Links 1/19/2025

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1. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 7:07 am

   ‘– GEROMAN — time will tell – 👀 —
   @GeromanAT
   Baerbock left the government meeting, refusing to be photographed, after Scholz’s decision to block a new €3 billion aid package for Ukraine.’

   If I got the story right, Scholz wants to take out a loan for that €3 billion aid package for Ukraine though he says that they have received enough already. Baerbock, on the other hand, wants that €3 billion to come from the German federal budget – which means that they would have to cut stuff like pensions, education, money for infrastructure, etc. to afford it.

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2. Wukchumni January 19, 2025 at 7:16 am

   Got on board 1/7 watching 24/7
   Didn’t think of what a January conflagration could do
   Oh, that talk of missed opportunities, fire breaks and chaparral
   Rang true, sure rang true

   Seems it never rains in southern California
   Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
   It never rains in California
   But Santa Anas, don’t they warn ya?
   It burns, man, it burns

   Firemen doing work in Cat 3 winds
   Out of water, hydrants whinge
   They’re understaffed, they’re underled
   Losing 12,000 homes

   It never rains in California
   But Santa Anas, don’t they warn ya?
   It burns, man, it burns

   Will you tell the folks back home the conditions made it?
   Had warnings but didn’t know which one to take
   Please don’t tell ‘em about missed opportunities
   Don’t tell ‘em how things could have gone for communities
   Gimme a fire break, give me a fire break

   Seems it never rains in southern California
   Seems I’ve often heard that kind of talk before
   It never rains in California
   But those Santa Anas, don’t they warn ya?
   It burns, man, it burns

   It Never Rains in Southern California, by Albert Hammond

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meDpNwem0Vo

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   1. mrsyk January 19, 2025 at 8:51 am

      Thanks. I wonder what became of Antifa. I had become accustomed to an opening poem.

      “Hydroclimate volatility on a warming Earth”, Introduces the analogy of an “Expanding Atmospheric Sponge” to (partially) explain our new weather. Well worth a read and one of the better climate articles I’ve seen in a stretch. Here’s is an easy to understand quote regarding our current hydrological cycle intensification;
      But while overall atmospheric water vapor does increase with warming, that does not mean that it increases everywhere and at all times. In fact, at times and places where the atmosphere is not saturated (i.e., when there are not clouds and/or precipitation present), this very same thermodynamic mechanism also explains why the atmosphere has an increased propensity to evaporate water from bodies and water and the land surface. In practical terms, this means that the gap between the “floor” and the “ceiling” (i.e., the amount of water vapor that air actually contains, versus how much it could contain) itself rises exponentially in a warming atmosphere, leading to rapid increases in what is known as the “vapor pressure deficit” as well as driving widespread and large increases in evaporative demand (i.e., the “thirstiness” of the air itself).

      From “Literally of the Charts” we get;
      IN SUMMARY
      Key moisture measurements are only 2% to 5% of average, leaving dusty soils. And the recent swing from wet to dry is among the most extreme on record. This combination of climatic conditions crossed into a danger zone, priming much of Southern California for wind-whipped fires.

      From the ever prescient Ms Wildfire’s “Running From Zombies in The Snow: A Guide to The Arctic Apocalypse” we get;
      The general public still doesn’t grasp that climate collapse never meant “warmer weather.” It meant weather chaos.
      I’m sensing a theme.

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3. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 7:25 am

   “Chrystia Freeland’s campaign to lead Canada starts with humblebrag: ‘Trump doesn’t like me’”

   ‘Both the English and French versions of the campaign video amplify the patriotic theme by closing with a graphic that renders the candidate’s name as “Free Land” in the red and white of the Canadian flag, with the shadow of a maple leaf over the letter A.’

   If she was more honest, she should have chosen blue and yellow for her colours. Come to think of it, the colours red and black would be much closer to the mark and she has been photographed next to a flag bearing those colours.

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4. Steve H. January 19, 2025 at 7:46 am

   > Change the story, change the future Common Weal

   >> Which is to say this stuff is all a trick designed to prevent change. Change the story, change the future.

   Jacobi: man muss immer umkehren. (Invert, always invert.)

