It feels like Friday. Let’s check in on the shitshow murderfest in Iran:
The U.S. Navy has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry for military escorts through the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war on Iran, saying the risk of attacks is too high for now, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The Navy’s assessments spell continued disruption to Middle East oil exports and reflect a divergence from President Donald Trump’s statements that the U.S. is prepared to provide naval escorts whenever needed to restart regular shipments along the key waterway.
Shipping along the narrow strait has all but halted since the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran more than a week ago, preventing exports of around a fifth of the world’s oil supply and sending global oil prices surging to highs not seen since 2022.
Ehh, no big deal. Trump says it will be all over soon and the markets could agree. I wonder how Iran feels about things:
Iran has begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important energy chokepoint that carries about one-fifth of all crude oil, according to two people familiar with US intelligence reporting on the issue.
The mining is not extensive yet, with a few dozen having been laid in recent days, the sources said. But Iran still retains upward of 80% to 90% of its small boats and mine layers, one of the sources said, so its forces could feasibly lay hundreds of mines in the waterway.
Just a flesh wound. Meanwhile, the strikes from the US and Israel continue in Iran and are on going as we speak, and Israel blasted Beirut for shits and giggles. So that’s all going great.
I forgot Congress can actually legislate:
The Senate is moving toward passing the most significant housing legislation in a generation, grasping for a rare bipartisan deal in a Congress deeply divided ahead of midterm elections where the majority is at stake.
The package of bills, which aims to make it easier to build and finance new housing and bolster existing federal assistance programs, has quietly advanced even as lawmakers clash over other issues, including President Trump’s immigration enforcement tactics and the war in Iran.
The progress of the White House-backed package has been all the more surprising because it would tackle a critical cost-of-living issue at a time when Democrats have made it clear they plan to try to weaponize Americans’ economic stress in their campaigns against Republicans as they push to win control of Congress. So far, Democrats appear to have calculated that they do not want to be seen as standing in the way of enacting what could be the only significant legislation to address affordability ahead of the November balloting, wary of opening themselves to Republican attacks that they are not sincere about addressing the issue.
But fresh obstacles have emerged in recent days. Mr. Trump has declared that he will not sign any legislation until Congress delivers him a voter ID bill that has stalled in the Senate, making it clear that the housing measure is not his top priority. And Republicans have begun feuding among themselves over what should be in the final bill, including whether to include a provision to ban the creation of a federal cryptocurrency, complicating the legislation’s chances of clearing Congress at all.
Have any of you been following this?
Joelle just got home from work so I am going to go hassle her. I am really enjoying the new Young Sherlock series on Amazon Prime- I don’t care what people say, I love the Guy Ritchie style. It’s always fun.
*** Update ***
Two quick bird stories. I was sitting outside watching the birds (I feed them this time very night) and some bird swooped down, grab a finch off the cinderblock fence (it screamed) and took off carrying the dead bird like the eagles carried frodo off the top of Mt. Doom and landed on my neighbor’s roof while I stood up and screamed “hey hey hey put that down.” It never relinquished it’s grip, rested a bit and took off.
It happened so fast I did not get a good look at it and had my sunglasses on and got no real good look at it, but it was a wild thing to witness. It was not that big of a bird, either.
Somewhat relatedly, I may be overfeeding my birds and making them targets of opportunity:
Can birds get diabeetus?
A Ghost to Most
I see the fascists are finally calling it the holy war it obviously is.
WTFGhost
What a kind way of saying DJT has no effing idea what he’s talking about.
Baud
A little bit. I haven’t seen any real analysis though.
Chetan Murthy
I see that the housing bill will forbid the Fed from issuing a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for some time. I spent a good bit of time in the cryptocurrency and blockchain space, and yet I have no -clue- what a CBDC would be, nor what would distinguish it from, y’know, regular currency that exists only in bank accounts. In Europe, they have a thing called SEPA (Single European Payment Area) that allows interbank transfers at very low cost and low, low latency. Nothing like our ACH (feh). I remain puzzled as to why SEPA isn’t what is needed. Ah well.
Scout211
Not really, but the real estate industry is not happy with some of it.
. . .
. . .
That settles it. I’m all for it.
p.a.
Will Fux News start badmouthing the USN for being cowards, like it did the civilian tanker captains?
prostratedragon
In case anyone was wondering …
Chetan Murthy
Amen. There’ll always be whatever demand there is, from poeple who actually need housing. If housing is too expensive for them, and if speculators cannot enter to buy it up, then housing prices will -drop-. Which is what we should want! The rent is too damn high!
