War

The eight phases of the Song of Roland in one picture; illustration by Simon Marmion from an illuminated manuscript of the Grandes Chroniques de France (15th century), currently preserved in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia

Stolen entire from Essays in Idleness by David Warren.

The task of war

One does well to examine the Song of Roland (the French, XIth century, chanson de geste) before jumping to conclusions about war. I particularly recommend Scott Moncrieff’s translation (1919), which had an introduction by G. K. Chesterton that has been anthologized elsewhere. He neither glorifies nor condemns war, and actually, neither did Roland in the “splendidly inconclusive conclusion.” War contains both good and evil characters and events, and is never finished in this world. Any final victory must wait patiently on God. So long as there are insane barbarians (the present regime in Iran offers an unambiguous example) they will have to be fought. It is inappropriate to “make peace” with such a vicious and deceitful enemy. And when there is fighting, there are casualties. The Lord — and Christ is not a milquetoast — does not require us to omit this task, and did not condemn it in His Bible. Those who fight for the right, deserve honour; those who insist on “peace, peace” regardless of circumstances are cowards who deserve contempt.

It is sad that there are people, even Catholics, who don’t understand this.

Probably should go read the Song of Roland (translation by Jesse Crosland), but I probably won't because it is 78 pages long. 

Water

An Engineering Student's Notes, Technical, Philosophical and Otherwise by John Richards

JMSmith talks about clams and education and included this from the above book:

“I am beginning to think that water-craft, that is, human craft on the water, is much the same as it is in animals. It is absorbed in an insensible way throughout a term of years, or a lifetime, and is not a specific thing to be learned, like building houses or shoeing horses. A kind of second nature. Put a water-skilled man on a steamer, a ship, in a boat, on a raft, or a life buoy, it is all the same. He knows the traits and trends of the water, and how to keep on the surface of it. Geometry, dynamics, mechanics, or even a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, will do him no more good than a heathen’s talisman, unless he has been trained to the water, on and in the water.” - John Richards, An Engineering Student’s Notes, Technical, Philosophical and Otherwise (San Francisco: Industrial Publishing, 1904), p. 155. 

UPS MD-11 Crash Investigation

A fractured spherical bearing race (center, on either side of monoball) began the chain of events that caused UPS 2976 to lose its left engine. Credit: NTSB

You might remember hearing about the giant UPS air freighter that crashed in Louisville, Kentucky, last November. Looks like the NTSB has finished their investigation. My Daily Kona has a post about this. I'm not sure if they figured out who to blame, it's kind of a long post and I didn't read the whole thing. The part that amazes me is the huge volume of records that must be kept to even allow this kind of analysis. It's frankly mind-boggling.

Who Rules Trade Rules?

Containers stacked far and wide

From Jamestown:

The Chinese ‘Rules and Future’ of Global Trade

Executive Summary:

• The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is shaping global trade standards in data control and customs clearance. These standards give preference to Chinese platforms that provide Beijing with end-to-end visibility into global shipping.
• No Western equivalent of this system exists, and the resulting data asymmetry could enable PRC actors to identify supply chain chokepoints, exploit dependencies in critical resources, and circumvent tariffs, sanctions, and export controls.
• Chinese trade platforms gain international power via bilateral adoption agreements, multilateral institutions like the World Customs Organization, and standards-setting bodies led by Alibaba and state-run LOGINK. This ecosystem embeds Chinese platforms and norms into global trade infrastructure, locking in adoption and displacing alternatives.

Sounds like something that the rest of the world should get in front of. Or maybe it doesn't matter if the Chinese establish the standards, they'll probably do a pretty good job. Of course the Chinese could use this system to their advantage, but any centrally planned system is going to have weak spots and properly motivated outsiders will probe and eventually find those weak spots, so people who don't think they are getting a fair shake are going to exploit those weak spots.

Russians get Right to Bear Arms

Pischal Counter-UAV Gun

Not really for the average slob, it essentially enables private armies, as long as they are loyal to the regime. Of course they are going to be loyal. You aren't going to let a rebel force raise an army, are you?

From Meduza, 

Russia has authorized private companies to purchase heavy weapons and equipment to defend against drone attacks, including anti-aircraft artillery systems, gun turrets, radar systems, and electronic warfare systems, the Russian business outlet RBC reported, citing sources.

Previously, businesses were limited to what were described as “passive safeguards for facilities” for their security personnel, including small arms.

Authorities expect the policy, adopted under new regulations, to speed up the supply of weapons and equipment to mobile fire groups — units formed from reservists, volunteers, and employees of private enterprises to protect civilian infrastructure from drones.

One of RBC’s sources said such groups “demonstrate high effectiveness in intercepting fixed-wing drones.”

