Bayou Renaissance Man

Memes that made me laugh 332

2026-10-19T04:41:00.000-05:00

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.

More next week.

Peter

Sunday morning music

2026-10-18T05:08:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of traditional Chinese instruments, and an ancient and two modern settings for them. First, the guzheng.

The zheng or guzheng is a Chinese plucked zither. The modern guzheng commonly has 21, 25, or 26 strings, is 64 inches (1.6 m; 5 ft 4 in) long, and is tuned in a major pentatonic scale. It has a large, resonant soundboard made from Paulownia wood. Other components are often made from other woods for structural or decorative reasons. Guzheng players often wear a fingerpick made from materials such as plastic, resin, tortoiseshell, or ivory on one or both hands.
It can have nylon, steel, or silk strings depending on the genre.

Next, a very similar instrument, the guqin.

The guqin is a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument. It has been played since ancient times, and has traditionally been favoured by scholars and literati as an instrument of great subtlety and refinement, as highlighted by the quote "a gentleman does not part with his qin or se without good reason," as well as being associated with the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. It is sometimes referred to by the Chinese as "the father of Chinese music" or "the instrument of the sages". The guqin is not to be confused with the guzheng, another Chinese long stringed instrument also without frets, but with moveable bridges under each string.

There's quite a lot of music on YouTube featuring both instruments. Here's a traditional Chinese piece for the guqin called "Flowing Water" or "Running Water". The video description states:

In the first paragraph, the whole song starts to flow, which vaguely implies the theme tone of the whole song. 2、 The third paragraph uses overtone to write all kinds of spring sounds of mountains, streams and waterfalls. 4、 The fifth section shows that the spring of thousands of gullies flows out of the mountain and into the flood, and gradually has a turbulent trend. Since the sixth section, the water flows into the vast ocean, and the rapids cross the gorge and beach, forming a momentum of rough waves and surging unstoppable, conveying the character of fearing difficulties and dangers and forging ahead bravely. 7、 The eighth segment is the afterwave after the climax, which is slow and urgent, released and closed from time to time, and gradually calmed down. The ninth paragraph is the finale of the passing weather. This piano song is full of the harmony between man and nature, and exudes the atmosphere of the harmony of nature, earth and people. This song has both lyricism and simulation, the combination of virtual and real, the integration of scenes and the lofty atmosphere.

A copy of this piece was launched into space aboard Voyager 1 in 1977, to be found by any race or entity that might one day intercept that spacecraft.

In lighter vein, I found some modern songs that have been rescored for the guzheng. First, Hotel California by The Eagles.

And finally, Thunderstruck from AC/DC.

An interesting contrast between ancient and modern, and between two very similar instruments. Explore both of them on YouTube.

Peter

How do you persuade a fanatical fighter that it's not his duty to die?

2026-10-16T04:31:00.000-05:00

During World War II almost all Japanese military servicemen died in action, refusing to surrender. They regarded it as their sacred duty to the Emperor of Japan, whom they regarded as having divine origins and authority. However, in the Marianas campaign, one Marine, Guy Gabaldon, began to go out beyond friendly lines and persuade Japanese soldiers and civilians to surrender rather than fight to the death. His efforts were extremely successful, and led to anything between 1,000 and 1,500 Japanese surrenders (the exact figure is disputed). He was awarded a Silver Star in recognition of his efforts, which I think was to undervalue them significantly. The Marines clearly felt the same, because some years later his award was upgraded to a Navy Cross: and now, after his death, there are proposals to upgrade it further, to the Medal of Honor.

This twenty-minute TV documentary examines his activities and achievements, as well as how other service personnel began to take the idea further. I'm told that after the Marianas campaign, when the war moved on to the Philippines, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, such tactics were more widely used, but I haven't been able to confirm that.

If you're interested in World War II, and the Pacific War in particular, this documentary is a must-see.

That's an episode of World War II combat history of which I'd never heard before.

Peter

Musical notation as a tool of espionage?

2026-10-15T04:51:00.000-05:00

It sounds weird, but it actually happened in the 1980's.

Imagine this as the scenario for a thriller. Four folk musicians with a social conscience decide on a daring humanitarian mission. They'll visit a country famous for its cruel repression, and risk arrest and imprisonment by secretly meeting with persecuted individuals to smuggle out vital information about them disguised as musical notation.
It seems too outlandish even for a film. Yet it actually happened. Forty years ago, in 1985, when the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union was still freezing, and no one suspected the Soviet system would collapse within four years, a quartet of American Jewish musicians visited the Soviet Union. Their aim was to help some of the millions of Jewish people who wanted to leave but were being denied the necessary exit visas. One of the four was Merryl Goldberg, who in the mid 1980s was a keen student of the saxophone and passionate about a form of Jewish folk music called klezmer.
Now she's co-authored a book, Notes of Deception, that describes those extraordinary few days when she and her fellow musicians defied the might of the Soviet Union.

But how would the information be smuggled out under the noses of the KGB officers, who would be sure to confiscate anything they deemed suspicious? The answer was: convert the names, addresses, telephone numbers and other information into musical notation, via a secret code. Goldberg admits it wasn't complex. "The important thing was it just looks like music, though anyone who read music would see it's kind of strange. It sounds like bad Schoenberg."
Vince Houghton, whose expertise in the history of spying and espionage made him an ideal co-author for the book, says there are two reasons it worked. "One is that hopefully there would be no KGB officer who was a professional musician who might realise that this is just garbage. The other is that the people using it were musicians. The code was actually a form of steganography, which means something that hides in plain sight, that no one would ever think was code. So it didn't need to be complex. I asked a cryptologist colleague how long it would take him to crack it, and he said he could do it over lunch."

There's more at the link.

The full article makes a fascinating read, and includes an example of the musical code. I love the ingenuity of mind that could think of musical notation as a hidden-in-plain-sight form of cryptography, one that the most draconian of security states in the world at the time would be unlikely to detect. That's really thinking outside the (music) box!

Peter

Two interesting bits of news, and a question for my readers

2026-10-14T04:40:00.000-05:00

Two news reports caught my eye, both illustrating how dependent we've become on technology rather than older, mature methods.

