China has unveiled two new so-called sixth-generation fighter aircraft designed to demonstrate technological prowess and overawe its potential adversaries, but which could be much less. //
China's two major military aircraft manufacturers rolling out prototypes of what is alleged to be the first flyable models of a new-generation fighter aircraft certainly screams "public relations gimmick." At this stage, no one has had a chance to examine the aircraft, so everything we read about it is speculative. Are they real, or are they supposed to create an aura of technological superiority?
We've seen one version of this picture before. The Soviet MiG-25 first appeared at the 50th October Revolution Airshow on July 9, 1967 at Domodedovo airport. It was unexpected, and it was the star.
US intelligence panicked and our defense industry set about designing an aircraft that could overmatch the MiG-25.
Fast-forward to September 6, 1976, when Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected to the West by landing his MiG-25 fighter at Hakodate Airport in Hokkaido, Japan. When Western engineers examined the airplane, they discovered it was crudely made and designed for high speeds.
The tear-down revealed that the braggart was a toothless phony, too heavy to be maneuverable at low altitudes, limited in what it could accomplish up high, and with little range and no midair refueling capability. When later compared to the U.S. teen-series fighters, the F-15, -16 and -18, it was powerless, particularly because the Foxbat had a max-G rating of 4.5, and just 2.2 with full fuel. Excess Gs would rip its half-ton air-to-air missiles from their underwing hardpoints, since the airplane was intended to go fast but in a straight line. //
Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen
·
China is building a drone army in preparation for America's "Pivot to Asia" and "Global NATO"
- Yes, this swarm technology also has civilisation application, although it will also be part of its military
Last edited
7:40 AM · Nov 24, 2024
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35 🗑️ 🫠
1:41 AM · Nov 24, 2024. //
You have to ask yourself why China, the owner of the above "drone swarm," is sinking billions of dollars into developing a manned fighter if they believe the drone is the future of warfare. You also have to ask why a continental power like China is investing in a heavy stealth fighter "with long endurance and comparatively massive internal volume to accommodate a very large fuel load, as well as weapons and sensors" for a future battlefield that we are told will be dominated by drones and hypersonic missiles — unless the new fighters are a head fake designed to catch our attention and divert resources to countering them.
At this point, these aircraft are what the late Don Rumsfeld would call "known unknowns." We know these planes exist, but we have no idea what they mean. What we can count on is defense contractors trying to divert as many Pentagon resources as possible into developing an aircraft that can overmatch these two Chinese planes without having any idea of their capability. //
anon-vwl5
7 hours ago
A long range fighter and a drone swarm are answers to two different tactical problems. //
RedLegADC(M)
16 hours ago
Usually we are tracking, but I'll take some small exception to your conclusion. First of all, the F-15 was not developed simply as a response to the Mig-25 - I suspect you actually know that as well as I do. Secondly, while it is always a cheap but wildly applauded diversion to criticize the greedy defense industry, I would hope you are not saying it was a mistake to develop and deploy the F-15, or that the defense industry and services should ignore emerging threats. //
Random US Citizen
16 hours ago edited
Meh. Call me back when China starts doing air operations from carriers at night, or launching nuclear-powered submarines that don’t sink while docked. I’m not saying their military is a paper tiger in the way that Russia’s obviously is, because quantity has a quality all its own. We know that from the human-wave attacks in Korea.
But we also know that China is on its way over a demographic cliff, that their economy is wallpaper covering up the cracks in the wallpaper covering cracks in the wallpaper, and that their culture of “face” means QC is, at very best, a distant afterthought.
China is an adversary with a zillion-man army, which is a threat to its near neighbors, but there’s no reason to freak out over plywood prototypes shaped as if they were stealthy.
Christmas Day, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight JS-8243 crashed while attempting an emergency landing at Aqtau Airport in Aktau, Kazakhstan. There were 67 passengers and crew aboard; at least 38 died in the crash, and the body count may climb as hospitalized passengers succumb to their injuries. Russian aviation authorities blamed the loss on a massive bird strike, but the intact tail section bore the tell-tale marks of a hit by a missile fired from an SA-22 Greyhound (Russian name: Pantsir) surface-to-air missile system. Read the background in my post: Azerbaijan Airline Crash Was Most Likely Caused by a Russian Missile.