   Polya: In carrying out our plan we must be careful to arrange its steps in the proper order, which is frequently just the reverse of the order of invention.

   Hudson: So, Herman’s analysis was on systems analysis. You define the overall aim and then you work backward.

   Dan Williams: Social epistemology needs an explanatory inversion.

   Inversion and The Power of Avoiding Stupidity [fs.blog/inversion/]

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5. ilsmi January 19, 2025 at 7:59 am

   “The Pentagon Keeps Losing Equipment and Buying Stuff It Doesn’t Need….”

   Something I used to know about, up to 2019. It is likely as bad or worse now!

   F-35 parts at contractors is a thing called “government furnished property” (GFP. GFP can be a stock of repair parts as the case in F-35 minor (small for the trillion buck boondoggle) faux pas or test equipment bought or sent to keep the contractors from charging big bucks, or parts to go into new production similar to loading spares.

   GFP has twin problems: the government program offices don’t spend much nor worry about it. The contractors have the same problem.

   I did GFP for one MIC vendor as a sidelight to my support contractor gig. They had no process and gave it to the guy charging money bills! It was last on my list and hardly any care as I left in about 12 months, to another contract gig.

   I was involved in several program offices as a GS employee arguing someone other than my logistics workers should manage GFP in the vendors’ hands. It was a job beyond my manpower authorization and my employees and I had other pressing issues like no one funding government spares…..

   It is one of those thing that kills the financial audit that can be fixed wot process and resources, neither rise in priority of things like accepting F-35’s with cooling design defects.

   Yossarian had nothing on logisticians in the MIC!

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6. ilsm January 19, 2025 at 8:02 am

   “The Pentagon Keeps Losing Equipment and Buying Stuff It Doesn’t Need….”

   Something I used to know about, up to 2019. It is likely as bad or worse now!

   F-35 parts at contractors is a thing called “government furnished property” (GFP. GFP can be a stock of repair parts as the case in F-35 minor (small for the trillion buck boondoggle) faux pas or test equipment bought or sent to keep the contractors from charging big bucks, or parts to go into new production similar to loading spares.

   GFP has twin problems: the government program offices don’t spend much nor worry about it. The contractors have the same problem.

   I did GFP for one MIC vendor as a sidelight to my support contractor gig. They had no process and gave it to the guy charging money bills! It was last on my list and hardly any care as I left in about 12 months, to another contract gig.

   I was involved in several program offices as a GS employee arguing someone other than my logistics workers should manage GFP in the vendors’ hands. It was a job beyond my manpower authorization and my employees and I had other pressing issues like no one funding government spares…..

   It is one of those thing that kills the financial audit that can be fixed wot process and resources, neither rise in priority of things like accepting F-35’s with cooling design defects.

   Yossarian had nothing on logisticians in the MIC!

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   1. Wukchumni January 19, 2025 at 8:12 am

      Our sworn enemy for the rest of our lives will be fire, and why we are wasting time on boondoggles such as F-35’s when we could be making firefighting drones, planes helicopters, you name it.

      One of the 2 Canadian super soaker planes was out of commission in the heat of the battle of the LA Infernos, it’d be tantamount to a squadron of a couple B-17’s as our entire strike force in WW2.

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      1. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 8:20 am

         I was reading that the US was considering buying 10 Russian Be-200 fire fighting tanker planes before the war as they had superior performance. But then the Ukraine got involved and scuttled the deal because Russia. So ‘the states decided to eventually purchase Ukrainian ones, which had to undergo special certification, which Ukraine eventually refused to do, and the contract was never fulfilled.’

         https://en.iz.ru/en/1823736/2025-01-17/zakharova-compared-us-refusal-buy-firefighting-planes-russian-federation-childish-behavior

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         1. CA January 19, 2025 at 9:47 am

            “I was reading that the US was considering buying 10 Russian Be-200 fire fighting tanker planes before the war as they had superior performance…”

            Important how harmful prejudice repeatedly shows itself to be. China has been working hard on water distribution through the country, including the forming of wetlands. Also, fire monitoring and firefighting equipment has been a focus, including new tanker and robot development.

            Also, Chinese advanced battery development has severely limited fire possibility in production and application.