Fridges in French supermarkets hit by cyber attack
Hundreds of French supermarkets have been hit by a cyber attack that caused their fridges and freezers to heat up, spoiling fresh and frozen food estimated to be worth millions of euros.
Hackers gained control of the software that regulates the temperatures of the refrigeration units, forcing some to warm to 50C (120F) overnight, according to one supermarket chain affected.
The chief executive of Coopérative U said several of its supermarkets had been hit by the "extremely serious and unprecedented" attack.
More than 100 of the chain's supermarkets were targeted, while 180 stores from Intermarché and its Netto brand were affected, with a spokesman saying that another 100 shops were urgently disconnected from the internet to prevent the same thing happening to them.

Britain urges ships to prepare for life without reliable GPS
Britain has warned shipowners that satellite navigation can no longer be taken for granted in some of the world’s busiest shipping regions, urging crews to practise navigating without GPS as jamming and spoofing become increasingly widespread ... interference across the Baltic, Black Sea, Middle East Gulf and parts of East Asia means satellite-derived positioning, navigation and timing information can no longer be relied upon everywhere.
The warning extends well beyond electronic charts. The agency identifies a long list of potentially vulnerable equipment, including ECDIS, AIS, autopilots, dynamic positioning systems, radar, gyrocompasses and GMDSS communications equipment. Ashore, vessel traffic services, pilotage systems, port management platforms and automated logistics systems are also exposed.

That navigation warning applies to any and every form of transport, of course, not just ships. Some airlines now routinely double-check at least two, if not more, global navigation satellite systems such as GPS, GLONASS, BDS and Galileo against each other while in flight. If too many of the systems show errors, they go back to taking star sights and navigating by what they can see on the ground.

As for the Internet-linked refrigerators . . . I can see that a large commercial enterprise might want to monitor its refrigerators and freezers in real time, so that repairs can be ordered immediately if something goes wrong. However, what about security? Isn't a major business vulnerability like that something that should have attracted serious attention long ago? I'm sure it will get that attention now, but it's too late to avoid substantial losses.

I'm not by any means opposed to technology, provided it remains a reliable servant. If it becomes a master instead of a servant, or if it can be corrupted and misused by criminals or other hostile actors, its usefulness has to be reassessed. I can remember being taught navigation off the coast of South Africa back in the '70's, using compass bearings on shore objects, sextants, star sights, and the good old Decca Navigator system, first used to mark and sweep German minefields off Normandy prior to D-Day in 1944. Decca has long gone now, of course, but there may come a time when something old but reliable like that will be sorely missed.

FIREARMS QUESTION

With the recent relaxation of regulations for the purchase and use of suppressors, I'm considering getting one or two of them to safeguard what's left of my hearing. However, I note that most .30-caliber suppressors list their bore diameter as .308-inch. That works fine for standard American ammunition, but several overseas equivalents (including the British .303-inch and the Soviet 7.62x39mm) are sized to .311-inch. Can anyone tell me whether American .30-caliber suppressors have sufficient "safety margin" in their bores to allow their use with .311-inch bullets? If not, do you think US manufacturers could supply their models slightly "bored-out" as a special order? Alternatively, if one went up a bore size in the suppressor, what alternatives are there? I don't know if suppressors are made for (say) the 8mm Mauser round, which would be .323-inch bullet diameter, and I'm not sure what the barrel threading would be. What others might be suitable?

Peter

As with Britain, so with the USA???

2026-10-13T04:06:00.000-05:00

So-called "welfare" payments (including entitlement programs, disability funding, and a host of other benefits) have all but crippled the British economy. Here's how the Wall Street Journal views Britain's current crisis.

Disability payouts are no longer just for those most in need; they have become a financial crutch for a large swath of the population as wages stagnate and prices rise.
It’s blowing up Britain’s welfare bill, hamstringing its politicians and imperiling its long-term financial stability.
Some seven million people—more than 10% of the population—now claim at least one or more sickness or disability benefits. The numbers are growing fastest among working-age people who should be powering the country’s economy, surging more than 60% in the past six years to 4.7 million from 2.9 million in 2019.
. . .
Many of the newer disability claims are for mental-health issues like depression, anxiety and ADHD, which can be harder for the government to verify than a physical disability. Between 2017 and 2025, disability claims for cancer doubled. But benefits claims for all psychiatric issues surged fourfold.
One benefit, created to help those with disabilities be more mobile, allows people to give up part of their welfare cash handout in return for a new car lease every three years. It now accounts for around one in every seven new car sales in the U.K. Among those who got new cars last year: 40 people whose primary medical condition was tennis elbow, 50 with wheat intolerance and 320 with dyslexia, according to government figures.
The scale of the payout has become a scandal. No other western country has seen such a rise in disability claims. In the U.S., the number of people getting federal disability payments has fallen in the past 15 years. The most recent figures show some 10.6 million working-age people in the U.S. claimed one or both main Social Security programs for people with a disability, in a country with a population five times bigger than the U.K.

There's more at the link (may be paywalled). Whether the British economy (indeed, the British nation as we know it) can survive this ever-increasing burden remains to be seen. Anytime any politician or party talks about reducing welfare expenditure, the beneficiaries of such welfare rise up in vehement, vocal opposition: so the politicians dare not touch the subject, for fear of never being elected again (and/or of being un-elected as soon as the next election comes around). The whole nation is caught in that trap. Can't afford to pay for the benefits, and can't afford to cut them.

In the USA, the federal government has done a lot to cut back on entitlement spending, as the last paragraph above shows. However, many states have implemented their own entitlement programs. For example, a couple of weeks ago it was revealed that California is spending up to $11 billion every year on benefits for illegal aliens, who are not entitled to federal benefits at all. "All told, a family of five in California with two illegal-alien parents, two US-born children and one illegal-alien grandparent can receive public services worth more than $100,000 per year." That's just one state, out of 50 in the Union. How many others are taxing their citizens - and claiming refunds from Washington D.C. - to run their own such programs? How much is it costing us, the taxpayers of this country?

The mainstream media is strangely silent about such matters, even when they're exposed through other sources. Anyone would think that the media wants to grow the "dependent economy" at the expense of the market economy, and make taxpayers liable to support the millions who don't pay taxes. There's a word for that. They call it "socialism".

If you pay taxes, remember on November 3rd, and vote accordingly.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 331

2026-10-12T04:42:00.000-05:00

Back from vacation, with memes collected from the Web while on the road and in our hotel. Click any image for a larger view.

More next week.

Peter

Vacation update 2

2026-10-06T11:14:15.506-05:00

Nothing exciting to report - which is the point of a vacation, after all!