Despite warnings from the Kremlin not to speculate on the cause of the crash, Azerbaijani officials have told the media Flight JS-8243 was brought down by a Russian missile. //
It was the drone attack, not fog, that prevented JS-8243 from landing.
Near Grozny, the plane was hit by a Russian missile. The plane asked to divert to airports at Makhachkala or Mineralnye Vody, but permission was denied, and it was told to land at Aqtau Airport. Essentially, it was forbidden to land in Russian territory. As the plane left the Grozny area, it was subjected to GPS jamming and other electronic warfare effects. "According to data, the plane’s GPS navigation systems were jammed throughout the flight path above the sea."
By now, the plane had lost steering, and the pilot and co-pilot were managing direction and altitude by using engine power. This is what the flight looked like with altitude changes. //
By any standard, the flight crew on JS-8243 were heroic. By keeping the fatally damaged aircraft in the air and accomplishing a controlled crash near the Aqtau Airport, they saved nearly half the people on board. //
flyovercountry
11 hours ago
It needs to be said over and over, the reason why the Russians denied landing anywhere except Kazakhstan is the hope the airplane, and evidence, would be at the bottom of the Caspian Sea.
There is no Palestinian language. There is no distinct Palestinian ethnicity. The term didn't exist before the Roman Empire invented it to tweak rebellious Jews, leveraging the traditional Jewish foes, the Philistines. And yet the international community, especially the left, keeps joining the "Palestinian" activists in calling for a Palestinian homeland, to be carved out of the tiny state of Israel. Most of the Arab-Muslim nations in that part of the world don't recognize Israel, calling it by the Roman name "Palestine," even though before the Romans changed the name, it was called "Judea" — the homeland of the Jews, an appellation that goes back for thousands of years.
To the east of Judea/Palestine/Israel, there are a people who, unlike Palestinians, are ethnically distinct, linguistically distinct, a people who have been recognized as such for thousands of years — Kurdish warriors may have been among the forces that harried the Greek Xenophon during the March of the Ten Thousand in 401 BC, as documented in the Anabasis. The Kurds are like the Palestinians in one primary way: They do not have a homeland. There is no internationally recognized nation of Kurdistan.
So why does the left continually call for a homeland for the Palestinians and not for the Kurds? //
There is, sadly, little chance of the Kurds achieving a nation of their own. There will not be a Kurdistan. The best these people can hope for is a lessening of Turkish hostility and some increased autonomy for Kurdish people in Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. This is a legacy of the Great War, the treaties that carved up the Ottoman Empire, and the rather arbitrary creation of borders by the victorious Allies. Fortunes of war and all that.
But the hypocrisy remains, and it is galling. It's also revealing. The American left, in particular, loves to shout about the need for a Palestinian homeland. Never mind that what passes for Palestinian leadership has turned down offers for a two-state solution many times. The American left, meanwhile, ignores the Kurds, who, again, unlike the Palestinians, are ethnically and linguistically distinct, and have been for thousands of years.
Why? I can only think of one reason. The Kurds, to achieve independence, would have to have territory carved out from majority-Muslim nations: Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. The Palestinians want Israel. All of it. From the river to the sea. Kurdish independence would result in a Kurdish nation. Palestinian independence would result in the destruction (or, at least, the attempted destruction) of Israel.
Once you realize that, the left's hypocrisy starts to make sense. //
Dieter Schultz Jim Stewart
8 hours ago
From what I've read, the Israelis see the Kurds as a stabilizing and blocking force between the Israelis and the Iranians. The Israelis are already working behind the scenes to help establish the Kurds as a blocking force... I expect the Kurds to get something out of the dissolution of Syria. //
anon-89ic
9 hours ago
The Kurds are a real nation. The "Palestinians" are a myth. Those Arabs have a home--in Arabia. They should be deported there. //
norcalguy101
7 hours ago
Please stop referring to the residents of Gaza as “Palestinians”,
They are not Palestinians. The are Sunni Muslims.
