https://www.relicradio.com/otr/2022/01/the-happiness-effect-by-exploring-tomorrow-2/
Be seeing you
Happy Yet?
Posted by M. C. on December 29, 2023
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: happiness effect | Leave a Comment »
The US Navy is Unprepared for a Prolonged War with Yemen
Posted by M. C. on December 28, 2023
Yemen! Not Russia, not China or even Iran…Yemen!
In order to reload, that destroyer must sail to the nearest friendly port where the U.S. has stockpiled missiles for resupply.
Got the picture? If the destroyer must sail away then the U.S. carrier must follow.
https://ronpaulinstitute.org/the-us-navy-is-unprepared-for-a-prolonged-war-with-yemen/
It looks like the United States, along with 9 allies — Great Britain, Italy, Bahrain, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain — are on the verge of entangling itself in a new Middle East quagmire as an international armada assembles in the international waters around Yemen. The mission? Stop Yemen from threatening cargo and oil tankers headed to Israel.
Tiny Yemen has surprised the West with its tenacity and ferocity in attacking ships trying to ferry containers and fuel to Israel. Yes, this is a violation of international law and the West is fully justified in trying to thwart Yemen. On paper it would appear that Yemen is outnumbered and seriously outgunned. A sure loser? Not so fast. The U.S. Navy, which constitutes the majority of the fleet sailing against Yemen, has some real vulnerabilities that will limit its actions.
Before explaining the risks, you must understand that the U.S. Navy is configured currently as a “Forward-Based Navy” and is not an “Expeditionary Navy.” Anthony Cowden, writing for the Center for International Maritime Security in September, examined this issue in his article, REBALANCE THE FLEET TOWARD BEING A TRULY EXPEDITIONARY NAVY.
Today we have a forward-based navy, not an expeditionary navy. This distinction is important for remaining competitive against modern threats and guiding force design.
Due to the unique geographical position of the U.S., the Navy has the luxury of defending the nation’s interests “over there.” Since World War II, it developed and maintained a navy that was able to project power overseas; to reconstitute its combat power while still at sea or at least far from national shores; and continuously maintain proximity to competitors. This expeditionary character minimized the dependence of the fleet on shore-based and homeland-based infrastructure to sustain operations, allowing the fleet to be more logistically self-sufficient at sea.
However, late in the Cold War, the U.S. Navy started to diminish its expeditionary capability, and became more reliant on allied and friendly bases. A key development was subtle but consequential – the vertical launch system (VLS) for the surface fleet’s primary anti-air, anti-submarine, and land-attack weapons. While a very capable system, reloading VLS at sea was problematic and soon abandoned. While an aircraft carrier can be rearmed at sea, surface warships cannot, which constrains the ability of carrier strike groups to sustain forward operations without taking frequent trips back to fixed infrastructure. The Navy is revisiting the issue of reloading VLS at sea, and those efforts should be reinforced.
The next step the Navy took away from an expeditionary capability was in the 1990s, when it decommissioned most of the submarine tenders (AS), all of the repair ships (AR), and destroyer tenders (AD), and moved away from Sailor-manned Shore Intermediate Maintenance Centers (SIMA). Not only did this eliminate the ability to conduct intermediate maintenance “over there,” but it destroyed the progression of apprentice-to-journeyman-to-master technician that made the U.S. Navy Sailor one of the premier maintenance resources in the military world. Combat search and rescue, salvage, and battle damage repair are other areas in which the U.S. Navy no longer has sufficient capability for sustaining expeditionary operations.
So what? Each U.S. destroyer carries an estimated 90 missiles (perhaps a few more). Their primary mission is to protect the U.S. aircraft carrier they are shielding. What happens when Yemen fires 100 drones/rockets/missiles at a U.S. carrier? The U.S. destroyer, or multiple destroyers will fire their missiles to defeat the threat. Great. Mission accomplished! Only one little problem, as described in the preceding quote — the U.S. Navy got rid of the ship tenders, i.e. those vessels capable of resupplying destroyers with new missiles to replace the expended rounds. In order to reload, that destroyer must sail to the nearest friendly port where the U.S. has stockpiled missiles for resupply.