We've spent a while on the beach, enjoying the pleasantly warm (rather than ridiculously hot) weather and the equally warm Gulf water. To my unpleasant surprise, my difficulties with balance (due to my spinal injury and nerve damage) turn out to be magnified as I get into deeper water; if I lose my balance when waves are pulling me around, it's difficult to get to my feet again. I really don't like that, but there's nothing much I can do about it. I'll be starting another round of physiotherapy when I get home, so I'll mention it to the therapist as another symptom to be addressed.

We spent a few hours yesterday aboard the USS Lexington, an Essex-class aircraft carrier that was the last World War II-era carrier to be retired from active service in 1991. This was my second visit to her, having seen her a couple of decades ago during a visit to southern Texas, but my wife's first. Due to my mobility limitations, this time I restricted myself to the hangar and flight decks, where everything is on a level. The ladders and stairs below decks don't lend themselves to using a walking-stick! My wife went through them all while I enjoyed a leisurely stroll around the flat bits. We enjoyed our visit.

We've taken the opportunity to visit several local restaurants. The fresh seafood is great - we both enjoy it. (I'm sorry, but fresh water fish is not "sea" food - it's just fish, not sea fish. The real thing tastes much better, IMHO!) There's also a German restaurant in town, where we tucked into schnitzel, strudel and Black Forest cake. So much for our diets . . .

We're thinking of driving down to SpaceX Starbase tomorrow or Thursday. It's about three hours from here, making for a long return drive, but we're much closer to it now than we're ever likely to be again, so it seems like a good idea to take advantage of that. The main road goes right past the SpaceX compound, so one can see almost everything going on around the launch complex. Furthermore, the upper stage from Starship flight test 13 is due to return to Starbase this week, after splashing down in the Indian Ocean and being recovered intact. It'll be great if we can see it coming home. We're both big fans of SpaceX and Elon Musk.

The nicest part of this break is that we don't have to do anything. We can sleep late, go where we wish, eat whenever and wherever we want, and ignore our normal daily routine. Just what we needed! Of course, come next Monday it'll be back to normal, with my wife returning to work and me heading for another physiotherapy session, but we'll take what we can get this week.

Peter

Vacation update 1

2026-10-04T06:28:00.000-05:00

We left on Friday morning, much to the woe and lamentation of our cat. She'll survive, we're sure, particularly because friends from the North Texas Troublemakers will look in from time to time to restock her food, pet her, and generally reassure her that she hasn't been abandoned.

We spent Friday night in San Angelo, TX. Friends there were flooded out by the tragedy last year, and left all their guns with us while they dried out and began remodeling their home. Repairs have now progressed far enough that they've been able to move in again, so we took their guns back to them. I must admit, I was half-hoping that a traffic cop would stop us and ask, "Any guns in the car?" I'd have invited him to take his pick of a score or more! In some places that would make the cop nervous, but here in north Texas he'd probably have spent the next half-hour on an impromptu show-and-tell.

We drove down to Corpus Christi today. It was a relatively cool run, thanks to widespread light rain. We're going to spend the next week in the area, playing tourist, walking along the beach, swimming, and generally relaxing and unwinding. We're both under doctors' orders to let go of all our cares and concerns, which have been rather heavy over the past while, so we'll be lazy and enjoy the abundant seafood. We started that tonight; I had a grilled snapper, while my wife tried a "black drum", a type of fish of which I'd previously never heard (but which tasted great). Key lime pie and turtle cheesecake finished the meal, with some coming back to the hotel with us for a midnight feast (if we can hold out that long).

Laid back and lazy will be the order of the next few days.

Peter

On the road again

2026-10-01T04:42:00.000-05:00

My wife and I are heading ~~south for the winter~~ to the Gulf of Mexico for a week lazing in the sun. We've both been far too busy for the past several months, me with medical issues and her with being the the primary technical adviser to her employer's support staff. We need breathing room, and space to unwind.

I'll post to this blog occasionally, as and when I feel the urge, but I don't want to commit to daily posts. I really do need time to relax. For the same reason, I'll only moderate comments at irregular intervals, so if you comment and it doesn't appear soon, please be patient. Amuse yourselves with the bloggers listed in my sidebar until I'm back in harness. Regular blogging should resume on Monday, October 12th.

I'll leave you with these encouraging thoughts from Rat. Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the comic's Web page.

Sadly, no gin for me. I'm driving!

Peter

Sadly, it takes war to spur improvements in emergency medical care

2026-09-30T04:26:00.000-05:00

During my military service four to five decades ago, our medical training was pretty basic. You could call it slightly more advanced first aid, if you like. There were none of the techniques, equipment and medicines that emergency medicine offers today. Pretty much all a grunt in the field could do was try to stop the bleeding, then get the injured person to a combat medic (if one was available - they weren't always around). Anything more required evacuation to a forward aid station, which might be dozens or scores of miles away, and often could only be reached by vehicles bouncing around dirt trails or even through the bush. It could be a nightmare experience for the wounded soldier, often causing more pain and suffering than the original injury. (Allow me to assure you, I know this from personal experience!)

I was reminded of that by an interesting article at Strategy Page, looking at how, most recently, the Ukraine war has brought a new perspective to battlefield medicine, and examining some of the new technology and techniques that have evolved in recent decades. Here are a couple of excerpts.