In the cast social system of Islam, they are considered to be no better than dogs by the Arab states and Iran, a Persian state.
Rush Limbaugh. RIP, informed his audience long ago the coining the residents of Gaza as Palestinians was a ploy by Yassar Arafat to elicit the emotions of the brain dead in the Western World: liberals.
Please refer to them in the proper ethnic context.
Over the past few days, X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has been the scene of a fairly intense discussion between guys like Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and others who are in favor of "high skill" immigration in the form of a massive increase in H1B visas that allow the hiring of foreign workers and a large number of devoted Trump fans who see H1B visas as a way corporate America has of replacing American workers with what amounts to chattel labor. //
Regardless of my view on the subject (and I do see H1B visas as a way for businesses to depress wages and create a captive and compliant workforce), I admire Musk's willingness to duke it out with all comers. That is something that would have been impossible with Jack Dorsey's Twitter.
Vivek Ramaswamy, though, [hit] a nerve. He believes that Americans are not culturally adapted to working in the tech field.
Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy
·
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.
A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
...
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it.
11:02 AM · Dec 26, 2024 //
Rachel Bovard @rachelbovard
·
According to Census Bureau data, the US has more than 2x as many American workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs. And many of the STEM jobs that do exist go to foreigners, because our immigration system allows them to legally be paid less.
But sure, it’s the tv shows.
Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if…
1:40 PM · Dec 26, 2024
Rep. Mike Collins @RepMikeCollins
·
The United States graduates over half a million STEM students per year. If there is an issue in the tech workforce, then we need to address it at the educational level, not import a problem away.
4:04 PM · Dec 26, 2024. //
On the one hand, Musk and Ramaswamy are right. The US must make it easier for top-shelf talent to come to America. That isn't a problem for major tech players like Google, Meta, etc., because their brand draws the best, and the work environment doesn't tolerate mediocrity. On the other hand, there is no doubt that run-of-the-mill H1Bs are not superior to American workers. Their competitive advantage is that they are cheap and don't cause labor problems.
As much as we don't like to hear it, Ramaswamy has a point about the culture we're developing. One of the responses to his critique was this. //
TheLastRefuge @TheLastRefuge2
·
Dear, @VivekGRamaswamy, my counter take..... 😇
Several years ago, Florida Power and Light won the prestigious international Edward Demming Award for excellence in multi-platform engineering, efficiency superiority and total quality in the process of energy management.
You see, the reviewers couldn’t actually quantify the reason why the Florida-based energy company was so successful. In response the FPL field leadership laughed, took out magic markers and wrote on the back of their hard hats: “WE’RE NOT GOOD, WE’RE RUCKY.”
A few years later, every single Kuwaiti oil field was blown up by Saddam Hussein. Global analysts and think-tanks proclaimed it would take 5 years to cap them all off and restart the Kuwait oil pumping industry. Well, the Kuwaiti’s and Saudi’s called Texans, who had them all capped and back in working order in 6 months.
We are a nation that knows how to get shit done.
A few more years pass, and the Northern Chile mine workers were trapped two miles underground. The eyes of the world began to tear as the word spread. Most began to whisper no one could save them. Who did they call for help? A bunch of hick miners from USA coal country who went down there, worked on the fly, engineered the rescue equipment on site, and saved every one of them.
Yup, that’s our America. Ingenuity born from freedom. //
The problem is we are no longer the America that produced the guys who put out the Kuwaiti oil field fires and rescued Chilean miners. We are a nation that has permitted its primary and secondary education system to be dumbed down to the lowest conceivable denominator and made a high school diploma a participation trophy...and we're trying to do that to our university systems. We don't care about performance or standards, and our traditional work ethic is probably an artifact of white supremacy. //
NightTwister
14 hours ago
What a huge pile of crap. They want to import "engineers" from other countries because they can pay them half the going wage. They're mostly entry-level capable, and companies no longer care if they can actually do the work. For the most part they can't innovate, so they're used for repeatable work. They live 4-5 to a home, and send most of their money back home. This is not an "America First" strategy.