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7. LY January 19, 2025 at 8:04 am

   Some numbers behind the US Navy’s activity in the Red Sea vs. Houthis. More than 400 Houthi aerial drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.

   https://www.twz.com/news-features/navy-just-disclosed-how-many-of-each-of-its-surface-to-air-missiles-it-fired-during-red-sea-fight

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   1. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 8:30 am

      ‘McLane added that the Navy’s missile expenditure in the conflict is within “the historical norm.” “We’ve done the analysis with what we used to shoot in World War II, and we’re at about two rounds per incoming missile,” McLane said.’

      Pretty sure that those WW2 rounds that they use to shoot did not cost the equivalent of two or three million dollars each. Just sayin’.

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      1. mrsyk January 19, 2025 at 8:58 am

         I figure SM-2s and 6s must grow on trees for how we’re so generous with them.

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      2. vao January 19, 2025 at 9:40 am

         During WWII, only the British navy had to contend with actual, brand new, super-innovative German missiles (radar-guided, IIRC); the US navy was dealing with what were effectively cyborg missiles — they were called kamikaze.

         Wouldn’t the statistics of anti-aircraft / anti-missile / anti-ship ammunition and missile expenditure during the Falklands war constitute a more relevant basis to evaluate the efficiency / sustainability of the US navy performance in the Red Sea?

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8. flora January 19, 2025 at 8:27 am

   re: private firefighters and insurance.
   an aside: what better way to privatized (slowly) public services than by demonstrating apparent incompetence in public management?

   Jimmy Dore, utube, ~15+ minutes.

   LA Firefighters Blow Whistle On Shocking Fire Chief Incompetence!

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAvV6Kq8sYU

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   1. flora January 19, 2025 at 8:32 am

      Bill Maher has a few words on twtr-X

      Axios ran a story on how getting the water out of the hydrants in Pacific Palisades was more complicated than it seems.
      I’m sure it’s very complicated. That’s why I pay 13% of my income in the state every year to people who I assume were working on things like this.
      LA’s mayor, Karen Bass, the Nero of American politics, was fiddling in Ghana while the city burned. and later . I’ve heard people say, do you want to pay more taxes to fund this? No, I want you to use the exorbitant taxes you already collect to prioritize it.

      https://x.com/EricAbbenante/status/1880469089371431313

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      1. griffen January 19, 2025 at 8:38 am

         Here is a full clip of Bill Maher and a proper recap of the situation in southern California….from the perspective of a resident….

         If my recall is worth anything this is perhaps his closing monologue, and usually quite good. I can’t find agreement with Maher 100% of the time but I like hearing his thoughts even if I don’t agree with his stance or views. This is worth the 8 or 9 minutes to those on a time constraint.

         https://youtu.be/C5S8rhNCBnc?si=-zWW6bWzLIXcniJa

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         1. Wukchumni January 19, 2025 at 9:13 am

            The City of Angles is a most fLAky place, with make believe being it’s signature triumph, albeit fading badly.

            Nobody in theory in charge in this ongoing debacle has advanced their careers much other than being wide awoke, and profusely thanking the brave firefighters when somebody asks a pertinent awkward question as to why and how it occurred the way it did.

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            1. Neutrino January 19, 2025 at 10:26 am

               Fire-ist, a new epithet, slur or mangled concept.
               Now available to defend against critiques by the time-honored misdirection.
               Use when logic of argument and commonsense are just too painful.
               Pick up some near you, wherever taxes are misallocated.

               Click to Edit – 

               

               <strong>Fire-ist,</strong> a new epithet, slur or mangled concept. Now available to defend against critiques by the time-honored misdirection. Use when logic of argument and commonsense are just too painful. Pick up some near you, wherever taxes are misallocated.

               SaveCancelDelete

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   2. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 9:27 am

      You don’t want to go back to private firefighters like it was in the 19th century. That is why actual Fire Departments were set up to replace them. I think that most firefighters were paid for and run by insurance companies. So if you insured your house with the Acme insurance company their fire fighters would cover your house. And if your house caught fire and the fire fighters from the XYZ insurance company turned up first, then you were all out of luck as they would do nothing. Unless you signed up with them too on the spot.