When Russia invaded in 2022, one of the many shortages was blood for transfusions to wounded soldiers and civilians. Using the slogan, “Your blood can fight too”, Ukraine made it easier to donate and converted blood collection from local hospitals and regional networks to a unified national network. Donation centers were prepared to run 24 hours a day when needed, accepting donations around the clock if the emergency lasted. Ukraine created an Operational Headquarters to monitor and coordinate nationwide blood collection and distribution activities. This conversion to a national system came several decades after the United States made the move. In turn, the Ukrainian experience has much to teach America and other NATO nations.
Russia provides less frequent and effective medical care for its wounded soldiers; military and civilian leaders are appalled at how the Ukrainian efforts have substantially reduced the number of combat deaths. Prompt blood transfusions are a key part of this and one of several reasons that for every Ukrainian combat death there are eight or more Russian losses.
. . .
Now, new medical tech is coming in the form of band-aids or bandages for people with minor bleeding injuries like cuts or scrapes. Some people do not heal as quickly, and these minor injuries can take a long time to heal. The solution is self-monitoring polymer band-aids or bandages. This smart bandage tech has completed animal testing and now faces up to a decade of human tests and development of larger bandages before it is generally available.
This smart bandage is worn for a week or two until the chronic bleeding is healed. The smart bandage consists of two parts. The most obvious part appears to be a disposable Band-Aid or bandage containing biosensors, electrodes, and hydrogel with medications, along with a device that delivers low-level electrical stimulation to speed healing. The second component is a flexible, reusable electronic patch that monitors the healing process by tracking temperature, pH, and other factors, allowing a doctor or medical technician to monitor healing. Each year, millions of people have slow-healing wounds, and smart bandages are designed to speed healing.
The smart bandage builds on two decades of major advances in emergency and combat medicine. These new technologies and procedures led to a reduction in combat deaths by more than half since 2003.
. . .
... since September 11, 2001, over two million American troops went off to war and about two percent of them were killed or wounded. Only 12 percent of the 57,000 combat zone wounds were fatal, the lowest percentage in military history. This was largely due to major improvements in dealing with rapid blood loss from a major artery being severed and the increased speed with which complex medical care could be delivered to wounded troops. New medical technologies also made it possible to detect injuries (like brain trauma) that, in the past, were very difficult to detect and treat.

There's more at the link. Interesting and recommended reading.

If you'd told us, way back when, that "smart bandages" would be a thing, we'd have accused you of drinking entirely too much of the field hospital's rubbing alcohol, probably using it to wash down morphine tablets! For the sake of today's soldiers, sailors and airmen - not to mention civilian EMT's and paramedics and their patients - I can only hope they perfect this new technology as quickly as possible.

I guess being wounded in combat kinda changes one's perspective on the importance of military medical care in particular, and general emergency medical care as well. When one's lying there, not knowing whether it's safe to close one's eyes because one can't be at all sure of being able to open them again . . . it re-orders one's priorities, to put it mildly.

Peter

The Pachyderm Prescription?

2026-09-29T04:16:00.000-05:00

The title of this post was suggested by this news report from Kenya. It might make a good title for a novel, who knows?

A new study suggests that adult elephants prepare concoctions of plants to administer to their young as medicine.
The finding is based on observations of Mount Elgon's cave elephants in western Kenya by local indigenous people who spent more than 20 years monitoring their routines.
According to their accounts, the elephant herds clustered around Elgon use at least 25 different plant species.
They reported that elephant mothers processed roots and leaves, combined it with their breast milk and administered it to calves, for apparent health benefit.
In one testimony, a wildlife scout described seeing elephants using a plant known as Angurweet, which is used locally as a remedy for ailments such as stomach ache, "as medicine to give to babies".
The scout described elephant mothers "removing the leaves and chewing it until smooth, along with the roots of some other trees".
He also recounted that he had seen mothers mix this plant material with their own milk. "They give it to the babies, who chew on it themselves and spit out the solids," the scout said.
The statements of the Sabaot tribal experts appear to demonstrate a level of sophisticated self-medication among the elephants, which are already renowned for going into caves to mine for salt to supplement their diet.

There's more at the link.

I'm fascinated, but not surprised, to learn of the pachyderm pharmacists. Elephants are very intelligent indeed, probably at least as much as a pre-teen child, and (judging by some of the teens I've met) possibly even higher on the scale. I've never heard of them actively medicating their offspring as described in the report, but that they'd develop such knowledge and abilities doesn't surprise me.

Baby and junior elephants are just about the cutest things you can imagine. Back in the day, Skukuza (the administrative center of the Kruger National Park in South Africa) housed a center for the care and rearing of animals orphaned after the death of their mothers. This included several baby elephants at the time I visited it. I was invited by a ranger I knew to join them at feeding time. That involved filling a two-liter soda bottle with their concentrated milk ration, then applying an outsize rubber teat to it. The elephants would be waiting impatiently for their food, dancing from foot to foot and being very noisy about it. I got to hold the bottle for a six-week-old mtoto, who slurped it down with great enthusiasm. I turned around to put the bottle back on the table, only to be rammed in the small of my back by what felt like a freight train. I picked myself painfully off the ground and turned around, to be greeted by a juvenile elephant dancing from foot to foot and tootling at me in a way that freely translated as, "Gee, that was fun! Let's do it again!" When young elephants want to play, they want to play, and they won't take "No!" for an answer . . .

Of course, once they're grown, they're much less frolic-y and a darn sight more dangerous, particularly because they're intelligent enough to learn about threats and deal with them. In Africa, they've grown accustomed to poachers using Soviet-made AK-47 rifles, with their distinctive "banana" magazines; and when they see anyone carrying that shape, they'll often charge them at once and do their best to trample them into the mud before they can take aim and shoot. (That's why South African game rangers on the Mozambique border carry - or used to carry, when I was still there - FN FAL rifles with a shorter, straight magazine, which didn't resemble the AK. They lived longer that way!)

I love elephants. They're majestic creatures, and dominate any location where they're found. Forget that business about lions being the "king of the beasts". When a herd of elephants arrive, the lions get out of the way.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 330

2026-09-28T04:25:00.000-05:00

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.

More next week.

Peter

Sunday morning music

2026-09-27T05:20:00.000-05:00

The British group Uriah Heep are regarded as one of the original hard rock/folk rock groups from the 1970's. One of their early hits was "Lady In Black" from their 1971 album "Salisbury".

The group went on to record many more albums, but "Lady In Black" remained one of their best-known and most-loved songs. It's been recorded by many groups, straying into many different genres. I thought it might be fun to play a few this morning, for those interested in such things.

Here's a 2004 version, a collaboration between Uriah Heep members Mick Box and Bernie Shaw and the Romanian group Iris. The joint version is titled "Doamna in negru". The lyrics are bilingual, in Romanian and English.

Also in 2004, Spanish folk metal group Mägo de Oz (a translation of "Wizard of Oz") recorded this version, with Spanish lyrics.

In 2006 Finnish folk metal group Ensiferum recorded their somewhat heavy-metal version.

Later that same year, German band Gregorian released a medieval-mystical-Gregorian-chant melange of the song, which is rather attractive (and perhaps the truest of all cover versions to the theme and mood of the lyrics).

There are many more versions of the song out there.

Peter

Sounds very African to me...