Patrick
Everything is shit, but yes, Young Sherlock is good.
rikyrah
@Patrick:thanks for the review
rikyrah
Evening Cole 🤗
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon:
Some context:
Suzanne
@Scout211: I’m for it, too. I also think there should be tax penalties for any properties owned by one family or corporation in excess of two. Exception for housing complexes that have a common address. Corporate landlords will just have to build more multi-family.
Chetan Murthy
@Suzanne: I have shared this before: theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing…
An article about the UK’s history with housing, and how using the tax code to disadvantage private landlords (while leaving owner-occupiers alone) was key to fixing the UK’s housing shortage in the mid-20th-century. Which, once it was fixed, Thatcher went about breaking.
Shorter: what you wrote, -and- the history shows that what you suggest is important and it -works-.
Jackie
Any election results from MS or Georgia?
Martin
We should ask some of our Navy nerds about the current state of US minesweepers, because I get the sense that’s sort of a big gap in our capability right now.
Ohio Mom
Disability housing nonprofits are in the business of building (or rehabbing) accessible houses for rent at affordable rates — that is, they build to rent.
I wonder how (should it pass) this law would affect them. Hopefully, they are excluded.
I am sure big real estate will find a way around all of it.
Chetan Murthy
In the UK, the disadvantageous tax treatment was for private landlords: “social housing” was not thus disadvantaged, and the laws resulted in a large increase in social housing stock.
WTFGhost
@rikyrah: Oh, so now you’re calling out the EVENING too, hmm? And just to Cole! Well, I know you! You’re trying to build a bigger sense of community! What are you, an anti-Republican?
MisterForkbeard
@Suzanne: I might go for 3 houses before penalties kick in, but yeah.
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy: You have shared that piece before and it’s good! Howev…..the U.S. has the Faircloth Limit on public housing units so we won’t get more until that’s repealed.
Might need an exception for Section 8 landlords, and similar programs.
Chetan Murthy
@Suzanne: For my sins, I have a vague memory of Lauch Faircloth: that he was a baddie. Sigh.
JoyceH
@Martin: I was also wondering about minesweepers. We sent a huge naval armada, first to the Caribbean and then to the Gulf region, but did they bother with minesweepers? Modern presidents seem to think that all a military has to do is attack, never mind about defend. Come to think of it, is anyone working on a new class of ship – the dronesweeper?
Martin
@Scout211: Careful of these. I think a prior draft of this bill blocked state regulation of institutional housing buyers, and provided some carve outs for those institutions. Not sure if they’re in this, but read the fine print. The Real Estate industry was pushing for preemptive regulation that was rather weak to block stronger efforts as well as preventing states from setting local regulation, so I’m very skeptical of anything that they offer even qualified support for.
Geminid
My Atlanta friend texted me and said the primary to replace Marjorie Taylor has been called. It was a jungle primary, with the top two finishers advancing to a May runoff.
Partial results showed Democrat Shawn Harris in first place with 41.5 percent of the vote, and Republican Clayton Fuller second with 33.5%. Fuller had Trump’s endorsement
Republican state Senator Colton Moore was polling only 9.7%, which I expect was disappointing. I know I was disappointed. Moore has a cattle farm, and so does Harris. I was hoping for a rancher-on-rancher contest, like in a Louis L’Amour western:
Harris: “Moore, you and them Republicans you run with are swingiing too wide a loop!”
Moore: “I ride for the brand, Harris!”
Instead it will be military on military. Shawn Harris is a retired Army general, while Fuller is Air Force Reserve.
GA-14 is a very Republican district which Trump won by over 25 points last time. It runs from outer Cobb County, near Atlanta, northwest to the Alabama and Tennessee state lines.
Chetan Murthy
@JoyceH: @Martin: The subject of minesweepers comes up itinerantly, and every time it seems that the Navy has nowhere near enough, and the ones it’s got are superannuated like nobody’s business. I also remember that the LCS was supposed to have a minesweeper variant. That went well.
I doubt that state of affairs has changed.
Another Scott
JC quoting FTFNYT:
(Emphasis added.)
Of course, if there are any bumps along the way, it’s the Democrats’ fault because having the razor-thin majority craft legislation that actually gets buy-in from the minority party is just Crazy-Talk.
(Emphasis added.)
Non-sequitur much??
A president must affirmatively veto legislation within 10 days, unless he issues a pocket veto when the legislature is out of session.
(Probably because the House and Senate (almost) never “officially” adjourn anymore.)
History.House.gov:
Wikipedia:
I guess we’ll see what happens, but I don’t see the House and Senate just sitting back and letting 47 crap on something like this that might actually do a little good in reducing pressure on housing (assuming the poison pills are kept out). (Of course, much more needs to be done on housing.)