      There were financial advantages in fighting fires too though I forget the details. It’s in a book that I have on American fire fighting. So a result was they when an alarm came in, the biggest Irish fire fighter would run to where the fire was with a barrel. When he got there he would slam the barrel over the nearest fire hydrant so no other group could use it and would fight off other firefighters trying to get to that hydrant with bare knuckles – while the fire burned in the background. And you know that I am not making this all up.

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      1. mrsyk January 19, 2025 at 9:37 am

         One who paid for insurance got a door marker, referred to as a Fire Mark (or Fire Badge, House Plate). The homeowner would nail these to their front door to indicate which company should be saving them from conflagration. From the Fireman’s Hall Museum in Philadelphia, here are some examples.

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         1. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 9:42 am

            Thanks for that. I had forgotten about them.

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   3. Wukchumni January 19, 2025 at 9:53 am

      One day in the life of an anti-fireman…

      I’m way rural, and i’ve spent the last decade removing anything that can burn on the many splendored acres in my care, and the last few months have been using a 14 foot pole saw to excise dead wood from trees up to around 20 feet, and each oak is good for about 2 wheelbarrows of ready-to-burns, which I dutifully dispatch in my fire pit sometimes the same day or maybe the next morning, ya gotta make hay while the Sun doesn’t shine too brightly, if I did the same thing in August they might lock me up and throw away the key-the danger being extreme if not more so.

      Combine that with a $899 firefighting gas powered water pump and i’m essentially my own volunteer fire dept, but no pancake breakfasts please.

      In lieu of $1000 a day for a private firefighter, my budget for everything is around a grandido also, and a heck of a lot of elbow grease.

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9. Ignacio January 19, 2025 at 8:34 am

   Today is Lynx pardinus day in news and antidote!- Thank you for both. Few days ago, while biking i met for the first time in my life a wild cat (Felis silvestris). So shy and rare they are.

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   1. .Tom January 19, 2025 at 9:16 am

      Antidote kitten looks like it has seen the future in a vision and is filled with ineffable terror.

      I might be projecting a bit.

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      1. mrsyk January 19, 2025 at 9:27 am

         Yes, the future being AI generated art. Lynx kittens are way cuter than that.

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         1. Lee January 19, 2025 at 9:46 am

            The antidote reminded me of the paintings by Margaret Keane, which I find creepy.
            https://www.keane-eyes.com/item/cats/page/2/

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10. Stephen V January 19, 2025 at 8:37 am

    Possible fictional (kindof) companion piece to Zombies in the Snow:
    https://samkriss.substack.com/p/theres-someone-on-the-ice?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

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    1. mrsyk January 19, 2025 at 10:22 am

       That was a fun read, thanks.

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11. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 8:50 am

    ‘Alon Mizrahi
    @alon_mizrahi
    If all this is not done as preparation for an attack against Iran, or a major provocation (two Supreme Court judges were assassinated in Teheran today, but that’s just a minor distraction) – I’m going to be left genuinely surprised.
    Israel cannot continue with the perception of humiliation, having been forced to treat Hamas as its equal after all this death work. It needs something to feed its psychotic ego with; an achievement to reassert its imagined exceptionalism and superiority. It will attack Iran, and I’m guessing sooner rather than later.’

    Israel may want to do it but without the US supporting them they can’t. They don’t really have the wherewithal. They have been pushing the US under Biden to attack Iran but even he was not going to do that as it was too late into his Presidency. And I cannot see Trump agreeing to attack Iran on Israel’s behalf. He has a full program planned for what he wants to do to America itself – for better or worse – but if he attacked Iran, the resultant war would use up every minute of his four year term and he would get hardly anything done that he wants to. And since Netanyahu is in his bad books, he is not going to risk his Presidency just so that Bibi get to stay out of jail a little longer.

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    1. vao January 19, 2025 at 9:28 am

       And I cannot see Trump agreeing to attack Iran on Israel’s behalf.

       True, but it does not mean that some underlings more beholden to neocon fantasies / zionist projects / democrat grudges than to Trump might not take some bold initiative, or just “let something happen” that will in the end force the hand of the president — because whatever the reason for the conflict and whoever is ultimately responsible for it, we cannot let the USA lose face, can we?

