of a policy might be than our policy elites do?

Hats off to the Washington Post

Now I don't write those words often, but this column (summarized here by WND) is a wonderful addition to the debate over being "trans positive" and such.  More or less, Mr. Cohn transitioned to "female" at age 19 after being estranged from his family and believing himself to be homosexual--and he thought he'd have better luck with the men if he appeared outwardly female.  

This parallels one of the big theories about gender disphoria--that a significant portion of those suffering it are really homosexuals, and the end game of surgeries is that it changes intact homosexuals into nonfunctional homosexuals, really.  What Mr. Cohn learned as well is that a "synthetic vagina" doesn't quite have the same, err, "performance" as the real thing, and so what he's experienced is an extremely painful and expensive way of becoming incapable of enjoying sex while making one dependent on serious medical treatment to function for a shortened lifespan.  He's also learned the hard way that--as the Babylon Bee hilariously spoofed--men can generally tell what gender the doctor announced, and what the doctor announced determines what they're going to be attracted to.

Really, just about exactly what most of us suspected from the moment we learned that this was a thing, no?  Unfortunately, it's probably going to take our country thousands of needless mutilations to figure it out and start taking more action.