Got the picture? If the destroyer must sail away then the U.S. carrier must follow. It cannot just sit out in the ocean without its defensive screen of ships. The staying power of a U.S. fleet in a combat zone, like Yemen, is a function of how many missiles the Yemenis fire at the U.S. ships.
But the problems do not stop there.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Expeditionary Navy, Forward-Based Navy, US Navy, war, Yemen | Leave a Comment »
Congress’ ‘Gift’ to America This Christmas
Posted by M. C. on December 28, 2023
So rather than debating whether we want a government more like East Germany than the one our Founders imagined, Section 702 was tossed into the military spending bill.
Considering that Speaker Johnson tossed into the “must-pass” bill yet another extension of Section702 of the FISA Act, it’s unsurprising that he wanted to rush the bill through without the possibility of amendment. Section 702 allows the government to intercept and retain without a warrant the communications of any American who is in contact with a non-US citizen.
https://mises.org/power-market/congress-gift-america-christmas
Just before leaving town for Christmas break, the US House gave Americans a last-minute holiday gift: a nearly trillion dollar military spending bill filled with lots of goodies for the special interests and the military-industrial complex. Unfortunately, the rest of America got nothing but coal in its stockings.
With Constitutionalists like Rep. Thomas Massie on the House Rules Committee, Speaker Johnson made the unusual move of bringing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) under suspension of the rules, which bypasses the Rules Committee but requires two-thirds of the House to pass the bill.
Considering that Speaker Johnson tossed into the “must-pass” bill yet another extension of Section702 of the FISA Act, it’s unsurprising that he wanted to rush the bill through without the possibility of amendment. Section 702 allows the government to intercept and retain without a warrant the communications of any American who is in contact with a non-US citizen. It is clearly a violation of the Fourth Amendment which is supposed to protect Americans against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Section 702 was “legalized” under President George W. Bush during the “War on Terror” after it was revealed that Bush was using the National Security Agency to illegally spy on Americans. We were told at the time that government must be granted these authorities because we were under threat from terrorists. It would just be a temporary measure, we were promised, and then the authority would expire. That was fifteen years ago and here we are re-authorizing the government to continue to violate our liberties.
As with the rest of the violations of our civil liberties after 9/11, like the PATRIOT Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA, the federal government soon turned its terrorism-fighting tools inward, targeting Americans rather than foreigners who we were told wanted to harm Americans. That’s why the FBI’s so-called domestic terrorism watchlist continues to expand to include Christians and those skeptical of big government.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: FISA Act, Homeland Security, Military Spending, patriot act, Section 702, Speaker Johnson, tsa | Leave a Comment »
How the climatoids spent the summer lecturing us on the permanent drought that climate change has brought to Central Europe, and how they have earned nothing but rain for their hubris
Posted by M. C. on December 28, 2023
June headlines: “Germany is facing permanent drought.” August headlines after a rainy summer: “Rain is no help against drought.” December headlines after still more rain: “There is no more drought.”
June headlines: “Germany is facing permanent drought.” August headlines after a rainy summer: “Rain is no help against drought.” December headlines after still more rain: “There is no more drought.”
In the past year, Germans have had to read a great deal about how carbon dioxide-induced drought is on the verge of changing life forever in the Federal Republic.
On 6 June 2023, for example, state media broadcaster ZDF ran a piece on “How Germany is losing its groundwater”:
Drought, forest fires, dry soil – for those of us in Central Europe, this was unheard of for a long time. How can we get by with the challenges of climate change in the future?