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    2. Wukchumni January 19, 2025 at 9:30 am

       …a billboard I saw yesterday on Interstate 15 in Pavlovegas

       ‘Standing Against Antisemitism Is Standing With America’

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       1. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 9:36 am

          Maybe somebody should set up another billboard saying-

          ‘America – your standing in it. Israel? That’s some other country 6,000 miles away.’

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          1. mrsyk January 19, 2025 at 9:51 am

             “Israel – You’re soaking in it” (Delivered by Madge of course.)

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             1. Wukchumni January 19, 2025 at 10:03 am

                The other prominent billboards en route tend to mostly be shylock lawyers-the more coarse ones will practically exclaim that they’ve won Billions!

                You almost feel like swerving into the car in the next lane-‘In A Wreck-Need A Check’, they promise.

                From what I saw yesterday, a lawyer named Ed Bernstein must have the largest billboard budget, there are dozens, with his ugly mug on each one.

                On Interstate 15, by Wall of Voodoo

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUSGlb72YVw

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12. heh January 19, 2025 at 9:15 am

    Netanyahu says cease-fire ‘temporary,’ reserves right to resume war Ynet

    In other news, water is wet.

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    1. Aurelien January 19, 2025 at 9:37 am

       All cease-fires are by definition temporary and subject to renewal (or not) after a certain time. Otherwise they would be called something else. See my essay of last week.

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    2. timbers January 19, 2025 at 9:58 am

       Jared better get his West Bank real estate and condos built. He’s got about 6 months-ish or so for the time being.

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13. upstater January 19, 2025 at 9:36 am

    Re. bne IntelliNews – Love in the Baltics in a time of war

    A cousin and wife in Lithuania adopted an ethnic Russian daughter in the mid-80s. The woman doesn’t know she was adopted. Her facial features might remind one of famous Russian communists. She has 2 adult children that are half Russian. Of course, being good Lithuanians, they hate Russians with white hot fire. I wonder how the family rationalizes all this? Their 2 natural sons were in paramilitary groups as teens, one works for the “Lithuanian KGB” I was told. The Baltics are depopulated sewers, IMO.

    Probably should’ve added this comment to Connor’s EU piece… in the interwar period under Smetona’s Fascism-Lite dictatorship, Lithuania had a grossly over-sized Army with a well fed officer class. Their pay and benefits were several multiples of teachers or civil servants. When the Nazis came, they just blew through the Baltics and turned over management to their collaborators with minimal oversight until 1944. Jews and undesirables were virtually gone by fall 1941. There were many good Nazis then and now.

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14. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 9:40 am

    “Iraq seeks Iran-backed militia disarmament in new push”

    Those Iraqi leaders are acting just like EU leaders. They want to get rid of one of the most effective fighting forces that they have in the hope that Trump will be nicer to them. Let me know how that works out.

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15. timbers January 19, 2025 at 9:51 am

    Guess we now know for sure why Litcoff was sent by Trump to “salty language” Netanyuhu. Well on the bright side we have an example where a certain a mount of peace and profitiering (or is merely a tactical retreat within a broader war?) align ………. “Kaushner’s Saudi-backed fund doubles stake in firm financing illegal West Bank settlements”

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16. The Rev Kev January 19, 2025 at 10:01 am

    “Walgreens replaced its refrigerator doors with digitized ad-laden glass. It might become a $200 million debacle”

    Unintentionally funny this. So Walgreens, in their infinite wisdom, decided to replace actual glass doors with some high tech junk simply so that they could flash ads at their customers. And to get those adds on the screen, they outsourced it to another party which meant that there was a new middleman between Walgreens and their customers which worked out as well as could be expected. Add in the extra electricity, the cost of installation and all that technical support and you are talking about big bikkies here. So maybe they should have stuck with glass doors which work like forever.

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17. timbers January 19, 2025 at 10:08 am

    “Government Monitoring Those With “Negative” Views of Health Insurance Companies” **** Do these people creating this policy ever get out and talk to others? Because that would be just about every last person in America outside elite enclaves and insurance employees.

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18. timbers January 19, 2025 at 10:15 am

    “Sanctions continue to be ineffective.” On the contrary. Gasoline prices in my area jumped about 20 cents a gallon after sanctions on Russian energy were announced by Washington.

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