Military Veterans and Patriots

Tag: Red Sea

  • Random News And Notes

    Random News And Notes

    We kick off this edition of Random News And Notes with a couple of obituaries.

    Tommy Smothers, half of the Smothers Brothers, died Tuesday at 86. The musician and comedian had been battling cancer. Requescat in Pace.

    https://twitter.com/ReutersShowbiz/status/1740082423050715508?s=20

    Gaston Glock, the man behind Glock pistols, died yesterday at age 94. Glock was a mechanical engineer, and his empire started with an injection molding business that made consumer goods. It wasn’t until 1980 that the company started producing pistols.

    https://twitter.com/NRA/status/1740175906583281780?s=20

    It’s been a busy couple of days in the Bab el Mandeb and the Red Sea. DDG 58, USS Laboon, a Burke class destroyer and a flight of FA-18 Super Hornets from the Eisenhower shot down or otherwise intercepted a bunch of drones and cruise missiles launched from Yemen.

    https://twitter.com/CENTCOM/status/1739746985652158755?s=20

    Here’s the deal though, until the launchers and personnel doing the launching are attacked, this is going to continue. And it’s not sustainable, either operationally or financially. Just one missile or drone leaks through, and that shipping route gets closed. Again.

    Texas authorities have arrested more than 10,000 illegals for criminal trespass in recent weeks. The program, run by the Texas Dept of Public Safety, partners with border landowners. Governor Abbott signed a new law authorizing local judges to order deportation after those arrests. The new law goes into effect in March.

    As I predicted, the Colorado primary case has been appealed to SCOTUS. The Colorado GOP filed the appeal yesterday. They are being represented by the American center for law and justice, the legal foundation run by Jay and Jordan Sekulow. I can’t see the disqualification standing, but IANAL. . .

    Here’s a bit of history for you. Today in 1732 Ben Franklin published the first edition of Poor Richards Almanack.

    The almanack contained weather predictions, witty sayings, poems, proverbs, astronomical information, math exercises, epigrams, calendar information, etc. and was published until 1758.

    I remember writing about the Philly soft drink tax a few years back, and now John Stossel has an update. It’s worth the 5 or so minutes to watch:

    https://twitter.com/JohnStossel/status/1739749423604023339?s=20

    Ford announced they are cutting EV production by half next year. That’s just the latest in a long line of EV production cuts by car makers. There is also the issue of EV inventory on dealer lots. I saw a stat about the number of days cars are sitting on lots across all segments the other day. It seems given the current sales velocity, the average age of EVs is about 240 days. ICE vehicles average about 60 days. That gets costly for dealers, as they typically do not actually own the cars on their lots. The technical term is floorplanning, and it costs the dealer an average of about 6% of their cost for the vehicle a month. With expensive EVs sitting on the lot for 8 months, well you do the math. . .

    Got a story to share? A comment on one of mine? Let us know in the comments below.

  • Random News And Notes

    Random News And Notes

    Let’s start with the elephant in the room. The Colorado supreme court just ruled Trump ineligible for the CO primary ballot. The usual suspects on both sides have already covered this ad nauseam, so I won’t go into much depth here. I personally (IANAL) think they’re out of their ever loving minds. The legal basis they quoted is section 3 of the 14th amendment. This despite no conviction or even charges relating to insurrection. Suffice to say, this is going to end up in front of SCOTUS and damned soon.

    The crisis at the southern border is getting worse.

    If you extrapolate those numbers out, more than 5 million illegals will have entered the country by January 2025. The worst part is, these numbers are only going to go up.

    The 5th circuit court of appeals just issued a stay on the federal removal of concertina wire at the border in Texas. The court ruled that the government cannot “damage, destroy, or otherwise interfere” with the concertina wire fence erected in the Eagle Pass area. There is an exception (that I’m sure will be overused) for medical emergencies. Texas installed the razor wire as part of Operation Lone Star, a border security initiative, to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. 

    A Hamas leader just admitted what we all knew already. Ahmad Kahlot, senior Hamas member and director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabaliya said that Hamas uses hospitals as bases of operations.

    The confession was made while Kahalot was being interrogated by Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security and intelligence agency.

    Terrorist supporters defaced the steps to the Lincoln Memorial last night. They wrote free gaza and other graffiti in red paint. Conservators started the cleanup as soon as the damage was discovered.

    It seems I have something new to report on the Red Sea area every time I do one of these. This time it’s the fact that nearly all large container ship has rerouted away from the Bab el Mandeb and the Red Sea. So much for Prosperity Guardian. (BTW, if you want to know what’s what in international maritime trade, Sal is your one-stop shop. He has a very good YT channel and tweets about the subject regularly.)

    Strieff over at RedState wrote a good piece on the Houthis. Part of that article covers the economics of TF 153. Here’s an excerpt with the relevant info:

    The kind of a purely defensive strategy isn’t sustainable. It does not make sense to fire missiles costing up to $4 million at a drone, but the vertical launch systems (VLS) holding the missiles can’t be replenished at sea. The disruption of the West’s supply chain is not something we should tolerate. For a few dollars more, we could level everything in Yemen associated with missile attacks and piracy.

    What he said. . .

    Got a news story to share or something to say about any of the items above? Drop it in the comments below.

  • Random News And Notes

    Random News And Notes

    SecDef Austin just announced an international maritime coalition task force to help protect shipping in the Red Sea and Bab el Mendeb.

    . . . Therefore, today I am announcing the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian, an important new multinational security initiative under the umbrella of the Combined Maritime Forces and the leadership of its Task Force 153, which focuses on security in the Red Sea.

    Operation Prosperity Guardian is bringing together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain, to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, with the goal of ensuring freedom of navigation for all countries and bolstering regional security and prosperity.