Ratt Anti-UAV System Exterior

Ratt Anti-UAV System Interior

About Meduza:

Meduza is the world’s largest independent Russian media outlet. Completely outlawed by the Russian state, we operate from abroad to deliver news that censors can’t stop to millions of readers inside Russia and around the globe. You can read our reporting in both Russian and English. 

National Unity

 China is making it a law. From Jamestown:

New Law Engineers Unity

Executive Summary:

• The new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress gives legal form to Xi Jinping’s campaign to “forge a collective national consciousness,” transforming Xi Jinping’s ethnic policy agenda into a binding mandate across the entire Party-state.
• The law further hollows out the older framework of regional ethnic autonomy by subordinating minority languages, cultures, histories, and identities to a singular, Han-dominated vision of the “Zhonghua minzu.”
• Its most revealing feature is the scale of the machinery it mobilizes: schools, textbooks, museums, media platforms, families, cadres, budgets, security organs, and diaspora-facing institutions are all made responsible for producing the desired national consciousness. Unity is no longer treated as a social condition to be preserved, but as an administrative outcome to be engineered, monitored, and enforced.

I wonder if maybe we need a little of this. Meanwhile, I understand why good old Joe Biden allowed massive immigration, he wanted to secure a permanent Democratic majority, or at least that's the prevailing right wing theory. What I don't understand is why the Europeans have allowed massive immigration from Africa and the Arabia. Are they also hoping for a permanent Democratic majority?

Word of the Day

Orwell's crimestop - In George Orwell’s 1984, crimestop is a Newspeak term defined as the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It is a form of protective stupidity or self-censorship, allowing citizens to avoid thoughtcrime (thoughtcontrol) by automatically halting independent, critical, or rebellious thoughts before they fully form.

Ran into this word, crimestop, in an excellent post on Yard Sale of the Mind about Darwin, survival, tribe membership and politics.

Farm Life

An Aberdine bull

Joseph Moore has a good post about farm life:

Snakes. Update.

Robbery

Brinks Armored Car - AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

Armored Car robberies seem to be on the rise, at least in Philadelphia. Looking at what Google tells me, it looks like there are, on average, there are roughly 35 armored car robberies each year in the USA. Now look at this story:

Two Armed Robbers Steal $1.8 Million From Brinks Armored Truck in Philadelphia by Bryan S. Jung

It lists at least six armored car robberies in Philadelphia in 2025. Can't say as I am surprised. Squeeze the proles enough, the pressure will get high enough that some of the them are going get squeezed out at high velocity and start bouncing off the walls.

Problem is nobody knows what to do. What we need is some kind big enterprise that will soak up a huge number of man hours. War has traditionally been the project of choice. Our military uses good number of people, but there are bunch who the military won't accept, for one reason or another. Doesn't mean they aren't capable of violence, does mean their vector is not under the control of the government.

What kind of war is this?

Zelensky says Ukraine has completed repairs on Druzhba pipeline, which carries Russian oil to Europe

Doesn't make any sense to me. It's like two nutcases pretending to strangle each other while squishing a third party between them who is siphoning money out of both their wallets.

P. S. Ten minutes later I came across this one:

Ukraine Billionaire Spends $554 Million For World's Most Expensive Apartment In Monte Carlo

Salvador - Netflix Series

Salvador | Official Trailer | Netflix
Netflix

Intense. Salvador, a former doctor, a recovering alcoholic, is driving an ambulance in Madrid. This show covers just about every hot button / social media topic we have and immigration is front and center. Just when you think you know who the heroes are, the curtain gets pulled back and you find they aren't as squeaky clean as you thought.

We saw this show a couple of months ago. I've been meaning to post this, but then today this story from Modernity popped up and kicked me off my duff.

Spain ERUPTS: Patriots ATTACKED By Socialist Mob Over Mass Illegal Migrant Amnesty by Steve Watson

Violence broke out in the Spanish city of Granada when roughly 40 left-wing Antifa extremists tried to shut down a pre-election rally held by the nationalist party Vox in Plaza de las Pasiegas. Police had to form a cordon between the rival groups as fights broke out, delaying the event by around 30 minutes.

8 episodes 50 minutes each

I-5 Tunnel?

Tunnel Roadway Profile and Upstream Alignment chart

The I-5 bridge between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington is an antique. They've been talking about replacing since forever, but all the talk has gotten nowhere. Maybe we should consider a tunnel. At the least.

Willamette Week has a few words to say on the subject:

Shouldn’t We Be Talking About Constructing a Tunnel Under the Columbia River?

Clark County Today posted a story three years ago:

Is a tunnel actually viable for crossing the Columbia River?

Previous post about the bridge.

Early photos of the river and bridge.

My hare-brained idea for a bridge.

Hex's Library

Hex's Library contains several dozen articles / essays. Looks like some good stuff.

