Divemedic

Paper Eagle

China is about to invade Taiwan. I know that Taiwan’s intelligence chief says it won’t happen this year, but hear me out. I would say it will happen before the end of October. Let’s look at why I think so:

Weather

The weather in that area of the world becomes too treacherous for an amphibious invasion from the end of October through the end of March. Once fall sets in, the water around Taiwan is too rough for an invasion force. That means putting things off until at least April. Why won’t they do that?

Preparations

China has mobilized large portions of the PLA, moving a large number of forces to the area, I think we are looking at an invasion within the next 90 days. No country mobilizes a large military force only to call it back.

Those air incursions into Taiwanese airspace haven’t just been saber rattling. Nor was the model of American carrier battlegroups they were using as target practice. These point to a country practicing for war. They are ready to fight and win. Our military is busy learning to put on drag shows and recognizing each other’s pronouns.

Every simulation run by the US military shows China defeating the US in detail. While China has carriers in the area, they won’t need them. The order of battle is impressive:

Military Situation Overwhelmingly Favors China:

The US carriers in the area are the USS Ronald Reagan with Carrier Airwing 5, which has less than 60 F/A-18E Super Hornets embarked. The USS Tripoli with its 20 embarked F-35B‘s is there, as is the USS America, but only carries aircraft for transporting its embarked marine battalion. Taiwan themselves have several hundred first line fighters, but the combined Taiwanese and American aircraft would quickly be overwhelmed by the sheer number of aircraft China has in the area (over 1,000).

There are some airbases on Okinawa (400 miles or so away) where there are a couple of squadrons of F-15s, F-35s, some AWACS, aerial tanker support, and there are a few strategic bombers there (I think B-1s). The rest of the US forces in Okinawa are marines, some spec ops people, support units, and some air defense units. I don’t know if Okinawa based units can get involved, since Japan would have a say and would not want to get drawn into the conflict. If these units DO get involved, expect Japan to get hit with some missile strikes, which would be HUGELY unpopular with the Japanese people, who overwhelmingly don’t want US forces there anyway.

The US is likely to put a dent in an invasion force, if they decide to intervene. A US submarine is likely lurking in the area, and China would lose some amphibious ships to it, that is almost a certainty. If the US becomes involved, there is a better than 50-50 chance that we would lose at least one of those carriers, and a near certainty that we will lose several ships. All of this means thousands of US casualties, perhaps 10,000 or more, within days of the onset of hostilities. Is the US ready for that?

In the end, there is only one possible outcome: Taiwan will fall. The only possible answer for the US would be to accept the loss of Taiwan, or go nuclear. Biden doesn’t have the stomach for nukes, and even if he DID use them, Taiwan will eventually be lost.

So what will happen?

Joe Biden has said that the US is committed to defending Taiwan. South Korea is fully expecting the US to honor that commitment. This puts him in a bind. If we refuse to defend Taiwan, the US looks weak, and we lose more influence in the region. If Biden tries to defend Taiwan then loses anyway, the US looks even weaker and loses influence worldwide. Then we also know that China owns Biden’s greedy, crooked ass.

The US has never been weaker, with a weak leader, weak economy, and a failing military. American political and military leadership is a joke.

In short, we have already lost. China knows it. The US military knows it. So does Foggy Bottom. I’m not sure Joe Biden knows it, but he is a senile old man. The only reason that China hasn’t invaded yet is that they don’t want to lose the US as a trading partner, but the US is quickly failing as an economic powerhouse and is no longer the profit center it once was.

For all of the above reasons, I think China invades Taiwan before Halloween. I think the US does nothing but whine and complain to the UN. I also think that this does severe damage to our influence in the Far East.

This is strangely reminiscent of Japan’s actions a century ago. Japan’s big failure then was that they didn’t have raw materials and depended on imports. China learned from that. They have access to all of the raw materials they need. We are looking at China becoming THE dominate world power for the foreseeable future.

The US, on the other hand, is staring at economic collapse and political instability. The peak of the American empire has come and gone.

EDITED TO ADD:

Okinawa also has a squadron of F-22 Raptors, but China has them outnumbered ten to one with their own advanced fighters. Even if the Raptor is a better airplane, quantity has a quality all its own.

By Divemedic, ago

Change My Mind

Last week, I said “Stay away from large numbers of black people- where they congregate is always accompanied by crime and violence.” This is why the cities with the highest murders per capita so far in 2022 are New Orleans, Baltimore, Birmingham, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Cleveland. All cities with a high percentage of their population being black.

So it comes as no surprise that one black man shot another because the victim worked at a McDonald’s and the shooter was angry because his mother’s French fries were cold.

So change my mind: On average, the black race is broken to the point that wherever blacks congregate, crime, violence, and poverty are more likely than places where they are not found. It isn’t that America is a racist country, because this remains true wherever blacks are found: Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the US. This is why they had to invent Wakanda- because such a country could never exist- you can’t name one single nation that is run by blacks that is successful in the arts, science, mathematics, economically, not in any single metric. Not one.

In fact, the nation in the world that has led more blacks out of poverty than any other is the USA.

Change my mind.

By Divemedic, ago

Mayor Wants Gun Free Zone

Buddy Dyer, the Mayor of Orlando, wants to declare all of downtown Orlando to be a “gun free zone” but is upset that he cannot do so, thanks to the state’s preemption law.

Dyer said there will be access checkpoints on Friday and Saturday evenings downtown to limit how people can enter the downtown area. The city said patrons will have to go through metal detectors and a weapons check at these checkpoints before walking into the access areas.