Two days later, on 8 June 2023, state media broadcaster NDR ran another piece in this genre, under the headline “Drought: The lack of rain has these consequences for wildlife”:
Dry fields, soil and meadows – not good news for farmers, and not for animals either. Spring is out of balance, explains Thomas Behrends, nature conservation officer at NABU Schleswig-Holstein. It was still very cold at night for a long time and the insect world has not yet been able to fully develop. Birds feed themselves and especially their young with insects and worms. When the ground becomes drier, these retreat into deeper layers of soil and no longer serve as food for the birds.
On 12 June 2023, Tagesspiegel asked “Is the next summer drought looming?”
After a wet spring, things looked good for the soil in Germany. But since May, there has been no rain, especially in the northeast. Researchers suspect a connection with climate change.
June remained relatively dry, but in July it started to rain, a phenomenon to which our highly observant and conscientious journalists remained initially oblivious, even though it was happening directly outside their windows. Thus the drought drumbeat continued, and regional news service hessenschau could still write on 13 July 2023 about “How Hessen is preparing for even more heat and drought”:
Water shortages, uncertain harvests – and extreme heat stress in some cities: The effects of climate change are causing people problems and forcing politicians to take action.
On the same day, NDR (state media) reported that “Drought is hitting northern Germany particularly hard.”
Heavy rainfall and heatwaves – most districts and cities in northern Germany fear an increase in these two weather events. This is the result of joint research by NDR, BR, WDR and CORRECTIV, in which all 400 districts and independent cities in Germany were asked what consequences of climate change they fear for their region and how they are preparing for them.
The extremely inconvenient rain continued through August, and slowly these paint-by-numbers articles after the manner of “X bad thing, Y bad thing, Z bad thing – why these bad things are bad” began, well, to dry up. What was worse, obnoxious internet people began to ask whether we were really in any kind of drought at all. They noted that the statistics compiled by the German Weather Service showed nothing but an increase in annual precipitation since the start of record-keeping in 1881:
Not to worry! The fact-checkers soon arrived to save the establishment drought mythology with some very curious arguments. Foremost among them was a counterintuitive piece by the Deutsche Presse-Agentur which literally explained “Why the ground is getting drier despite more rain.” It appeared in major outlets like Tagesspiegel and Welt to refute those “opponents of climate protection” who had begun deriving awkward conclusions from publicly available data. The problem, our deboonkers explained, is not with total precipitation, but rather with a trend of decreasing summer precipitation specifically. This is bad because plants do a lot of their growing in summer, and summers have gotten about 5% drier. Of course plants also do a lot of their growing in spring, and springs have gotten even wetter …
“Precipitation anomaly” for spring in Germany since 1881. The dotted line marks the linear trend, showing that spring precipitation has increased an average of 12.4mm since the late 19th century, while summer precipitation has decreased 10mm over the same time period.
… but they let this fact pass in silence. Even if more rain is falling, that’s no good, because it’s getting warmer, and warmer equals drier:
Additionally, the amount of precipitation alone does not indicate soil moisture or drought, says [German Weather Service meteorologist Andreas] Brömser. He cites the rise in average temperatures since 1881 as one reason for this: “The higher the temperatures, the more the rain quickly evaporates.” The increase of 1.7 degrees Celsius recorded in Germany means around 12% more evaporation.
This is an odd argument. Evaporation does not cause moisture to disappear, because evaporated water soon returns to earth in the form of rain and snow. To the extent Germany has gotten slightly warmer, the wet periods have simply moved around, while total precipitation has increased because warm air carries more moisture.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Central Europe, Climate Change, climatoids, permanent drought, rain | 1 Comment »
DieselGate II
Posted by M. C. on December 28, 2023
By eric
The “cheating” it was accused of doing was so meaninglessly trivial that no one would ever have known about it had it not been for an Inspector Javert-worthy poring over the federal emissions certification test results. In the real world, the j’ accused VWs passed every tailpipe emissions test.
Here we go – again.