When Trump was in last time he increased the minimum H1B visa salary to $120K. When Biden changed it to $60K which it was before, they flooded in again. Raise the minimum to $150K and you'll suddenly see there are plenty of Americans available for these jobs.
In October 2023, Elon Musk, known for his provocative online behavior and willingness to push boundaries, made a headline-grabbing offer to Wikipedia, the world’s largest free online encyclopedia. Musk proposed to donate $1 billion to the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, but there was a catch: the platform had to change its name to “Dickipedia” for at least one year.
Musk framed the offer as being “in the interests of accuracy,” suggesting that the name change would better reflect what he implied were questionable practices within the Wikimedia Foundation’s financial dealings. //
“Have you ever wondered why the Wikimedia Foundation wants so much money? It certainly isn’t needed to operate Wikipedia. You can literally fit a copy of the entire text on your phone! So, what’s the money for? Inquiring minds want to know…” //
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Stop donating to Wokepedia until they restore balance to their editing authority
Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok
Wikipedia’s annual budget report from 2023—2024 reveals that they spent over $50 million of their total $177 million budget on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Stop donating to Wokepedia
1:32 AM · Dec 24, 2024
Four backcountry airstrips in Idaho’s Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness known as the “Big Creek Four” have been deemed emergency use only as outlined by a recent legal settlement.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit between environmental groups and the U.S. Forest Service, with the State of Idaho intervening on behalf of recreational aviators. In its complaint, environmental advocates have stated that aircraft use of the Big Creek Four is damaging wilderness character, wildlife habitats and the area's legally protected solitude.
The recent ruling notes that the airstrips will remain technically open for emergencies, but recreational access will be prohibited, with both usage and maintenance subject to monitoring—a major setback for recreational flyers. //
bbgun06
A grass strip that is not used recreationally won’t be maintained for emergency use.
I’d hate for a pilot experiencing an emergency to die after attempting a landing there.
scarlson
This is exactly correct. I know many pilots who help maintain back country strips in Idaho and Montana. Pilots are the least impactful on the environment and what exactly is “damaging the wildlife character”? //
jbmcnamee
I would hope that the NPS also banned surface vehicles with ICE motivators, such as four-wheelers, motorcycles, AWD pickups, etc, or this whole thing is pretty much a sham. Ground vehicles do far more damage to the environment that an airplane does. Airplanes don’t leave trails and ruts in the forest, run over animals, possibly spark fires from poorly maintained exhaust pipes or overheated catalytic converters. Pilots rarely leave their trash behind, throw beer bottles and cans in the brush or use the trees and animals as target practice with the gun they brought along “just for fun”. In fact, if you were to ask park rangers what their biggest problems are for keeping the parks “pristine”, i doubt that pilots and airplanes even make the top ten. //
Slipstream
New backcountry rules from people who never leave the city.
Look, I think what’s happening with Joe Biden, nobody thinks he even knows about these clemencies or these pardons. This is the radical left staff that has been running this administration for the last four years. And so I agree with President Trump in what he said about these 37 individuals who have been granted clemency. //
This is outrageous. They should not have a Merry Christmas, to be perfectly blunt with you. But this is because we have the radical left doing all the things they’ve been wanting to do for a very long time on their way out the door while Joe Biden is at the beach or taking a nap or whatever it is he’s doing. This is a travesty. We are a country that doesn't have a president right now.
No matter what I do to this $20 Bill you still want it. Why? It has inherent value.
So do you. No matter what happens, your value does not degrade.
The pine tree vs the oak tree
Wide Awake Media
@wideawake_media
Jordan Peterson: "We're essentially in a CO2 drought by historical standards... We were almost at the point where the plants were going to start to die."
"Now they have been increasing... The major consequences is that the planet is 20% greener than it was in the year 2000... Crop yield has gone up 13%."