[/soapbox]
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
dmsilev
@Martin:
(a) “Mr. President, we must not allow a mine-sweep gap!”
(b) Thanks to Microsoft Windows, we have a whole generation of expert minesweepers trained and ready.
More seriously, yeah the Navy’s minesweepers are something like 40 years old, and long overdue for replacement.
Martin
@JoyceH: Kind of. We’re decommissioning our old class, and the plan was to use LCS configured for minesweeping, but the Navy had killed further LCS orders, and the minesweeping package may or may not work – they stopped taking orders on it as well. And it does include a sort of drone sweeping component (that might be the part that doesn’t work).
Apparently all of the minesweepers that we did have stationed in Bahrain just arrived at US east coast ports, which has a bunch of people screaming that the US secretly wants the straight to mined. I’m sure we’ve got a few commenters here that read the right navy forums to set us straight.
grotto
yes
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38686885/
wombat probability cloud
Kestrel, or Sharp-shinned Hawk, maybe? The former is pretty small, the latter medium but svelte.
Scout211
@JoyceH:
Don’t Sweep Minesweepers Under the Rug: America’s Critical Naval Vulnerability
. . .
Mr. Scout was on a minesweeper in Vietnam but those were wooden ships. He has been active in a group that is restoring a minesweeper for an historical museum and those ships were small. But were very useful the Vietnam war.
Timill
“Free oysters, to any man 80 years old, accompanied by his father,” the restaurant said.
The offer now has its first taker…
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Minesweeping has been one of those capabilities that the USN has let atrophy badly since the end of the Cold War. There are only 4 Avenger class minesweepers left from the ’80s, all in the process of being retired. Their roles are supposed to be replaced by the deeply troubled Littoral Combatant Ships, w/ 1 of the 2 classes in the process of being retired (a few years after construction) due to their troubled performance.
Overall, laying mines is a major escalation. Sea mines (like their land counterparts) are a pain to detect to remove even in the best case scenarios, & time consuming. If Iran lays many of them, the Strait of Hormuz could prove a dangerous body of water for months after hostilities end, & that drives up insurance premiums at least, if not deter transit altogether.
I suspect Iran will keep mass minelaying in its back pocket for the time being, though.
WTFGhost
One thing I’ve loved in the past few days are the stories about how someone ordered vehicles that should make a cop proud, with display of their department, and the reason for their authority, as well as letting you know their primary mission. And ICE is all, “no, no, no, we have to be the secret police!”
If you have to sneak in under cover of the night, it’s a good cue that you’re not one of the good guys. If you can’t wear your badge of authority proudly, it’s a good sign that you’re not one of the good guys. If you walk around masked, ashamed for people to know what kind of creepy lawbreaker you are, that’s an indication that you’re one of the anti-good guys.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: LCS does have a variant but what I’ve read is that the navy cancelled additional orders of the package that gives it that capability due to problems. ‘Problems’ covers a large area though. Maybe it’s fine? Maybe it was just trash that Congress was dumping on them? That happens.
But here’s 4 of our minesweepers 6 weeks ago.
I can’t help the feeling this whole thing was organized in a banquet room at MAL by 4 dipshits and a pervert.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: CBDC was all the rage in the late ’10s, but deployment has stalled. Even in the PRC, one of the strongest proponents, there has been little progress since the start of limited trials a couple of years ago. For countries where financial transactions are already cheap & speedy on digital platforms (ironically, the developing countries that have skipped credit cards & wire transfers), CBDC is essentially a solution looking for problems to solve.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: The LCS is absolutely trash that Congress has dumped on the Navy, but Obama’s Navy Secretary Ray Mabus had also pushed the program forward, despite the obvious problems.
Another Scott
@Chetan Murthy:
Made me look.
TWZ.com (from February 9):
More at Navy.mil (that link wants to print the article – just escape out of it. I couldn’t find a better one.)
HTH a little.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s practically impossible to blockchain physical currency, and we don’t want to develop a blockchain gap with our enemies.
I guarantee that’s the problem it seeks to solve by people who can’t grasp what an incredibly simple concept it is.
Ella in New Mexico
But but but-Major Catastrophe Warhorse gets a giant hard on bombing tiny little boats in the middle of the ocean when they’re full of unarmed fishermen, why can’t he do it now that they’re full of actually dangerous terrorists?
Chetan Murthy
Long, long ago, I read a book by David Nacamuli titled _Payment Systems_. It was an encyclopedic treatment of basically all the payment systems in the West, and for some of them, a historical retelling of their evolution. And so, for Europe he laid out the history that led to the SEPA platform. He’s a dry writer, but that dryness served well to eventually drive home in -excruciating- detail that the most important roadblock to payment system efficiency was borders, and guys sitting at the border demanding a percentage of every transaction that passed.