Cummins, the maker of diesel engines, has just “agreed” to pay the federal government $1.6 billion as penance for “cheating” federal emissions control requirements. It’s VW all over again – and probably for the same reasons.
Per the catcall media:
“The Justice Department accuses Cummins of installing defeat devices — which can bypass or defeat emissions controls — on 630,000 2013-2019 Ram 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines, as well as undisclosed auxiliary emission control devices on 330,000 2019-2023 Ram 2500 and 3500 pickup truck engines.”
Italics added.
In other words, not necessarily does bypass.
As in the case of VW’s “cheating,” the bypassing probably occurs only occasionally, as under wide open throttle operating conditions. The resultant “emissions” are higher than allowable. But are they significant?
Merrick Beria-Garland, the lead inquisitor, insists yes.
“The types of devices we allege that Cummins installed in its engines to cheat federal environmental laws have a significant and harmful impact on people’s health and safety,” he j’ accuses.
But he does not substantiate.
Instead, he asserts:
“Our preliminary estimates suggest that defeat devices on some Cummins engines have caused them to produce thousands of tons of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides.”
Italics added.
In other words, not necessarily does bypass.
As in the case of VW’s “cheating,” the bypassing probably occurs only occasionally, as under wide open throttle operating conditions. The resultant “emissions” are higher than allowable. But are they significant?
Merrick Beria-Garland, the lead inquisitor, insists yes.
“The types of devices we allege that Cummins installed in its engines to cheat federal environmental laws have a significant and harmful impact on people’s health and safety,” he j’ accuses.
But he does not substantiate.
Instead, he asserts:
“Our preliminary estimates suggest that defeat devices on some Cummins engines have caused them to produce thousands of tons of excess emissions of nitrogen oxides.”
Italics added.
“Estimates suggest.” Not facts establish.
As in the case of VW’s persecution, no evidence was put on the table proving that Cummins’ engines have actually harmed anyone. Harm caused no longer being the necessary determinant for punishing people – or companies. The determining criteria is whether the j’ accused has affronted the authority of the . . . authorities. That was without question the nut of the federal persecution of VW a few years back. The “cheating” it was accused of doing was so meaninglessly trivial that no one would ever have known about it had it not been for an Inspector Javert-worthy poring over the federal emissions certification test results. In the real world, the j’ accused VWs passed every tailpipe emissions test.
Ergo, they were clean – as VW claimed.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Cummins, DieselGate, emissions | Leave a Comment »
Escobar: Russia-China Are On A Roll
Posted by M. C. on December 28, 2023
by Tyler Durden
While the dogs of war bark, lie and steal, the Russia-China caravan strolls on…
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/escobar-russia-china-are-roll
2023 may be defined for posterity as The Year of the Russia-China Strategic Partnership. This wonder of wonders could easily sway under a groove by – who else – Stevie Wonder: “Here I am baby/ signed, sealed, delivered, I’m yours.”
In the first 11 months of 2023, trade between Russia and China exceeded $200 billion; they did not expect to achieve that until 2024.
Now surely that’s One Partnership Under a Groove. Once again signed, sealed and delivered during the visit of a large delegation to Beijing last week, led by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and revisited and upgraded the whole spectrum of the comprehensive partnership/strategic cooperation, complete with an array of new, major joint projects.
Simultaneously, on the Great Game 2.0 front, everything that need to be reaffirmed was touched by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s detailed interview to Dimitri Simes on his Great Game show.
Add to it the carefully structured breakdown written by head of the SVR Sergey Naryshkin, defining 2024 as “the year of geopolitical awakening”, and coming up with arguably the key formulation following the upcoming, cosmic NATO humiliation in the steppes of Donbass: “In 2024, the Arab world will remain the main space in the struggle for the establishment of a new order.”
Confronted with such detailed geopolitical fine-tuning, it’s no wonder the imperial reaction was apoplexy – revealed epidermically in long, tortuous “analyses” trying to explain why President Putin turned out to be the “geopolitical victor” of 2023, seducing vast swathes of the Arab world and the Global South, solidifying BRICS side by side with China, and propelling the EU further into a black void of its own – and the Hegemon’s – making.