2026-09-25T04:51:00.000-05:00

I'm amused to read about a Dutch drug hitman who has apparently "captured" the entire African nation of Sierra Leone, effectively making its government and security forces dance to his tune. The Economist reports:

In the shadowy world of international narco-trafficking, Jos Leijdekkers is a gangster of flair. Over the past five years, bricks of cocaine stamped with his underworld moniker—“Holly”, short for Hollywood—have been found everywhere from the Ecuadorian banana port of Guayaquil to the North Sea. In his native Netherlands, his exploits have spawned biographies, podcasts, comedy skits, battalions of YouTube sleuths and, this February, a portrait of his unsmiling face and a seven-foot knife blade, spraypainted on a railway carriage in the somnolent city of Eindhoven. For criminologists, Leijdekkers’s career is a marvel. Less than a decade ago he was a hitman stalking the streets of Antwerp. He has since created a trafficking network spanning Latin America, Europe and the Middle East that brings in more than $2bn a year.
Leijdekkers’s greatest caper yet looks to be the takeover of a country. In half a decade Leijdekkers has turned Sierra Leone, a place previously best known for blood diamonds, into a hub for billions of dollars’ worth of Colombian cocaine, disguised as rice or plantain chips, which pass through each year en route to Europe. By funnelling a share of the profits to Sierra Leone’s political elite and funding large parts of the state itself, Leijdekkers has amassed perks that would be the envy of a Bond villain. He is believed to have a Sierra Leonean diplomatic passport. The police and military establishment bow to him, squadrons of container ships and submarines ply the shores at his command, and he is escorted in a motorcade by the presidential guard beneath a cloud of drones. Leijdekkers is celebrated in krio rap, the English-based creole spoken in Sierra Leone—“Ar change di game e name lek Umar Sheriff” runs a lyric of Drizilik’s recent hit “Sabi Road”—and, last September, he fathered a child with Agnes Bio, the president’s favourite daughter.
Go to Freetown today and behold a nation in the throes of narco-capture. Its beaches thrum with nightclubs, its skyline bristles with empty highrises, its streets shimmer with Corvettes and Tesla trucks. It took gangs decades to transform Mexico and Montenegro. In Sierra Leone it has taken just four years for a 35-year-old Dutch convict, boasting little more than a smartphone and a network of suppliers, to transform a beautiful stretch of west Africa into his personal fief. How did he do it?

There's much more at the link (which may be behind a paywall: if so, you'll find an archived, paywall-free version here).

It's yet another variation on an old, familiar African theme. A strong man arises, and forces or subverts a tribe or clan or entire nation to bend the knee to him. How he does it may vary from criminal or military force, through tribal loyalties, to plain old-fashioned bribery and corruption. Sierra Leone is a very clear example of the latter. (It's nothing new there - consider the RUF catastrophe a few decades ago.)

How do we fix such situations? There are two ways. One is to cut off the offender's supply of cash, so that he can no longer bribe his way to the top. That's difficult to do when it comes to illegal drugs, because that business is awash in "dirty" cash, and it has myriad ways to flow around the globe. It can be done, but it's an enormously complicated (and expensive) process. The other way is much simpler: remove the bad guy from society. You can do that like a Maduro, snatching him from his secure compound, or you can do it by the judicious application of ballistics and/or high explosives.

Whatever method you choose, it presents the problem that it only removes one offender. Pretty soon, others will be lining up to replace him. The most vicious, most corrupt, wealthiest and most ruthless of them will rise to the top of a new sewer, until his turn comes to be replaced . . . and then the process will repeat itself ad nauseam. It always does.

I suspect Mr. Leijdekkers is going to find out, very shortly, that he's become too conspicuous in his success. Western governments don't like being upstaged or embarrassed by flamboyant criminals. I think he'll shortly either have to disappear into obscurity, or be disappeared into eternity. As for Sierra Leone itself? Well, if they really want to solve that country's problems, they could always hire the modern equivalent of Executive Outcomes. That company sorted out Sierra Leone's security issue very quickly, and very successfully, in the 1990's - until international squeamishness and political correctness got in its way. Bring it back, and there'd be much less turmoil in West Africa as a whole. (There would also be a whole lot of pissed-off leftist politicians and diplomats, which would be a satisfactory bonus.)

Peter

Exit left, pursued by medical hobgoblins

2026-09-24T04:33:00.000-05:00

Very long day yesterday, and a very early start this morning for more medical misadventures. I'm afraid I haven't had time to cook up a blog post for today, so please enjoy yourselves with the bloggers listed in the sidebar.

Peter

Notes to self

2026-09-23T04:55:00.000-05:00

1. If you find an old bottle of Miralax, don't assume that just because it's old, it may not work as well as a fresh product would.

2. Having taken a dose of the old Miralax that morning, don't assume that just because nothing is moving by that evening, it's definitely not working properly.

3. Even though you think the Miralax isn't working properly, don't unthinkingly take two stool softener tablets that same evening to "hurry things along".

4. When you wake earlier than usual next morning, and spend the next half-an-hour or so disgorging quantities of the usual, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

5. When this is repeated later that morning, with even more disgorgement, you still have nobody to blame but yourself.

6. Notwithstanding your despair, don't even think about buying a cork or a plug, because it would probably end up dislodged with about the same chamber pressure as a firearm cartridge (producing equally explosive, albeit less sanitary results).

7. By evening, sad and sore, engrave the memories of this day upon your mind so that you don't do it again!

That is all . . .

Peter

Diesel fuel and overall inflation

2026-09-22T04:15:00.000-05:00

Ed D'Agostino points out that skyrocketing diesel prices will impact our entire economy. It's not the President's fault, nor the Republican Party - it's conditioned by many events all around the world - but it's going to affect all of us.