"It's the opposite of what was predicted, and the opposite was regarded as a catastrophe. Okay, so the opposite of a catastrophe is good—there's more plants and crops grow better. Okay, so what's the problem exactly?"
Credit:
@jordanbpeterson
@Pints_W_Aquinas
Wide Awake Media
@wideawake_media
Geologist Viv Forbes explains why geologists tend to reject the "man-made climate change" scam:
"They've read a bit of geological history. They've read climate history. They know there is nothing new about today's climate. There's nothing extreme, there's nothing new, the fluctuations are very minor, the temperature is very moderate. And even if it warms up a bit, we'll probably benefit."
Wide Awake Media
@wideawake_media
Award-winning journalist Alex Newman delivers a PERFECT 90 second summary of the climate scam:
"The notion that CO2 is pollution is absolutely preposterous... The idea that [it's] going to destroy the planet or change the temperature of the Earth is totally ludicrous."
"But from a totalitarian perspective, if you can convince people that CO2 is pollution, there's no human activity that doesn't result in CO2 emissions, including living, including dying, turning on a light switch."
"Every single aspect of your life, then, if we submit to the idea that CO2 is pollution, then comes under the regulatory control of the people who claim to be saving us from pollution." //
Roman tidal baths in Malta are still at sea level after 2000 years...
The New Yorker @NewYorker
·
J. Edgar Hoover made the F.B.I. into a powerful but nonpartisan colossus. Kash Patel’s chief goal, by contrast, is to weaponize the Bureau to protect Donald Trump and wreak vengeance on his Administration’s enemies.
newyorker.com
How Would Kash Patel Compare to J. Edgar Hoover?
Readers added context
The New Yorker magazine has reported extensively on Hoover's ideological agenda and how "Hoover’s dirty-tricks campaign was designed to neutralize almost all forms of political dissent," even comparing him to Torquemada.
newyorker.com/magazine/2014/…
newyorker.com/magazine/2022/…
newyorker.com/magazine/2012/…
Context is written by people who use X, and appears when rated helpful by others. Find out more.
5:56 PM · Dec 24, 2024. //
Hoover misused the power of the FBI. Meanwhile, Kash Patel has exposed FBI abuses and wants to hold people accountable who may have broken the law. Indeed, he's the opposite of Hoover; he's seeking to reform the agency and its abuse. So the whole effort to take this approach by The New Yorker is just bizarre. Is it any wonder that Americans no longer trust the legacy media? //
tamkae
4 hours ago
All one has to do is change the names in their article and you get a perfect description of what has been going on with the FBI these past 4+ years.
"Kash Patel’s Christopher Wray's chief goal, by contrast, is to weaponize the Bureau to protect Donald Trump Joe Biden and wreak vengeance on his Administration’s enemies."
The Russian ship Ursa Major sank in the western Mediterranean Tuesday after a series of explosions just above the waterline, and the Russians are blaming "terrorism." The 16,000-ton freighter was 12 days into a 42-day voyage from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok carrying two desperately needed cargo cranes for that port, two 45-ton hatches for a Project 10510 icebreaker that was under construction when three engine room explosions rocked it. Two of the 16-man crew were reported missing and presumed dead. The ship was under US sanctions authorized by Executive Order 14024, imposed in August 2022, for activities related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. //
Terrorism would be code for a Ukrainian attack.
In my view, the description of the incident does not match the video, so it is possible the description was manufactured out of whole cloth or based on bad information from the crew. We'll never have imagery of the alleged holes in the ship's hull. The fact that the Ukrainians haven't boasted about the operation makes me skeptical of their involvement. All that is certain is that Russia lost one of its largest freighters carrying critical cargo for operations in Vladivostok. //
Min Headroom
9 hours ago edited
I have no trouble believing that the Russians managed to sink their own ship, although if the hole(s) really are inward facing this seems unlikely.
A 19” inward facing hole above the water line might suggest some sort of drone strike, but if UKR isn’t crowing about it that seems unlikely too.
But this gets me to the thing I don’t understand: how does a hole above the water line sink a ship in very little time?