Putin even allowed himself, half in jest, to offer Russian support for the potential “re-annexation” of country 404 border regions once annexed by Stalin, eventually to be returned to former owners Poland, Hungary & Romania. He added that he is 100% certain this is what residents of those still Ukrainian borders want.
Were that to happen, we would have Transcarpathia back to Hungary; Galicia and Volyn back to Poland; and Bukovina back to Romania. Can you feel the house already rocking to the break of dawn in Budapest, Warsaw and Bucharest?
Then there’s the possibility of the Hegemon ordering NATO’s junior punks to harass Russian oil tankers in the Baltic Sea and “isolate” St. Petersburg. It goes without saying that the Russian response would be to just take out Command & Control centers (hacking might be enough); burn electronics across the spectrum; and blockade the Baltic at the entrance by running a “Freedom of Navigation” exercise so everyone becomes familiar with the new groove.
That China-Russian Far East symbiosis
One of the most impressive features of the expanded Russia-China partnership is what is being planned for the Chinese northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Donbass, Mikhail Mishustin, NATO, Russia-China, Xi Jinping | Leave a Comment »
Everyone Loves a Generous Government Until They Have to Pay For It
Posted by M. C. on December 27, 2023
Not only does everyone love getting “free money” from the state, they also love hearing the fantasy repeated endlessly that debts are no problem because we will continue to “grow our way out of debt.”
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec23/generous12-23.html
Charles Hugh Smith
Governments, like individuals, can spend liberally with great generosity, or they can be frugal. Everyone receiving government money loves the state’s free-spending generosity, as it is “free money” to the recipients.
But there is no such thing as truly “free money,” a reality discussed by Niccolo Machiavelli in his classic work on leadership and statecraft, The Prince, published in 1516. In Machiavelli’s terminology, leaders could either pursue the positive reputation of being liberal in their spending (not “liberal” in a political sense) or suffer the negative reputation of being mean, i.e. miserly, tight-fisted and frugal.
Machiavelli pointed out that the spending demanded to maintain the reputation for free-spending liberality soon exhausted the funds of the state and required the leader to levy increasingly heavy taxes on the citizenry to pay for the state’s largesse.
Once we examine this necessary consequence of liberal spending, it turns out the generous government is anything but generous, as it is eventually forced to impoverish its people to support its spending.
It is the miserly leader and state that is actually generous, for it is the miserly leader / state that places a light burden on the earnings and livelihoods of the citizenry.
As Machiavelli explained, taxes and the inflation that comes with free spending both rob everyone, while the state’s generosity is a political process that necessarily distributes the largesse asymmetrically:
If he is wise he ought not to fear the reputation of being mean, for in time he will come to be more considered than if liberal, seeing that with his economy his revenues are enough, that he can defend himself against all attacks, and is able to engage in enterprises without burdening his people; thus it comes to pass that he exercises liberality towards all from whom he does not take, who are numberless, and meanness towards those to whom he does not give, who are few.
The profligate state and leader fail, for their resources are squandered.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: free money, Government, Niccolo Machiavelli | Leave a Comment »
How Capitalism Made Christmas a Holiday for Children
Posted by M. C. on December 27, 2023
By Ryan McMaken
Giving toys to children is not new. As noted by Nicholas Orme in his book Medieval Children, baby rattles date at least to Aristotle’s time, and the philosopher himself praised rattles “as a means of allowing children to expend their energy without doing damage.”
During the 1980s, millions of American children pored over the Toys ‘R’ Us catalog, daydreaming about what toys we hoped to receive in a few weeks on Christmas morning. After all, by the mid twentieth century, Christmas—for countless middle-class households with children— had become more or less synonymous with an enormous number of gifts for children in the form of toys and games. Barbie playsets and a myriad of action figures were routinely advertised during Saturday morning cartoons and in Sunday print ads in the weeks before Christmas. We kids of the 80s were sure to tell our parents what toys we “needed.”
