This story about the testing of Minuteman launch procedures was interesting to me. The test involves everything up to the actual launch of the missile. Just in case all of the safety precautions fail, they park a truck over the silo as a last ditch effort to ensure there is no actual launch.
Economy
Inflation
Peter over at Bayou Renaissance Man says that readers claim inflation isn’t here. Let me show you how it sneaks up on you. A Denny’s commercial from 1997:
Note that one of those breakfasts was this one:
2 strips of bacon, two link sausages, two eggs, and two pancakes. This is the breakfast that Denny’s calls the “Original Grand Slam.” For $1.99.
How much is this breakfast now? $9.29, or 467% more than it was 24 years ago. That works out to an annual inflation rate of 6.7%. The published rates for that period were anything from negative 0.2 all the way to 3.0. The official inflation rates say that this breakfast should only cost $3.28 today.
When I was in high school nearly 40 years ago, I remember being able to go to McDonald’s and eat my fill for less than $4. A Big Mac was only $1.09. Krystal Hamburgers were 25 cents. Compare them to today’s prices.
It isn’t just food. In 1999, you could purchase gasoline for less than $1 a gallon. The hit is even larger than that- because in 2005, Congress mandated that all gasoline be diluted with alcohol.
But wages haven’t kept pace. In 2000, the starting pay for a Paramedic right out of school was $14 an hour. Today, that same new paramedic would start at – $13 an hour.
Prices have been increasing at a rate of 6 to 7 percent per year, while wages have remained static.
Education
Why promote illiterates?
Parents are complaining because their children, who can’t read, are being held back. If your kids can’t read, they why should they move on to the next grade?
Expecting kids to be promoted, even though they haven’t mastered the skills they should have mastered, is exactly how we have gotten to the point where graduating high school seniors can’t read or do simple math.
Military
PLAN still getting stronger
China just commissioned three ships on the same day: A Ballistic missile submarine, a cruiser, and an amphibious ship/baby carrier.
The baby carrier displaces around 35 to 40 thousand tons, which puts it on par with the Wasp class LHD. The US Navy has nine of these ships, with 5 of them in the Pacific theater.
The cruiser is equivalent to the Aegis cruiser, with phased array radars and 128 VLS missiles.
This newest submarine boosts Chinese to 6 ballistic missile subs. Now these subs are noisier than either their Russian or American counterparts, but they don’t have to be as quiet, because they are staying close to the Chinese coast, where they can be defended by shore based assets.
The current Chinese sub launched missile, the J-2, has a 4500 mile range. This means that only Alaska is within range of these missiles, but that will change in 2025, when the new J-3 missile goes into fleet service with their newest submarines, set to enter the fleet in 2023. The worrisome part here is that the Chinese will more than triple the number of nuclear warheads in their arsenal from 300 to over 1,000 within the next 8 years. Some reports estimate that the number of warheads may be significantly higher- as many as 3,000 warheads.
The Chinese are engaged in a MASSIVE military buildup at a time when the US Navy is weak. Granted, Chinese spending is less than a third of US spending, but the US spending is disproportionately spent on pay and boondoggles like sex changes and promoting more women, while the Chinese are using the money to build more platforms and weapons systems.
The Chinese are increasing military readiness across the board, while the US is decreasing readiness. Within the next decade, the US Navy will be outnumbered and outclassed by PLAN.
Criminals
BLM in NC
A police shooting in Elizabeth City, NC has caused BLM to start rabble rousing in the area. One of my friends from my days in the Navy lives in the area and found the following note on his front door last night. How is this different from the Klan?
Police State
Sending a message
Not only will they destroy people who cross the goals of the left, but anyone who dares defend them from the mob will be destroyed as well. They are making lists, and will destroy anyone who they deem worthy of destruction.
So now they are going to destroy the reputation of the defense expert witness from the Chauvin trial. Once they are done with him, any cop accused by the left will have no chance of being able to defend themselves, because no lawyer or witness will dare come forward.
This sets the stage for what communists always do. They engage in show trials before shipping people off to the gulag.
Military
Chicom PLAN is growing quickly
So we have talked about how China has two ski-jump supercarriers, and two with catapults under construction. Now it turns out that they have built a Navy base at the southern entrance to the Red Sea that has piers long enough to handle those carriers. What’s more- the base is less than 5 miles from the US Camp Lemonnier, a Naval Expeditionary Base in Djibouti, on the horn of Africa. It looks like China intends to have a carrier based in the Indian Ocean/Persian Gulf/Red Sea area of operations.
I used to say that a Chinese war against the USA was impossible because the PLAN didn’t have the ships to wage an overseas war. That is not going to be the case for much longer. Interests in the IO and WestPac need to be on alert. I think we have less than two years before there is a war in the area that involves China and one of her regional neighbors, and the Biden/Harris administration doesn’t have what it takes to do a thing about it.
Police State
another bad apple or three
There is also a south Florida cop who was a Sergeant and member of SWAT that was using his police powers to force women to have sex in order to avoid arrest. In that case, five different women came forward (one of whom a police cadet he got pregnant, ending her career) and said that he had raped them.
In the case of the cadet, the woman was a student where the cop was working as an instructor. They were having an affair, and she got pregnant. The rest of the class urged her to come forward and tell the academy. She did. After that, our amorous Sergeant told the class that he had enough pull to make sure none of them got hired unless the pregnant cadet recanted. Under pressure, she did.
He then bragged that he was protected by a fellow cop in the Internal Affairs division that he was also sleeping with. It didn’t hurt that his father was a chief of police (now retired).
No one would do anything until the Feds stepped in. It took four years. One thing that slowed it down was much of the evidence against him was kept in an evidence room that his police chief father had access to, and much of that evidence remains missing. In all, a total of 7,877 evidence and property items are missing, including 19 weapons, 177 valuables, 19 bikes and 44 items from the narcotics cage.
This appears to be a crime family. The police chief father was alleged to have ties to a drug kingpin, and the chief’s brother (who worked for Miami PD) was an “inside man” who was assisting in the smuggling of drugs into South Florida.
The charges against the son for his sexcapades were filed in December of 2019. It is still tied up in court, and he is a free man. He is still working for the police department, but in a desk job in the communications division.
Police State
More bad apples
Here is a song I have heard before. Cops caught issuing traffic citations to people that were never pulled over. In one case, the motorist had received 10 bogus traffic tickets. Another woman had received 6 bogus traffic tickets in a single month.
Also don’t forget the South Florida cops who took cover behind a family while engaged in a shootout.
I don’t think the issue is that cops need defunding. I think that we need fewer laws, and the laws that we do have shouldn’t be set up to be funding sources for greedy politicians.
Criminals
Ghetto Lottery
You remember this story about the three “black teens” who were pulled over when police mistook their vehicle for one reported stolen? So the story goes that once the cops tried to pull over the vehicle, the driver attempted to run over the cops, shots were fired, then it turned out that two were killed, the survivor was a convicted felon, and three stolen guns and drugs were found in the car.
Yeah, well now the parents of the two dead ones have teamed up with race baiting ambulance chaser Benjamin Crump (of Trayvon Martin fame) and are suing the Brevard Sheriff for millions.