So what I’d go to is a flawed narrative, which Russians excel at, and no real information besides the ship is sunk, valuable cargo and all. //
Louise1 Min Headroom
3 hours ago
There might also be holes on the port side, which weren't visible because they were below the water line.
Concrete data shows that the ways to mitigate health care costs are greater competition among health care providers, price reform and transparency, and incorporation of more holistic health approaches to treating a person as a whole human and not as unrelated parts (heart, lungs, kidneys, feet, etc.). Instead of playing a financial and quantitative numbers game of farming through patients like cattle, health care providers should focus on reducing the incidences of chronic metabolic illness, along with mitigating urgent and catastrophic care.
Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. often points to our poor American diets and our over dependence on pharmacology as key reasons why we are metabolically unwell, but it is also our inability to build consistent health habits and do routine screenings which factor into this equation. All of these aspects are where the majority of corporate health care continues to fail, particularly to the degree it continues to align with intrusive government. //
Novant Health appears to be trying a new model of actual people and patient care minus the corporate bureaucracy and government overreach. They're partnership with Jordan is helping to make this happen. //
CaptainCall
8 hours ago
Rip out the bureaucracy and administrative nightmare in the healthcare industry and costs would be reduced by double digit percentages. For example, there are 0ver 70,000 different diagnostic and treatment codes providers must submit in order to get paid by Medicare and other insurers. Reduce the number to 5,000 and thousands of billing specialists are no longer needed, payments are processed faster, fewer errors are recorded and require re-filing. That's just one piece of the puzzle.
There are dozens of other stupid, time wasting, expensive requirements that add to the cost of healthcare and take doctors away from patients. And much of it can be laid at the feet of Obamacare, which purposely created the monster we have today as a means to end private healthcare altogether and move to the single payer, govt-run model the Dems dream of.
Probable Cause CaptainCall
7 hours ago
Adding on... I like to point to all the people involved in health care, who don't actually provide health care. All the employees of the insurance companies. All the billing people on the provider side who submit the claims to the insurers. All the HR people everywhere who deal with health care benefits.
They're not bad people -- the system created their jobs, and someone has to do them. But they don't administer strep tests or reset broken bones. And they have to be paid. //
GregInFla
5 hours ago
Concierge office care is one option, where people pay a fixed fee to the doctor to get office visits covered, with no insurance participation. Also allowing more cash-for-doctor's visits. I believe a doctor cannot charge a cash patient less than Medicare would be billed.
Listmonk is a self-hosted platform designed for newsletter and mailing list management. It’s an ideal solution for individuals looking to curate a subscriber list and efficiently send out email campaigns.
Watch the video tutorial for a visual demonstration.
Explore the official Listmonk documentation for detailed information.
Finnish commandos boarded and seized an oil tanker Thursday that is believed to have temporarily disabled the Estlink-2 power line connecting Finland and Estonia. The vessel in question, the Cook Islands-registered Eagle S, was traveling from St. Petersburg to Port Said, Egypt. The Eagle S is thought to be part of Russia's "shadow fleet" that smuggles Russian crude oil to market. //
This is the fourth time power or telecom cables crossing the Baltic have been damaged by deliberate actions. In October 2023, a Chinese container ship damaged a gas pipeline and two telecom cables between Finland and Estonia by dragging an anchor across them; see Chinese Container Ship Suspected of Deliberately Damaging Estonia-Finland Gas Pipeline. In November 2024, a Chinese ship disabled a 745-mile cable linking Germany and Finland and a 135-mile cable linking Lithuania and the Swedish island of Gotland, again by dragging an anchor across them. In this case, the Danish Navy detained the ship but it doesn't appear to be in any danger of consequences: see Denmark Detains Chinese Ship Suspected in Cable Cutting Incident. Authorities from Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Denmark were finally allowed to board the vessel after a month-long standoff, but they were not allowed to investigate. They are only allowed to observe the Chinese investigation. This goes to my point yesterday as to why we must reach some sort of agreement with Denmark on Greenland because the Chinese own too much of Denmark's economy and, I believe, government to be relied upon to keep China from controlling that vital Arctic region; see Trump Trolls Canada, Denmark, and Panama for Christmas but Behind the Fun He Makes Serious Points. //
In addition to the AIS data showing Eagle S making very curious maneuvers over Estlink-2 and the absence of one of its anchors, the documentary evidence has the profile of an oil smuggler. //
The obvious collaboration of Russian-controlled and Chinese-registered vessels to damage the telecom and power grid running beneath the Baltic Sea threatens NATO and the EU. NATO must take this hybrid war being waged underwater seriously and develop equally serious strategies for combatting it. What can't be tolerated is China stepping in to block investigations and legal actions by affected countries. //
Mildred's Oldest Son
6 hours ago
As the article says, all of these undersea pipelines/cables/internet connections are well charted. The Russian/Chicom/Iranian/whoever, et al are testing the responses to cutting these important, international connections. So far, the west is on the defensive.