Via Detroit Steve

Millwright

Industrial centrifugal water pumps driven by electric motors

Busted nuckles has a fascinating post up about industrial bearing alignment. Your're thinking 'how could industrial bearing alignment be fascinating?' Go read the horror stories in the comments. You might think differently.

Knitting & Reading

Knitting via view from the porch

Fillyjonk likes to knit. Today she has a few words to say about reading for fun. I wouldn't be surprised if she knit the pigeon.

Orbán

Professor Schlevogt's Compass

Fine story on RT about Hungary and European Union. It's kind of long, so I've only included the introduction. The professor is a heck of a wordsmith, so it's worth reading just to enjoy the flow. As to his argument, I totally agree. Europe is going to the dogs, and quickly.

Prof. Schlevogt’s Compass No. 53: Europe’s dying heart – Hungary’s vote delivers lethal kick

Orbán’s defeat will saddle EU taxpayers with over €100bn in short order – yet this is but the tip of the iceberg.

The speechwriter of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen must have fancied himself (genderspeak: themselves) deserving of a handsome bonus when he placed the following words into his principal’s mouth: “Europe’s heart is beating stronger in Hungary tonight.”

Yet his euphoria – and the delirious jubilation of the liberal European elite at the defeat of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán by his rival Péter Magyar in the 2026 parliamentary elections – will prove short-lived.

If anything, Europe’s “heart” is not beating stronger, but faster, driven by a final surge of adrenaline: the reflex of a chronically diseased system under acute stress. What masquerades as renewed vitality, then, is merely the pathological sign of a failing organism – a last, frantic acceleration before terminal failure.

The Union’s demise will not be averted by rhetoric; it is being hastened by it. In the absence of Viktor Orbán’s restraining role, five mutually reinforcing forces of erosion across multiple landscapes will accelerate, converging to precipitate the EU’s ignominious end.

Handley Page Halton

Handley Page Halton

Kay Aero has a long page about this aircraft with several excellent photos. It was derived from the Halifax bomber and served as an airliner for BOAC after the war. First flight in 1946, last one retired in 1961.

BOAC's flagship Halton, G-AHDU (c/n 1372) 'Falkirk' is captured in flight shortly after delivery - BA Heritage Centre

That is the same airplane in both images.

The name comes from English industrialist Sir Frederick Handley Page, head Handley Page Limited,  known as the father of the heavy bomber.

Oh, How Wonderful The Media

JMSmith on the media:

The Longest, Strongest Hurricane of Lies

“It is a rather serious thing that an ordinary intelligent human being should have to rely on everything else except the public press for his information about public affairs.”

G.K. Chesterton, “A Parenthesis on Minorities” (1926)*

We must at the best of times make do with a diet of very dubious information, what with the fatuous wheedling and whining of our neighbors and relations, the insouciant dishonesty of hired mouthpieces of rapacious commercial interests, the slick mendacity of politicians who propose, with well justified confidence, to remain in office by bamboozling their voters. And to this unwholesome stew we must add the spurious meat that is manufactured for a price by the Ministry of Truth that we call our media. It appears to be the creed of this perfidious rabble that he who blows,

“The longest, strongest hurricane of lies,
May have the highest seat in Paradise.”**

And this, as I said, is the character of the chefs who furnish our food for thought in the best of times. These rascals really get down to business in times of war. This is because they are, for the most part. meretricious salesmen who work on commission. As the great historian Harry Elmer Barnes long ago explained, to no effect whatever:

“If we can but understand how totally and terribly we were ‘taken in’ between 1914 and 1918 by the salesmen of this most holy and idealistic world conflict, we shall be the better prepared to be on our guard against the seductive lies and deceptions which will be put forward by similar groups when urging the necessity of another world catastrophe in order to ‘protect the weak nations,’ ‘crush militarism,’ ‘make the world safe for democracy,’ ‘put an end to all further wars,’ etc.”***

But very few ever understood how totally and terribly they were taken in and many of these inquiring minds soon forgot it. So, when it became desirable to market the next “most holy and idealistic world conflict,” the salesmen were not taxed with fabrication of new “seductive lies and deceptions.” They just once again stirred up the yokels with the old story that a damsel (a “weak nation”) was being distressed by a dragon (“militarism”), and that, upon the death of this one last dragon, the damsel and all yokels would live happily ever after.

Continue here

Espionage is a dirty business

I'm not collaborating
[I am a Palestinian, an honorable patriot, and I do not choose with enemies.]

Drugs, sexual blackmail: shocking confession letter exposes Israel’s Red Crescent spy ring - Kit Klarenberg and Jonathan Urmeneta

This is part of Israel's war against Hamas, the same Hamas that is funded by Iran, the same Iran that we are currently at war with.

Limousine Bolsheviks

Viva la Revolution -  Rolf Schulten/ullstein bild via Getty Images

Winston Marshall visits Cuba and reports on the flotilla of effing morons who think they are helping. He isn't kind.