    One thing to note is that several key regional players are not taking part. Egypt, who is a key part of TF 153, can’t be bothered, nor can Saudi Arabia.

    Frankly, this smacks of doing something instead of doing the correct thing. And what is the correct thing you may ask. Well that, friends, is simple, degrade the ability of the Houthis to attack shipping in the region. Yah, I know, that’s just not gonna happen with POTATUS at the helm.

    While we’re on the subject of the Houthis and Yemen, the inbred goat f*ckers just released a hype video. Set to Highway to the Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins, the video shows a lone F-5 (or is it a MiG 28) and its pilot. The single long-obsolete jet then does some maneuvers before the end card that celebrates the Yemeni ‘revolution”. Watch:

    https://twitter.com/Aldanmarki/status/1737071183076405605?s=20

    Community note aside, I have some questions. First, how is that crate even still airworthy? Second, does the pilot realize that he and his plane would be dead before he even knew there was a US plane in the area?

    The Judge in the Epstein case has ordered the unsealing of 167 John Doe names from the Maxwell civil case.

    Before you get too excited, click thru and read Techno fog’s thread. It seems that many of the names do not have any salacious connections. It’s still good news tho. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. . .

    Texas governor Greg Abbott just signed legislation that makes illegal entry into Texas a crime. The law allows state judges the option of jailing offenders or deportation of same. I’m not sure where I land on this one. While the situation at the southern border is dire and unsustainable, the simple fact is immigration is a federal issue. Regardless, there will be lawsuits, a lot of them, over this.

    A volcano in Iceland is erupting near the town of Grindavik, about 25 miles southwest of the capitol Reykjavik. There had been warning signs for a couple of weeks that it was about to go, and officials had evacuated the town in preparation.

    Got a news item you want to share? A comment on any of the stories above? Let us know in the comments below.

  • Random News and Notes

    Random News and Notes

    SCOTUS granted a writ of certiorari in Fischer v. United States on Friday. That case concerns the J6 charge of corruptly obstructing a congressional proceeding or investigation. That law, 18 USC 1512 (c)(2), is part of the Sarbanes Oxley accounting and corporate governance laws that were passed in response to the Enron/Arthur Anderson investigation. J6 prosecutors have been using that law as part of a charge stacking scheme. It seems however, that they may have overreached. SCOTUS has historically been leery of ambiguously worded laws such as this one. Oral arguments are scheduled for the spring session.

    I feel I need to point out the fact that this case could have a huge bearing on Trumps legal issues in DC. The SCO has built the majority of his case on this law.

    By now I’m sure most of you have heard of the incident with POTATUS motorcade in Delaware yesterday. If you haven’t, well, some dope drove into a Secret Service vehicle blocking an intersection. The Protective detail agents responded by pointing their guns as said dope and arresting him. It seems he was drunk at the time. That, however, is not the focus of this section. The Dotard in Chief was asked a question about losing to Trump in the polls mere moments before the crash.

    There are a couple of things that stand out to me about this incident. First, the protective detail took their sweet assed time getting Biden into the Beast and out of the area. That’s Not Good. I am not and never have been a Secret Service agent, but I do have a LOT of protective detail experience, and in a fluid situation like that, you get your protectee off the X as fast as you can and let the rest of the chips fall where they may.

    Second, according to RCP, there is only one poll, an NPR/Marist poll, that doesn’t have Trump, or any other R, beating Biden. The NPR/Marist poll has Biden up by one point, well within the margin of error.

    The inbred goat f*ckers in Yemen have been acting up of late. The Houthis, an Iran backed and supported rebel group, have been attacking international shipping in the southern Red Sea and Bab el Mandeb strait. The attacks have, so far anyway, consisted of attempted boardings, ballistic missiles and drones. They managed to sink one vessel and have damaged several more. Several shipping lines, including the world’s largest, MSC, have rerouted their ships.

    About 10 percent of the world’s sea traffic goes through the Red Sea. Rerouting ships around the Cape of Good Hope lengthens the trip by about twelve days, adding considerable cost to freight and disrupting supply chains. Maritime insurance rates started to increase after the first few attacks. They are now triple the rate from the beginning of October.

    SecDef Lloyd is expected to announce a coalition naval task force to protect the shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Bab el Mandeb. From my perspective, unless and until the Houthis get to the Find Out part of the equation, nothing is going to change.

    Despite the headlines you may have read, the Pope did not give the OK to blessing same-sex marriages. Look, I’m nominally a Catholic, and I dislike what Bergoglio is doing to the Church as much as anyone else, but even for him it would be a step too far.

    The reality is a bit more prosaic. The ok was given to spontaneous blessings. They are limited to “the invocation of a blessing that descends from God upon those who recognizing themselves to be destitute and in need of his help do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit. of those in same-sex relationships.” The Dicastery, a Vatican organization dealing with matters of faith, issued a supplemental clarifying the issue.

    It seems to me, a layman, that the Dicastery is attempting to clean up yet another mess created by Bergoglio.

    A 67 year old woman in Silver Cliff CO was attacked by a mule deer (read more about muleys in Walt’s Icons of the West article here.)this past weekend. The small buck, reported to be a spike buck, punctured the woman’s lung and caused severe bruising on her legs. Colorado wildlife officials are searching for the buck and plan on euthanizing it when they do find it. They believe this particular deer had been fed by humans and habituated to them.

    There are a couple of lessons in this story. First, all wildlife can be dangerous. Treat them with the respect they deserve. Second, it isn’t good to feed most wild animals. As one NYSDEC biologist once told me, a fed bear is a dead bear. the same can be said of many other species.

    Got a news item to share? Thoughts about any of the stories above? Drop them in the comments below.