The reason that the EU was able to enact SEPA, comes down to -history-. When the EC started, bureaucrats from all over the EC moved to Brussels to do their jobs. But they still had to pay for their families, mortgages, school fees, taxes, etc, back in their home countries. And so they learned firsthand and with great pain, the problems of payment systems all over the continent — which were at the time a massive snarled mess. Such a mess. So they had personal incentives to fix the damn thing, and that’s why they went about creating SEPA.
AFAICT there is no modern developed nation that needs a CBDC: they -already- have one, it’s called “accounts for banks at the central bank”. What they need, is to build the transaction platform to allow low-cost, low-latency payments between accountholders at banks, and to smack all the assholes with their hands out wanting to get paid, or wanting to delay trans by minutes, hours, or days.
SEPA shows that the roadblock is entirely political — that is to say, entrenched and corrupt interests.
ETA: so for instance, one of the reasons that ACH isn’t near-instantaneous (even though it’s computerized with modern hardware, software, and networks) is so that banks can -order- their transactions in order to maximize their capital. It’s entirely for their own benefit, got nothing to do with actual technical requirements.
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy: I am recently home from The State I Hate and I am too tired to dig it up….. but I looked this up a few years ago, and I seem to recall that the U.S. has many more people housed through Section 8 than via public housing. And public housing isn’t evenly distributed, some places have a lot and other places have basically none and there isn’t a housing board or agency to even run it.
So we get a lot of weird projects with requirements for a percentage of units to be below market rate.
And the neighbors oppose the bougie “luxury” projects on the grounds that they’ll mess with views and traffic and parking, etc., (“developer shills and gentrifiers!”) and then they oppose the affordable projects because then Those People will live nearby (“Drugs! Crime! Did I mention the schools!”).
Whatever. I’m tired and I’m going to bed early.
Math Guy
Maybe the (predator) bird was a Merlin? We watched one snatch a dove mid-flight once. On another occasion we saw one in the back yard feeding on what looked to have been a robin. My daughter, a child at the time, went out afterwards to inspect the remains and came back to tell us that there were only a few feathers left, and not even a beak!
xephyr
Hawks have to eat too John. We’re all just trying to make a living…
Just look at that parking lot
@Another Scott: How many LCS are operating ? I thought the navy had decided not to fix most of them due to cost issues and just how poorly they performed.
Scout211
They have supposedly taken out some of the mine-laying ships
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan Murthy: Absolutely. How else would US credit card companies be able to charge usurious rates & high transaction fees?
It was the lack of a robust system of personal credit scores that prevented the popularization of credit cards in the PRC (& other developing countries), which in turn forced Chinese companies such as Alibaba & Tencent to develop digital wallets & QR code based fee free digital payment systems (directly linked to bank accounts) for their platforms to facilitate the expansion of e-commerce. These features quickly eliminated the use of cash or the need for credit cards. I personally have not used cash in the PRC in > 10 years. Chinese companies then proliferated the QR code based digital payment systems to the rest of the world (E/S/SE Asia, Africa, etc.).
When just about all monetary transactions are already digitized, there is really no need for CBDC.
Geminid
I saw this on the Turkish site Conflict:
Reuters posted a similar report this morning.
Another Scott
@Just look at that parking lot:
News.USNI.org says 7 (from January 27):
More at the link.
HTH a little.
Best wishes,
Scott.
H.E.Wolf
That’s a shame. You’re just plumb outta luck. [throws in poker hand, heads for the high country]
Jackie
@Geminid: This is an interesting point re the Georgia SE:
Oh, so SAD! ;-D
Chetan R Murthy
They are in the US, but go thru credit card companies. This is why we cannot have nice things.
BlueGuitarist
Democrats flipped another state legislative seat. Wolfeboro, NH:
Bobbi Boudman won a Trump +9 district.
Wapiti
@Scout211: When I was in the Sinai (~1996), the Italians provided the naval contingent to the MFO, patrolling the Gulf of Aqaba (to the east of the Sinai). They had 3 wood-hulled minesweepers for that duty.
Jackie
@BlueGuitarist:
YAY!
Another Scott
@BlueGuitarist: 👍 👍
Thanks.
Forward!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
prostratedragon
Joyce Vance: “Bye, Girl”.
YY_Sima Qian
@Chetan R Murthy: Yeah, the going through credit card companies part is the key problem, a pathology Dem senators from Delaware & Montana did their part in perpetuating.
When Alibaba & Tencent offer consumer credit, the APR is only in the high single digits, not the low 20s as in the U.S., & they have far less visibility to the credit worthiness of their customers (basically limited to purchase & payment histories on their respective platforms) than U.S. companies.