I believe that this zone is a clear violation of Florida’s preemption law. What’s more is that violating this law places Orlando and any of its officials at risk of a lawsuit. Even more, since the quote in this news article shows that the mayor knew it was illegal to do so, he becomes liable to any taxpayer whose rights are violated.

If any county, city, town, or other local government violates this section, the court shall declare the improper ordinance, regulation, or rule invalid and issue a permanent injunction against the local government prohibiting it from enforcing such ordinance, regulation, or rule. It is no defense that in enacting the ordinance, regulation, or rule the local government was acting in good faith or upon advice of counsel.
 If the court determines that a violation was knowing and willful, the court shall assess a civil fine of up to $5,000 against the elected or appointed local government official or officials or administrative agency head under whose jurisdiction the violation occurred.

So my question here is this: Are there any pro gun organizations who are willing to take this on?

By Divemedic, ago

This is why

When I first went into the military, one of the things I used to hear from the old timers were stories about how bad things were just a few years before. I heard about people using drugs right out in the open. I heard stories about how officers were afraid to enter certain areas of the ship without an escort. The post Vietnam military was a mess.

Now it’s worse. We have ships rusting away.

Want to know why? Shit like this:

If things kick off in Europe or Taiwan, our military is going to get its collective ass kicked.

By Divemedic, ago

Security

This is kind of a continuation to the “loose lips” post of a few days ago.

Data point number one: I read a post over at Bayou Renaissance Man that was talking about the inner city dwellers becoming rather cagy about letting people know what they were keeping in their kitchens.

If there are a couple of things you learn about in the inner city, it’s that there are snitches and informants everywhere, and you learn to keep your mouth shut, both as survival skills. That is what I was driving at with my post the other day: keep your mouth shut. Keep your preps private.

Data point two: The people in the inner cities are worried about losing supplies. So are the shopkeepers. In New York, stores are locking up their SPAM. We know, it’s been going on for a long time in Hawaii. Still, people are getting desperate.

It isn’t just SPAM, either. cigarettes, over-the-counter medications, contraceptives, liquor, teeth-whitening strips, and health and beauty products. As you think about this, ask yourself what your preparedness stash is worth, and what will people do if they find out you have it?

The time for advertising what you have is over. It’s time to start thinking about preserving what you have as a safeguard.

  • Keep your mouth shut
  • Don’t tell new friends about anything
  • Don’t tell old friends about much
  • Remember, anyone can become a snitch or a thief. Unless it’s someone you would trust with your life, don’t trust them with your secrets.
By Divemedic, ago

Anniversary

Exactly 41 years ago today (Aug 1, 1981), MTV went on the air and began playing music videos 24 hours a day. The first video played was “Video Killed the Radio Star.”

The number of videos began to decline less than a decade later, so that by the year 2000, Mtv played videos for only 8 hours a day.

By 2008, Mtv was playing music videos only 3 hours each day.

Now, Mtv has several channels, each with different content. MTV Classic is the only one that shows music videos, with different shows airing different blocks of music videos from different eras.

For example, one show called ‘90s Nation plays music videos from the 1990s for an hour. There is an 80’s show that lasts for an hour a day.

It seems that Video may have killed the Radio Star, but the Internet killed Mtv.

By Divemedic, ago

Communism isn’t for Communists

Andrew Wilkow has a theory that the only reason why the left is opposed to capitalism and rich people is because they can’t stand knowing that ordinary people have access to luxuries that only the important people should have. After all, what’s the point of being a VIP if anyone with money could do it? He calls this theory his “Everyman a King” theory.

Here is more fuel for that particular theory, the top ten users of private jets:

  1. Taylor Swift
  2. Floyd Mayweather
  3. Jay-Z
  4. A-rod
  5. Blake Shelton
  6. Stephen Spielberg
  7. Kim Kardashian
  8. Mark Wahlberg
  9. Oprah Winfrey
  10. Travis Scott

It isn’t that they are really concerned about the environment or about carbon emissions. No, they want to make sure that the elites are the only ones who have access to luxuries. After all, you can’t be an elite if just anyone can fly off to Bali or the French Riviera.

By Divemedic, ago

Falsifying Information

The left loves to rely on the Gun Violence Archive as a source for information on so-called gun violence. In the past 72 hours, they have listed the incident in Orlando and a homicide in Winter Haven as being gun violence incidents.

In the Orlando incident, seven people were injured when shots were fired downtown. The Gun Violence archive lists them as being victims of gun violence, even though the police haven’t said that those who were injured were in fact shot, and didn’t just trip and sprain an ankle when fleeing the sound of shots.

In Winter Haven, a man confessed to killing his family member. No mention of the weapon or means used to commit the crime were released by the police, but that didn’t stop the gun violence archive from listing it as gun violence.

By Divemedic, ago

Another Orlando Shooting

For the second week in a row, Orlando has another gang shooting over the weekend. It was Saturday night at nearly 2:15 am, but this time it was at a downtown block party that was largely being attended by black people. The shooting appears to have been centered around or just outside of a black nightclub called Beacham, which holds a dance party called “Notorious Saturdays” every Saturday night. The event was heavily patrolled by Orlando police and fire. They were supposedly screening for weapons.

Seven people were injured after what I count as ten shots being fired. No word on whether the injuries were from bullets or simply spraining an ankle while fleeing in panic. Here is a local video blogger’s footage from the moment when shots were fired.

Police still have no leads on who did the shooting, but that isn’t unexpected. The black community is notoriously tight lipped about such things.

  • Nothing good happens after midnight
  • Stay away from crowds
  • Stay away from large numbers of black people- where they congregate is always accompanied by crime and violence
  • Don’t go downtown, especially after dark
  • Even cops and weapons checks won’t protect you.
By Divemedic, ago