Unless you own a trucking company, run a farm, operate heavy equipment, or drive a really big pickup truck, you may not have noticed how expensive diesel has become.
On September 15, AAA’s national average diesel price was $6.27 a gallon, compared with about $3.69 a year ago— a roughly 70% increase ... a 70% increase in a single year is an enormous shock to the economy.
Even if diesel prices were to fall from here, the shock will be working its way into grocery bills, freight charges, construction costs and home heating bills for many months.
. . .
What is unique about diesel, and why is its price outpacing oil and gasoline?
EIA expects U.S. distillate inventories (the category that includes diesel and heating oil) to fall below 100 million barrels in October, for the first time since 2003, and remain below the five-year range through the first quarter of 2027.
At the same time, refiners were already running at about 98% of capacity in late August, the highest utilization rate since 2018. In one sense that’s good news: refineries are responding to high prices by making more fuel.
The problem is they are already running near full capacity. That leaves less room to offset another supply disruption: an outage, a hurricane, a refinery accident or a further escalation of conflicts in the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine.
There may not be much relief coming. Several refiners have delayed planned maintenance to keep their refineries operating. At some point, they have to do the maintenance or risk an unplanned failure. Industry executives warn that diesel and heating-oil markets could remain tight well into next year, even if the Iran conflict ends.
. . .
For millions of households, winter means heating oil bills. Heating oil and diesel come from the same distillate pool. The differences are minimal, coming down to dyes for color and additives to help with either engine combustion or tank storage. You can run a diesel engine on heating oil, and you can fire your oil furnace with diesel.
. . .
Last winter, I relied primarily on oil to heat my New England home. It was a cold winter. On many days the electric heat pump did not make economic sense. Oil was the cheaper option. A typical monthly oil delivery was about 150 gallons and cost around $550.
A 60% increase would put a delivery to my home at roughly $900. Ouch! Thankfully, I can pay it. It won’t change my lifestyle. But for many, it will force hard decisions and uncomfortable compromises. If you are on a fixed income or living paycheck-to-paycheck, an increase like that is a serious problem.
For them, from their very real perspective, inflation will be sky high.

There's more at the link.

I'm worried that many voters will blame the Republican Party and President Trump for this, and punish them at the polls this fall. Sure, some of the blame is undoubtedly theirs, but a great deal also belongs to the Democratic Party and his predecessor, who "kicked the can down the road" for four years before his inauguration and did little or nothing to stop Iran's adventurism (particularly using Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis as proxies in their ongoing war with Israel). If President Trump was right about the threat Iran made to him concerning nuclear weapons, he had no choice but to act right away, without delay. A nuclear threat from intransigent religious fanatics can't be dealt with in any other way. However, people with hurting bank balances and empty wallets won't stop to consider that - they'll vote their pain, not something they can't directly and immediately feel for themselves.

I think we're in for a rocky ride until the elections . . .

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 329

2026-09-21T04:22:00.000-05:00

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.

More next week.

Peter

The Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal claims yet more victims

2026-09-18T04:21:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the damage wrought to its finances, the Fresno Diocese of the Catholic Church has just told its pensioners that they're screwed - financially, this time.

Retired Fresno Diocese employees will no longer receive retirement benefits starting next year.
Hundreds of former employees are now left scrambling over what to do with their financial future now up in the air.
In a letter to retirees last month, the diocese said the retirement plan was frozen at the end of June.
The church says they contributed the agreed-upon amount negotiated in employee contracts,
But the diocese says Christian Brothers Services, the company responsible for managing the money, is the reason there isn’t enough to continue payments.
The diocese says it explored legal options to transfer the money into a retirement plan of their own. But said that plan would not be possible with the church filing for bankruptcy.
The church is facing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit involving more than 150 claims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy.

There's more at the link.

I don't have to tell you how sick to my stomach this news makes me feel. I've written extensively about how I experienced the clergy sex abuse scandal, and how it's almost destroyed the faith of countless good people (see the partial list of my articles on that subject in the sidebar, particularly this one). This is just the latest episode in a very sordid story. However, the fact that the Fresno diocese is willing to throw their pensioners to the wolves - people who devoted years of their lives, if not their entire working career. to the service of the Church - is the clearest possible indication that many of the hierarchy are still protecting their own backside(s) (collectively and individually). They don't appear to really, truly care who else suffers, just as long as their positions are protected. The Fresno diocese's attitude - and remember, actions speak louder than words - appears to be, "Are our retirees going to starve, or be unable to pay their medical bills, because we've stopped paying their pensions? Well, let them! We have more important uses for that money!"

Analyzing the overall situation, the National Catholic Reporter didn't mince its words.

The legal processes accomplish what they are designed to do, exact a bit of retribution on behalf of victims. They do not, however, restore or transform survivors. They don't erase haunting, debilitating memories. And they do little to address the most searing questions for which the faithful still await an answer: How did this happen? How could the chief shepherds allow the most vulnerable in the flock to be preyed upon?
As Charles Nadeau, a court-appointed representative of survivors, explained: "Bankruptcy is not inherently unjust ... But when applied to clergy sexual abuse, it risks becoming something else — a substitute for moral accountability."
The San Francisco Archdiocese, faced with a $359 million settlement to hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by clergy, explained that its distribution of financial pain among its parishes was essential to "enabling our local church to emerge from bankruptcy and move beyond this difficult chapter in our history."
The wish to "move beyond this difficult chapter," entirely dependent on heavily taxing those who had nothing to do with creating the problem, is a telling sentiment.
. . .
... it wasn't "the church collectively" that did this. It was the clerical/hierarchical culture. That culture has yet to collectively square up with the reality that the abuse crisis in the church was a betrayal of the community at a sacramental level. It is a level of betrayal that can't occur in any other circumstance.
. . .
The cold reality is that the laity are left to foot the bill, financially and otherwise, for the depraved behavior of their bishops. They are left with struggling parishes, diminished resources for ministry, and the church's loss of credibility in the wider culture.
We know now that the coverup was not the work of an isolated bishop; it was not the province of liberals or conservatives. It was the result of a hierarchical culture that had developed in a way that allowed its members to think they were above reproach or accountability for even the most egregious behavior.
. . .
The bishops need ... a full-on, uncompromising, unadorned examination of the sinful and criminal activity of their predecessors, of the culture they've inherited that allowed such sin and crime to fester for so long.

Again, more at the link.

I get very angry when I hear anyone claiming to speak with or from the "moral authority of the Church". Christ has all the moral authority there is, in this world and the next. However, his Church on earth has, through the actions (and inactions) of its leaders, effectively so betrayed his moral authority, been so derelict in its duty to the people of God, that for many of the faithful, it has abrogated any claim to represent him. Millions (literally) have left the Church over this crisis, and millions more will doubtless follow suit, unless and until its leaders "clean house". So far, they've signally failed to do so.

May Almighty God have mercy on all our souls . . .

Peter

A new book from someone you already know well

2026-09-17T04:38:00.000-05:00

My wife Dorothy has published several books as "Dorothy Grant". They've been well received by her reading audience (which, of course, includes most of you . . . right?)

She's decided to tackle some books that are more adult-oriented than most of our previous output. However, she doesn't want to put off those who are used to her previous style of writing. They might object to the new, more "robust" tone of this book, so she's publishing it under a pseudonym, Summer Grayling. There'll probably be more to follow under that pen-name.