Jackie
I can’t link to the article, but
Good for Bennie!👏🏻👏🏻
lowtechcyclist
@MisterForkbeard:
I’d say if you want to go past 4 houses, you must exchange them for a hotel.
Scout211
@Jackie: here you go:
Link to the AP story
Chetan R Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: I googled, and in the EU:
(1) credit card interchange fees are capped at 0.3%
(2) credit card interest rates are 18%-29% (like in the US)
(3) debit card interchange fees are capped at 0.2%
BUT (4) for lots of payments, people go directly bank-account-to-bank-account: it is common to provide someone with your IBAN for interbank transfer, and this goes thru SEPA.
So it’s entirely possible to have debit/credit cards, -and- near-instant interbank transfer.
Ella in New Mexico
Looks like someone did a few too many half naked chin ups for his dumb videos.
Lets see if he accepts the preventative antibiotic for the surgery or if he white knuckles it through his wound infection with raw milk and ivermectin.
Chetan R Murthy
@Ella in New Mexico: paywall + adblocker makes the top of the article visible for only a few seconds, but it seems he’s gotta get rotator cuff surgery? Heh, one way that happens is when you try to do too much with your shoulder — more than your stabilizer muscles can handle, or with really bad form.
Gosh, just as you say, maybe it’s all those pullups he does where he just throws his body around instead of executing smooth and slow pullups.
catclub
@wombat probability cloud: I thought in honor of the war, a chicken hawk
Martin
@Suzanne: How many places can even legally build public housing? I suspect the distribution is based on population trends in the 1960s and 70s.
I have a simple solution – for a 10 year period, we can only build row homes – must be 3-5 stories, max 18′ wide with masonry walls, max 1000 sq ft per floor, minimum 2 units, owner/landlord must live in building if a unit is rented. No R1, no 5-over-1s. Crank those fuckers out. Cheap to build and own. Flood the market.
Martin
@Scout211: My understanding is that a ‘mine laying ship’ to Iran is a small speedboat, and they have hundreds and hundreds of them because they’ve dealt with the USN on this before there, and worked out that we’re not very good at dealing with large numbers of cheap targets.
Jackie
OOOPS!
The WSJ link above was not paywalled for me. Well worth the click. Anytime the WSJ calls FFOTUS and his minions idiots… they’re usually correct.
Martin
@Chetan R Murthy: An awful lot goes though ACH, which is run by the federal reserve.
141 million transactions per day, pretty cheap transaction cost.
Jackie
@Ella in New Mexico:
Bwahahahaaa! Maybe his soaking wet jeans pulled too much weight on his rotator cuff. Kinda a drag…
Chetan R Murthy
@Martin: Sure, but the rules of ACH were written for decades-ago, and allow the participating banks to pull all manner of shenanigans. it’s also a batch system. It’s long past time to replace it with an online system like SEPA.
ETA: ACH, unlike credit cards, doesn’t have those fees. But it’s not low-latency.
ETA2: for that matter, credit cards aren’t actually low-latency either, right? merchants don’t get paid instantly — it takes 2-3 days. Interbank transfer in Europe is near-instant.
Chetan R Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: I got the author wrong. It’s -Alec-, not -David- Nacamuli. Really good book for anybody who wants to understand the payment systems that underpin the Western financial system.
Scout211
That makes sense. The announcement seemed overly enthusiastic to make it seem like a big win. That’s why I added “supposedly” because it seemed over the top. I also read earlier that most of the boats (not ships, apparently) were idle at the time.
HopefullyNotCassandra
Ravens, crows and parrots can get diabetes. Other birds? I don’t know.
Martin
@Chetan R Murthy: I think most ACH are same-day. Not instant, but not intolerable.
Kayla Rudbek
@prostratedragon: although the Navy has research facilities in other land-locked areas too…there was a patent attorney job at China Lake, CA which used to open up quite a lot.
Chetan R Murthy
@Martin: ACH is 1-3 days. SEPA is …. near-instant: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area
ten seconds, from what I read. The upshot is that (e.g. in France) you can use your IBAN (International Bank Account Number) to pay your plumber for work he does at your house. And people do. That doesn’t work with ACH, b/c it isn’t near-instant. When people talk about CBDC, they’re talking about something that will have that near-instant property.
The deep difference is that ACH remains a batch system, where SEPA is an online system.
frosty
@lowtechcyclist: Nicely done! Good historical reference. BTW, don’t get the Greens, they’re a rapid path to bankruptcy.
Ohio Mom
@Suzanne: I have a vague memory of AOC writing a NYT OpEd that explained that some law or another was changed that ended funding for public housing.
I’ll look for it but I am also very tired and sleep beckons.
