Welcome to Ye Olde Colde Furye Blogge’s shiny new open-comments thread, where y’all can have at it as you wish, on any topic you like. Do note that the official CF comments policy remains in effect here, as enumerated in the left sidebar. All new posts will appear below this one. There will be blood…
So I see the US Navy has managed to run into something once again, this time with an attack submarine (USS Connecticut, I believe it is). Unknown amount of damage to the vessel but enough for it to be returning to port; reportedly 11 sailors injured (none life threatening, per reports).
Not exactly inspiring confidence in their ability to sail around without running into things, much less actually fight, are they? I wonder what the excuses will be this time…and how long it will take to learn what truly happened.
Also in the “not inspiring confidence” category, the CIA is establishing a unit to assess the “growing geopolitical threat” of China. Gosh, guys, nice of you to wake up from your Rip van Winkle 20+ year nap and notice what has been obvious to everyone for at least a couple decades now. Or were you too busy trying to undermine President Trump and hunt down the real killer…ooops, sorry, that’s OJ…those mythical white supremacists who are THIS CLOSE to overthrowing the government? Anyone care to take a bet on the head of this new unit being a ChiCom agent? Anyone? Bueller?
What a stupid time to be alive.
Submarines running into things isn’t something new, so I wouldn’t make too much of this one until more is known. I’m guessing they struck an uncharted object or something unknown and now unknowable.
Whatever the CIA is doing is to help China would be my guess.
How often do attack subs hit something hard enough to injure 11 crew and send the vessel limping back to port? Admittedly we do not know much as of yet; this is just the story the navy has publicly given. Who knows what really happened?
The CIA thing is just another example of Top Men ™ in action. Maybe they will announce a unit to assess the growing threat of communist movements in Indochina next — Dien Bien Phu might be threatened!
There have been several submarine incidents that never made it to the news. Giving up the information does risk national security since the subs positions are unknown to the enemy.
The one I recall that made the news in this century – USS San Francisco:
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/uss-san-francisco-crashed-2.html
You have to remember that those subs are driving blind, following charts. Sonar is not used as it gives away presence and location. Charts have errors, navigation is imperfect, and sometimes the terrain has changed since it was mapped. I doubt we’ll ever know the truth, even if they tell it I wouldn’t believe them.
Reading the comments at Brietbart is a real hoot. The level of sheer ignorance and stupidity on display is comical.
The capitol was invaded the day Oboma was crowned. Research the decor for the inauguration, it was modeled after the Seat of Satan / Pergamon the original is in a museum in Berlin. Our fight is against powers and principalities
I tire of seeing the new anti-Trumpers and their desire for a savior. Trump isn’t a savior, just a man that saw the problems inherent in the federal government and has pointed them out for decades. A man that took government crap at the city/state level and fixed it.
Trump knew exactly what he was getting into, he said so. He wasn’t some naive naif as it seems popular to state these days.
What he wasn’t was a man that wanted to destroy the country to fix it. He believed, right or wrong, that it could be fixed short of destruction first. The curtain has yet to close on this, we’re in a hold on the first act. Trump is just the leader, YOU have to be led and respond to the call.
2016, that’s when this came out. it seems to have slipped by the goog censors:
Best news of the day. https://nypost.com/2021/10/18/colin-powell-former-general-and-secretary-of-state-dead-at-84/
So many things about our society are fake and false; Colin Powell was faker and falser than most.
Random thought for the day: The current supply chain mess was NOT what Bootyjudge was expecting when he was promised a cabinet position in exchange for dropping out of the Dem primary and endorsing Dementia Joe. He thought he was getting a position where he could build up his national political presence and experience, as staging for his planned future second run at a presidential nomination. It would be a no show job where he could spend all his time raising money from donors, networking with the national media, and building his personal organization while dumping all the costs onto the taaxpayer as “part of his official duties.”
Instead he finds himself getting the wrong kind of national media attention, as the guy who is supposed to fix Empty Shelves Joe’s massive mess. He has no qualifications for the job and no hope of actually fixing anything, and is right there to be blamed and thrown overboard as a sacrificial lamb. He is trying frantically to deflect blame and preserve his political viability (to use a Clintonian phrase) by emphasizing the whole “gay dad on paternity leave” issue — see, see, I am a protected victim class! You can’t blame me! But I don’t think it is going to work, as his political rivals will take this opportunity to make sure he goes down in flames and Team Biden needs a scape goat.
It is very late era Soviet Union:
Good news, you are being promoted to the politburo!
Bad news, you are being assigned the agriculture portfolio.
Talk about a poisoned chalice. LOL Bye Bootyjudge, this is the big league and your rivals are a lot nastier than Indiana municipal politics.
+10
“He has no qualifications for the job…”
I don’t think he could run anything.
I’m a little bit nonplussed and more than a bit puzzled at all of the “Conservatives” giving Buttgigger a ration of shit over his two month paternity leave absence during the crisis.
Me, I’m wondering if Buttgig can’t be persuaded to extend his paternity leave until November of 2024.
Seriously: he could have been on the job for the past two months trying to “manage” the crisis and “fix” things.
There’s never been a situation that was made better by having a Democrat involved in solving it, but there’s fifty years of examples of crises that were made worse by having a Democrat trying to fix them.
It isn’t like Booty actually did anything related to Transportation even when he did spend time “at work.” Like almost all cabinet level appointees, his presence is purely optics and political patronage. All the actual decisions and work are done by the permanent bureaucracy, while the cabinet member shows up for an occasional photo op and gets their name put on the documents.
It’s a lot like Dementia Joe being “president” — complete figurehead, and everyone knows it. Both are like the four year old “driving” the grocery cart, frantically spinning the little toy steering wheel like a race car driver going up a winding mountain road while the parent pushes the cart down the aisle and checks prices on cereal boxes.
Yeah, he didn’t do much for good or ill, but I have faith: I’m absolutely certain that he could manage to fuck up the transportation/supply chain mess even worse if he actually started to work at it.
Best to keep him on vacation. 🙂
On the subject… I no longer feel even remotely paranoid for having spent several thousand extra dollars over the course of the past year and a half making sure that the storeroom and freezers were continually full, and that the dog food bins were full and we had a six month supply of kibble for the pups.
Back around June or July of last year, I’m sure that everyone got tired of seeing me drone on and on that, “It’s going to be the secondary and tertiary effects that kill us, not the pandemic,” – I know my housemate did – but I took my own assessment to heart and acted on it.
Now we’re glad I did.