Her first novel under this pseudonym, "True Colours", has just been published. I think of it as a magical-fantasy tactically-correct quasi-romance, and I really like it!

The blurb reads:

Jan Van Der Vaart is a legend. The focus of his magical Talent is pain, and he's spent years in the military, then as a mercenary, making terrorists, cartels, and governments fear him. Finally, he carved out a safe haven for other Talents, and tried to retire... until one last job, cracking a black lab snatching Talents off the streets, went sideways. He's left staggering down a rainy coastal highway, thumb out and hoping he'll catch a lift before the kill team realizes they missed...
Aurelia Brinati is on the run. Having escaped five years of hell as an unwilling lab rat, she has a stolen car and a plan to hide from pursuers by taking passage on a cargo ship headed anywhere else in the world. When she picks up a stray sailor headed the same way, she rapidly discovers she's out of her depths... and safe in the heart of the storm.
The entire world fears him... except her. Powers are gathering to recapture Aurelia, but they'd best beware. Jan and his friends will do whatever it takes to keep her safe... whether it's murder, mayhem, or last-minute shopping runs to find something called cream of tartar for her snickerdoodle cookies.

I happen to think my wife is a better writer than I am. I've really enjoyed all her books, and I'm very proud of her for achieving such success. She was, I think, a bit nervous that I might be offended by some of the so-called "adult" bits in this book, but no, not at all. She handles them with what I might call "enthusiastic restraint"; nothing excessively anatomical, if you will, but nevertheless real. I'm already re-reading "True Colours" for the second time, and enjoying it all over again.

I hope you'll give this book a try. I think you'll like it. There are more coming from her in similar vein, so watch this space for details!

Peter

(P.S.: Yes, I know she's chosen the name of a fish for her pseudonym. It made us both giggle! It's highly appropriate for this book, being set so much at sea.)

Yet another reason to update your emergency supplies

2026-09-16T04:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the Dutch railway network was brought to its knees by coordinated sabotage attacks across the country.

There have been no trains at all across swathes of the northern and central Netherlands after objects were attached to the rails in at least 30 known locations. Remarkably, the national railway operator says that in some places where the obstacles had been cleared, new ones were quickly placed in the same location again once engineers and police had left the scene.
The nationwide coordinated sabotage campaign has used the railway’s own safety systems against it, with metal objects “deliberately placed” across the two tracks. Modern railways use electrical circuits between the two rails to detect where trains are and are not, the presence of a train’s wheels and axle spanning the two tracks closes the circuit and alerts the signalling system to its location.
By manually shorting the circuit, the saboteurs were able to trick the automatic system into turning the signals across the network red to prevent phantom trains from crashing into each other, which in turn forced the real trains to halt as well.
. . .
Because of the nature of the sabotage, which introduced phantom trains to the network, in several locations, level crossings were automatically activated to protect drivers from approaching trains that didn’t exist, spreading the network chaos onto the roads too.
. . .
As well as railway networks, climate extremists have targeted power infrastructure. The decentralised nature of both networks and the widespread disruption possible makes them apparently attractive targets for would-be extremists and left-wing terrorists, given that the widely spread infrastructure is difficult to closely watch, harden, or fortify.
In at least one case, European railways have been sabotaged by state actors, with Russia blamed for a bombing of a Polish railway in a “false flag” attack last year.
Germany’s power networks have also been repeatedly sabotaged by the hard left in recent months. Just last week, it is believed an extremist used dozens of homemade rockets to knock out high-voltage power substations to sabotage coal power plants nationwide, and Berlin’s power network is sometimes subjected to acts of arson with considerable knock-on effects.

There's more at the link.

Americans tend to forget (or ignore) the fact that we've had precisely the same sort of sabotage in this country for a long time now. That may be because the US is so much bigger than most other countries that we don't notice (or take notice of) what's happening in areas other than our own. The methods may differ, but the results are the same - disruption of vital infrastructure. For example:

Follow those links for more information. There's no need to mention the vulnerability of airline transport, so close to the anniversary of 9/11. Things have improved since then, but they're far from foolproof.

The thing is, so far we've experienced relatively uncoordinated attacks against the infrastructure on which our entire society and economy depend. Electricity may be cut in one area, water in another, rail traffic in a third, but until now they've been relative pinpricks from the perspective of the nation as a whole. That won't necessarily remain the case; in fact, it's very unlikely to stay that way. Terrorist nations such as Iran and enemies such as North Korea have had all the time in the world to infiltrate operatives across our southern border, and I've no doubt that several thousand such people are already here. If they were "activated" or "mobilized" by their source nations, they could do immense damage to our society by striking in a coordinated fashion across multiple critical systems.

How could a fire department rush to extinguish a blaze caused by a terrorist bomb when the traffic management system has been disrupted, and the rail system sabotaged to cause all level crossings to shut down, and the water supply to a city to be interrupted by a cyberattack on the main pumping stations?
How could emergency services cope with such a rash of issues all arising at once, particularly if the roads were further disrupted by spreading caltrops (which can easily be produced in mass quantities at negligible cost, using backyard garages and workshops) in strategic locations on the city's road network, disabling enough vehicles to block the road almost completely? They can be dumped out of the back of pickups or rented vans using buckets.

We don't know whether the attacks on Holland's railways were state-sponsored (probably by Russian agents trying to disrupt support for Ukraine) or arose from domestic political terrorism, but it doesn't really matter to those affected by them. Much of the country was brought to a halt at once, without warning.

That could happen to any major city in this country, and even to whole states, if enough people struck at enough critical infrastructure nodes. It would take weeks, if not months, to restore everything to normal operations. During that period, if you rely on critical supplies such as medication, special foods for kids or invalids, or enough gasoline or diesel to get from a remote location (e.g. a farm) to the nearest source of supply, you'd be S.O.L. That's why I make sure that my wife and myself maintain a year's supply of all critical prescription medication, including basic antibiotics in case they should be needed. That practice has come in very useful in the past, for ourselves (being able to take an antibiotic for repeated infections) and to supply friends with medication (for example, during the COVID emergency). Oh - and don't forget critical OTC supplies like painkillers and allergy medications. How miserable would you be if an emergency arose that forced you to spend many hours outside, or without air conditioning or filtration, during peak allergy season? Since both my wife and I have allergy problems, you can bet we stash enough of those meds to see us through a couple of months.