Jackie
More Epstein Zorro Ranch news:
The plot thickens…
frosty
@catclub: The internet tells me a chicken hawk is either a Cooper’s, Sharpie, or Red-tailed, so the Sharpie is a chicken hawk possibility.
Merlins and falcons are bird-on-bird predators, so if it was small that’s more likely.
frosty
@Martin:
1,000 SF per floor?? Where are you? That’s huge. Neither of my two rowhouses (1926 and 1939) were that big. My 1923 Foursquare was about 525 per floor… before we built the addition to add another ~500 or so.
Gin & Tonic
Another glorious, cloudless, warm day, temps in the low 60’s. Which makes the skiing weird. Plenty of young people in t-shirts, but I’m not nearly that foolhardy, though regulating your body temperature is a real challenge in such conditions. Probably should have worn some sunscreen.
Gin & Tonic
@Chetan R Murthy: Hell, even Ukraine is more advanced in banking than the US, and has been for years. “Send me money for this” doesn’t require any rent-seeking vendors like PayPal, just give someone your bank name and account number, and there you go. When I tell my friends there that I can’t do that, they are surprised.
smike
@lowtechcyclist: Rim shot!
Chetan R Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: You made me look: bank.gov.ua/en/payments/sep
So, like SEPA, an RTGS. Unlike ACH, which is a netting system.
Jackie
Bondi is feeling threatened:
Sounds like the FFOTUS administration is a bunch of chickenshits.
prostratedragon
@Kayla Rudbek: Oh, UM has a fine naval architecture school in Ann Arbor. But big enough water is nearby, and many engineering facilities can be constructed.
wjca
@WTFGhost:
For openers, he has no clue what kinds of ships would be required for escort duty, let alone how
manyfew we have. Even if we had a plan (we didn’t and don’t), and had actually prepared to execute it by moving in all of our vessels, worldwide, which are suitable for escort service (we didn’t), there just aren’t enough of them in our inventory.Not to mention that the Russian Black Sea fleet has already demonstrated just how robust naval vessels are in the face of drone attacks. News flash: Iran has some serious drone expertise.
prostratedragon
Rep. Melanie Stansbury:
More in The New Republic.
SFAW
@H.E.Wolf:
I sure do hope it weren’t Aces and eights, pardner.
Melancholy Jaques
@frosty:
This is a chicken hawk.
YY_Sima Qian
Are they this stupid, of course they are (gift link to NYT article below):
prostratedragon
Rubio: “Let me tell you, Iran is run by lunatics, religious fanatic lunatics. [See accompanying image]”
SFAW
@prostratedragon:
Brings me back to when Bob Dole got funding for a submarine base in Kansas. [Not really; that was from someone like Art Buchwald or Russell Baker. I thought it was pretty funny at the time.]
One interesting thing I learned a number of years ago: a former brother-in-law worked for a sonobuoy manufacturer. The company would test their products in Indiana.
YY_Sima Qian
US recklessness in the ME undermining its global alliances:
Alongside everything else Trump has been doing:
Including noises coming out of DC about employing USFK operating out of bases in the ROK to strike the PRC in a Taiwan contingency, & pressuring the ROK to participate. South Korea wants the US forces there to deter the DPRK, not get dragged into a high intensity war w/ the PRC.
Every US ally/partner has to reevaluate what they are getting out of the alliance/partnership.
frosty
@Gin & Tonic: I went Spring skiing in Brianhead Utah in my youth. Girls were skiing in bikinis.
SeattleDem
My son does economic research for the Bank of International Settlements and recently published a paper about competing digital monies, including CBDCs. The paper is at bis.org/publ/work1301.htm. My reading of it suggests that big banks and the credit card processing businesses would likely take it a bath if the US were to create CBDCs.
Martin
@Kayla Rudbek: China Lake isn’t landlocked. There’s a lake! It’s in the name!
wjca
Those may be fine in much of the country. But in earthquake country, masonry and brick are terrible ideas.
Chetan R Murthy
@SeattleDem: I read the page (but didn’t click thru to the paper). I can only agree completely (but I’m a civilian, and your son works in the field, so happy to see this work)!
MoCaAce
Hawks and falcons have to eat too! Look at it this way… the hawk will eat two or three little birbs a day. Maybe at your feeder, the park, or that overgrown lot down the road. By feeding the little birbs you help maintain a healthy population that can withstand normal predation. Consider yourself lucky if you get to witness the predators in action.
Circle of life baby!