As Congress prepares to do its duty, validate the Electoral College vote, and declare Donald Trump the 47th President of the United States, the bitter-clingers pushing the discredited "Trump is an insurrectionist" trope are making a final push to have their peculiar theory taken seriously. The latest iteration of this nonsensical twaddle was posted in The Hill in "Congress does not have to accept Trump's electoral votes."
The theory goes like this: Trump is an insurrectionist. The Constitution disqualifies insurrectionists from holding office, so Trump cannot be president. Given the right light and the correct amount of psilocybin, it makes perfect sense.
To the extent that sane people think there is one, the controversy starts with Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. //
Instead of a fraudulent vote count, they want to use a fraudulent accusation of insurrection. As damaging to the nation as this move might be, this strategy is open. All it takes is 20 percent of the House and Senate members to sign a petition to trigger a vote. If a majority of both houses vote to exclude votes, they can, and the Supreme Court has no role in the process. Their conceit is thinking that once their side does this, everyone will forget about an indisputable electoral victory being set aside by way of backroom dealing. That is the quickest way for armed men to take control of the process and turn us into Pakistan. But that seems to be what the authors want.
The situation can be complicated and hard to follow, but if you read the above excerpts provided by Jerry Dunleavy, it boils down to this: There was a rabid, seemingly inexplicable desire by most of the federal government under Joe Biden to rebuff any suggestion COVID-19 leaked from a lab.
Much of that effort centers on an April 2021 assessment that was presented to Biden and would become the backbone of his administration's response to the origins of the virus. As is revealed above, the FBI had ascertained a lab leak from Wuhan was the most likely explanation, placing a "moderate confidence" in their findings. Notably, that was the highest level of confidence applied by any of the other intelligence arms despite the rest of them backing the "zoonotic theory" of natural origins. Yet, no one from the FBI was even present at the briefing with Biden to present the counter. //
It wasn't just the FBI either. Scientists from the National Center for Medical Intelligence also backed the lab leak theory. They even specifically cited evidence that "gain of function" research was taking place in Wuhan despite that being dismissed as a conspiracy theory by Fauci and others.
The findings of those scientists were scuttled altogether, though, because the Defense Intelligence Agency had come to a different conclusion and seemed to have no stomach for entertaining the lab leak theory. Are you starting to see how this web of intelligence agencies can be manipulated to present a certain narrative regardless of the truth? //
It is impossible to ignore what appears to be a disturbing level of Chinese influence in the Biden administration. Whether that was being dictated from abroad or simply Biden officials being so entangled with the CCP that they felt the need to dismiss the lab leak theory on their own isn't that relevant. What's relevant is that a presidential administration was and remains inundated with people operating as Chinese proxies. That they were willing to manipulate national intelligence on an issue as important as COVID-19 should leave people questioning everything asserted by the federal government. //
Musicman
10 hours ago
I suspect the coverup was less about protecting China and more about protecting Fauci and the NIH. Who do you think funded the “gain of function research that wasn’t really gain of function” at Wuhan? We did. Likely because it would have illegal for us to do that kind of research that makes a virus more virulent and more easily transmitted (but for some technical reason doesn’t meet Fauci’s definition of gain of function).