For that matter, it's worth keeping at least one month's worth of food and water on hand, in case of an emergency. Forget the commercial "72-hour" kits (like these, for example); they're better than nothing, but don't hold all you'll need, even for so short a period. They're designed to make you feel like you're prepared, while enriching those who make and supply them. Get the foods you normally eat, particularly canned or dry foods, and put an extra supply away for a rainy day. Also, keep on hand a way to prepare that food if your electric or gas stove suddenly stops working; and have a way to dispose of garbage and human waste. (Yes, that does mean a reserve supply of toilet paper and paper towels, plus a spade to bury everything critical, because it's unlikely regular garbage collection will happen.) Think of all the little things we take for granted in our everyday lives, and ask yourself: "What would I do if I could no longer get this? What would I no longer be able to do? Can I live with that? What about alternatives or substitutes?"

I want to re-emphasize the importance of water supply. We've just seen, in recent weeks, multiple attempted cyberattacks on water supply systems in several states. I'm sure we'll see more. Plan on needing at least two gallons per person per day for all purposes (double the "official" recommendation, which is a minimum to preserve life, and doesn't include luxuries such as washing yourself, laundry, etc.). Unless using sealed containers, empty and refill your water supply every six months or so. Water containers are freely available; some (such as two-liter soda bottles) are free, once you've used up their original contents and cleaned them thoroughly. A very economical solution is to buy 5-gallon buckets with lids (preferably made from food-grade plastic) and reserve them for water storage only. They're not ideal, but they'll do the job. (A full bucket of water weighs over 40 pounds, so if lifting heavy weights is a problem, buy 2-gallon or 3.5-gallon buckets instead.) Finally (and particularly if you can't keep more than a few days' worth of water on hand), have a good-quality water filtration system in case purified water runs out. They range from a few dollars to several hundred. Buy the best your budget can afford, and then buy another one (or a less expensive backup system), because you simply cannot afford to be without drinking water. For almost all of us, it's our single most critical emergency resource - and one of the most neglected.

It's not just natural disasters we have to worry about: it's all the others that can catch us unawares. The Netherlands is finding that out right now.

Peter

Drone technology is moving from tactical to strategic use

2026-09-15T04:26:00.000-05:00

Most of those interested in military and aviation history know how bombing forces developed. At first bombs (very small ones) were dropped on front lines and support positions behind those lines - because the aircraft of the day couldn't reach any further. As aircraft grew bigger, faster and more powerful, strategic bombing - attacking the enemy's population centers, factories, ports, etc. - became the new paradigm. It mattered not whether your bombs actually hit a military target, because every target was now considered to be supporting the enemy's war effort. Destroy an orphanage because it was built right next door to an industrial estate? No problem. Those orphans became "collateral damage" - unintended victims of the war. Those who killed them bore no moral responsibility for their deaths. They were simply "taking the war to the enemy", and that was a justifiable action.

Nuclear weapons didn't alter that scenario, except for the fact that one bomb could now destroy an entire city. Air forces didn't need to send hundreds of aircraft to drop thousands of bombs (and be attacked as they did so, losing many aircraft and their crews to enemy defenses). Instead, aircraft need not be sent at all. A missile could drop a warhead accurately enough to spare the bomber crews from the losses they would otherwise incur.

However, drone technology is evolving so fast that it's changing the nature of technology in war. It's not so much new as evolved . . . but that evolution is happening so quickly that it seems nobody can keep up with it. Take Ukraine, for example. When Russia invaded, Ukraine had effectively no air superiority to speak of, and few modern, high-technology weapons. In their absence, Ukrainians had to develop new technologies as quickly as they could - and they did so very effectively. We all know how Ukrainian drones stalemated the Russian advance in the Donbas area, and have led to a World War I-style trench warfare where neither side dares to advance in strength, for fear of the massive drone counterattack that would ensue.

What's more, Ukraine has now developed much larger, long-range attack drones that have gone far beyond what anyone had expected. Indeed, they've blurred the distinction between "drone" and "cruise missile" until the terms are almost interchangeable. Consider that a few days ago, Ukraine attacked a Russian oil refinery in Saratov, more than 1,700 miles from the launch site of the FP-5 Flamingo drones. The FP-5 is claimed to have a maximum range of some 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles). Is it a drone, or a cruise missile, or both?

Smaller drones have so altered the shape of modern conflict that they may even render nuclear weapons superfluous (at least in terms of the destruction of a nation's ability to wage war). HMS Defiant commented recently:

I see that some people who ought to know better are still nattering about the state of our munitions and our general unreadiness to wage war against China. Yes, yes, I know, dead horse, thoroughly beaten already but I did want to point out that the country that can turn out 80,000,000 iphones in a couple of months probably has no trouble turning out 40,000,000 high end killer drones with 300 mile ranges and 250 pound warheads.
The goal of the SIOP was to bathe in [nuclear] fire targets that needed to be destroyed affirmatively. If one could achieve the same effect by applying precise 250 pound bombs directly to the actual target and not just the neighborhood or city, then the same effect is achieved without all the excess radiation.
This poses a logical mans thinking problem for the evening. Every single HQ and logistics warehouse and fuel dump in Asia and the Western Pacific is in a precise, down to the inch known location on a target map. The putative bad guys have 40,000,000 drones. The other bad apples north of the 38th are known to be making lots of drones of their own and furnishing to their very good friends in Moscow.
. . .
You know another place where the heads lie uneasy at night? Yeah, Taiwan is in easy flight range of 40,000,000 expendable killer drones.
It does make me wonder though. Just what the hell is our answer to those 40,000,000 drones? ... We treat all weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, etc) as nuclear weapons and will retaliate if they are used against us. What possible form will retaliation take if drones alone are enough to execute a complete decapitation strike at just about every level of government overnight?

There's more at the link. Go read it all.

He poses an excellent question, to which (I suspect) nobody in the US government has developed any concrete, practical response as yet. Perhaps they should move faster on that . . .

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 328

2026-09-14T04:37:00.000-05:00

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week. Click any image for a larger view.

More next week.

Peter

Sunday morning music

2026-09-13T05:06:00.000-05:00

Following my health update a few days ago, I could think of only one song that would be appropriate this Sunday. Tongue firmly in cheek, of course!

That's been one of my favorite Jethro Tull tunes over the years.

Peter