Martin
@Ohio Mom: nationalhomeless.org/repeal-faircloth-amendment/
A lot of states have similar laws. California requires public approval for any public housing project, effectively banning them. The legislature here forwarded a repeal to that for ballot initiative but they pulled it back for a reason I can’t remember…
Martin
@frosty: Max 1000. Just to make sure nobody goes and tries to shoehorn a mansion into that, since I’m banning any other kind of housing being built.
prostratedragon
@SFAW: You can do a lot with a tank. Except practice rescue parajumping.
Greg Smith
@wombat probability cloud: That’s what I was thinking. Sounds like a Kestrel or Sharpie.
Martin
@prostratedragon: Only if you’re a coward.
wombat probability cloud
@Greg Smith: Someone above asked “Merlin?” Looks like that’s a possibility for AZ this time of year, too. They are ruthless with the songbirds here in the northwoods. I find the sharp-shinned and Coopers exhilarating in that my brain usually only registers them after they’ve flown by. Very impressive.
SFAW
@prostratedragon:
Understood. But I think this was in an actual body of water. I think it was man-made, but maybe that means it was indistinguishable from a tank? Don’t know/remember.
YY_Sima Qian
How Latin American countries are navigating the challenge posed by MAGA (gift link to NYT Opinion piece below):
NotMax
Oh joy (not). Weather mass a-coming tomorrow, through the weekend.
> Flood Watch entire state through Saturday
> Prolonged heavy rain event through the weekend could lead to significant flooding especially over the leeward sides of the islands.
> Western half: Strong South winds/gusts to 45 mph and possible severe thunderstorms Wednesday
> An even stronger disturbance statewide is expected Friday into Saturday with major flooding and damaging winds expected.
NWS: Weather and Flood Watch for Maui County specifically
• Flood watch in effect statewide from Wednesday morning through Saturday (possibly extending to Sunday).
• Expect south-to-south-southwest winds enhancing rainfall on south-facing slopes and leeward areas.
• Forecast split into two phases: heavy rain Wed, lull Thu, renewed intensity Fri–Sat.
• Impacts: overflowing streams, flooded roads, property damage, landslides, boulder falls, gusty winds, thunderstorms.
• Rainfall outlook: 8–10″ common, up to 15–20″ in western islands; worst-case up to 30″ on Molokai.
• Thunderstorm threat moderate first half, higher second half with potential for damaging winds, hail, isolated tornadoes (low confidence).
• Timing: rain arrives ~6am Wed for Molokai, spreads eastward by noon on Maui, and around 9am on Lana‘i.
YY_Sima Qian
@YY_Sima Qian: We are all witnessing Idiocracy in real time:
Mr. Bemused Senior
@YY_Sima Qian:
JFC I could have told them that. Google “iran-iraq war strait of hormuz”. Sheesh.
Chetan R Murthy
@YY_Sima Qian: DW News interview with Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group. Just chilling listening to his …. very down-to-earth and brutal assessment. Very much in the vein of what Murphy wrote, but no sugar-coating at all.
youtube.com/watch?v=rPyR9ezOh1k
Redshift
@Another Scott:
I know the thread is dead, but I had to re-up this to rant — could the NYT possibly be more appalling here:
The same NYT that sniffs at how mean and vulgar politics has become (both sides, of course) describes the traditional and perfectly civil practice of running on the issues you’re strong on, and where it is a clear fact that Dems want to help people and Republicans don’t give a rat’s ass as “weaponiz[ing] Americans’ economic stress.”
And then have the gall to say in a straight news story that “it appears” (i.e., no one is saying this) that the only reason they’re cooperating on bipartisan action is because blocking it might make them look bad, not, you know, because they actually care about making people’s lives better, and unlike Republicans would like to do it sooner, not leave people to suffer until helping them is more politically advantageous.
Feh.
smike
@NotMax: Gee Willikers!
Redshift
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I KNOW! I haven’t made a particular effort to remember things I learned from past unnecessary Middle East debacles, and even I could tell you off the top of my head that the big reason not to go to war with Iran is they could close the Strait of Hormuz.
Sister Golden Bear
@Martin: As someone who once lived nearby, I can assure you that the only reason China Lake isn’t landlocked is that it is land, i.e. it’s been a dry lake for centuries.
Eric NNY
Lookit, the right way is “THE diabeetus”. C’mon u grew up across da river from me chrissakes.
prostratedragon
@SFAW: Actually, Indiana should have some played-out limestone quarries.
Redshift
I don’t see a lot of coverage (other than on BBC) about how Trump is talking about all these conquests being “his legacy,” which is probably the only explanation that isn’t mostly lies.