We weren’t the first generation with such thoughts, of course. As Jean Shepherd (1921-1999) recounts in the beloved film A Christmas Story—set in 1940—Christmas was the time to strategize on how to receive essential toys—such as a new BB gun—from Santa. The annual bacchanalia of gifts at Christmas meant the holiday had become something “upon which the entire kid year revolved.”
Moreover, the copious number of gifts for children has been just one aspect of how Christmas in many ways has become a holiday focused on children. From Santa Claus to gingerbread houses to countless children’s Christmas movies and picture books, Christmas has become a time for adults to invest enormous amounts of time, money, and energy into amusing and entertaining children as a means of expressing parental affection.
But, of course, as with so many modern rituals and cultural expressions, the extensive focus at Christmas time on children’s amusement and gifts is a fairly young practice enabled by the wealth and disposable income made possible by modern economies.
Early Child-Centered Christmas Rituals
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: capitalism, children, Christmas story | Leave a Comment »
Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Names Three Prerequisites for Peace
Posted by M. C. on December 27, 2023
The beauty of the Egyptian proposal is that everyone hates it.
In a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Benjamin Netanyahu names three conditions for peace. Let’s review the conditions and the stumbling blocks to them.
Three Prerequisites for Peace
Please consider Our Three Prerequisites for Peace
Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized. These are the three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in Gaza.
First, Hamas, a key Iranian proxy, must be destroyed. The U.S., U.K., France, Germany and many other countries support Israel’s intention to demolish the terror group. To achieve that goal, its military capabilities must be dismantled and its political rule over Gaza must end. Hamas’s leaders have vowed to repeat the Oct. 7 massacre “again and again.” That is why their destruction is the only proportional response to prevent the repeat of such horrific atrocities. Anything less guarantees more war and more bloodshed.
Second, Gaza must be demilitarized. Israel must ensure that the territory is never again used as a base to attack it. Among other things, this will require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter of Gaza and an inspection mechanism on the border between Gaza and Egypt that meets Israel’s security needs and prevents smuggling of weapons into the territory.
The expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream. It currently funds and glorifies terrorism in Judea and Samaria and educates Palestinian children to seek the destruction of Israel. Not surprisingly it has shown neither the capability nor the will to demilitarize Gaza.
Third, Gaza will have to be deradicalized. Schools must teach children to cherish life rather than death, and imams must cease to preach for the murder of Jews. Palestinian civil society needs to be transformed so that its people support fighting terrorism rather than funding it.
That will likely require courageous and moral leadership. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas can’t even bring himself to condemn the Oct. 7 atrocities. Several of his ministers deny that the murders and rapes happened or accuse Israel of perpetrating these horrific crimes against its own people. Another threatened that a similar attack would be carried out in Judea and Samaria.
Egypt Proposes a Deal, But Israel and Hamas Say No
Yesterday, I wrote Christmas for Gaza? Egypt Proposes a Deal, But Israel and Hamas Say No
A Starting Point
If both side genuinely dislike the deal, we have a starting point for negotiation.
It’s clear that Israel would dislike this proposal for several reasons. Does Hamas dislike the deal?
If Hamas has to give up power, and that can somehow be enforced, they probably do hate this proposal. But what’s the enforcement mechanism to keep Hamas out of power?
No Future in One-Sided Proposals
There is no future in one-sided proposals. The beauty of the Egyptian proposal is that everyone hates it.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Someday, We’ll Have No Choice But To Use Money That Can’t Be Counterfeited
Posted by M. C. on December 27, 2023
“Inflation statistics are like covid statistics”
“Counterfeited” as in printed money not backed by something of value.
Be seeing you
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Counterfeited, money | Leave a Comment »
MCViewPoint 