There have been a series of actions in both his terms, not just military, that are, in general terms, things that Republicans of some stripe have long said should be done. They haven’t been done because there are terrible consequences (including political ones) that make them not worth doing, no matter what your ideology dictates. But Trump assumes the only reason they weren’t done is because other presidents weren’t as strong and tough as him, so surely he’ll be revered as a conquering hero. He doesn’t prepare for even the most obvious consequences, because he doesn’t want to hear about why what he’s doing is a bad idea, and everyone knows they’ll get fired if they try to tell him.
Chetan R Murthy
@Mr. Bemused Senior: So I could imagine a “plan” for a war against Iran that took this into account. It might go something like this:
(1) acquire drone interceptor tech from Ukraine + training
(2) mass-produce those interceptors in vast quantity, enough to guarantee the ability to block Iran’s drone fleets
(3) When it comes time to attack Iran, hold back a -significant- portion of precision munitions for use in attacks against any launchers Iran uses against the Straits
(4) You’d probably want large numbers of naval drones too, to deploy against Iranian naval assets — e.g. boats. Same story: you want to manufacture enough that you have confidence you can take down Iran’s fast attack boats [I’m assuming (which is reasonable, I think) that you can know their speeds — and drone boats ought to be able to go as fast, I would think]
(5) OBTW, you’d need to invest in minesweepers too.
All of this is a way of saying: take very, very seriously the Iranian asymmetric capability and build-out your response to that capability for real so you know you can defeat it. And do so well before you start this war. Then when the war starts, you have confidence that when (when, not if) Iran closes the straits, you can reopen them, b/c you know you can defeat Iran’s capabilities.
But these chucklefucks didn’t do any of them. They didn’t even take seriously the Iranian drone capability, -period-. They just assumed that they could -end- Iranian military capability using air power. And when that didn’t work, they had nuthin’.
One thing: I really, really, really hope NATO countries are taking careful notes, for the Russia threat. B/c NATO doctrine (from what I understand) is based on air power, too. The assumption being that NATO will rule the air, and that means RU can’t actually do anything significant. Maybe that’d be true against Russia. Maybe b/c the Straits of Hormuz feature massive supertankers, and you don’t gotta blow up very many of those to shut things down, whereas even if RU could take out a few NATO tanks, it doesn’t change things, if RU is shut down otherwise. But boy I don’t know ….. drones seem to have changed a lot. A lot.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Wow. Take care.
prostratedragon
@YY_Sima Qian: Beat me to it. Yet another person (Murphy) joining me in my constant refrain on this gratuitous debacle.
prostratedragon
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Lord, yes!
Chetan R Murthy
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I’m so old I remember when Gen. Paul Van Riper sank
our battleshipour aircraft carrier using asymmetric swarming boat tactics, and the response from the Navy was to restart the exercise and forbid him from using those tactics. I mean, the stupid just -burns-. And that wasn’t -Trump-. That was 2002, and there were -two- Democratic Presidents in between then and now, so we have no excuse for not having taken those lessons onboard.rikyrah
@Jackie:
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
Baud
Baud
@Redshift:
“Oh stewardess, I speak
jiveNYT.”smike
@Baud: I’m running out of willikers to gee. We’re about to get into fudge territory. This could go sideways quickly.
Martin
CNBC reporting that 3 ships were attacked in the gulf last night – one in the straight. Also you can’t use the ship tracking services to tell what’s going on because Iran is jamming those signals causing a bunch of fake ships to show up, etc.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@prostratedragon: It also has Lake Michigan shoreline. Lake Michigan is small compared to oceans but is pretty huge as bodies of water that aren’t oceans go.
Jackie
The flips keep coming! Democrats have flipped 10 seats since FFOTUS’s reelection; Republicans 0.
Booger
@frosty: Have seen a crow kill a sparrow in a fight over a chicken bone. Eliminated any Disney-esque view of nature from my mind in an instant.
Booger
@Martin: I think it’s down around China Grove.
Booger
@Chetan R Murthy: For those who missed it.
Ella in New Mexico
@Chetan R Murthy: After reading your comments on this, I realize I have absolutely NO working knowledge of any of this money transfer stuff. None of it.
It seems kinda important….
Paul in KY
@wombat probability cloud: Definitely a raptor of some type.
Paul in KY
@prostratedragon: More like 3 hours? Maybe you drive slowly :-)
Paul in KY
@frosty: An adult red tailed hawk (around here in Central KY) is a large bird. Pretty impressive when seen.
Mr. Bemused Senior
So true.
Miss Bianca
@Ohio Mom: Other nonprofits that build rental housing – like the one that’s going to be building workforce housing in my community, finally – might be affected as well.
I’m sorry, I have just got to the point where I don’t trust any legislation that passes in this Congress is going to end up being a Good Thing, rather than, OOPS, BAD THING.
Miss Bianca
@YY_Sima Qian: You know, they could have just stopped with “Trump miscalculated.”