SPACEX STARSHIP FRACTURED BY FIERCE TEXAS WINDS: “A prototype “hopper” designed for takeoff and landing tests suffered a setback when high winds knocked its nose cone over.”
The blown cone incident occurred at SpaceX’s South Texas Launch Site in Boca Chica Village near Brownsville, Texas. Any bets national media will play this as an anti-Texas story?
SOUTH KOREAN MARINES PREPARE FOR ACTION: This is a short but information-rich run down on the South Korean Marine Corps and its amphibious assault ships. The article includes a paragraph about the Corps’ “Spartan 3000” special rapid deployment brigade and its missions. The brigade is supposed to be “trained and ready to move anywhere in the Korean peninsula within 24 hours.” Yes, you read that right. Anywhere in the peninsula.
A COLD WINTER JUMP: Paratroopers from the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, U.S. Army Alaska, descend over Malemute Drop Zone after jumping from USAF C-17s.
GREEK APACHE: A Greek Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter lands on a U.S. Navy assault ship.
INFORMATION WARFARE: 1984 becomes real in 2024. I’d say sooner, but the post is analyzing China’s Social Credit Rating system “in which all the accumulated data on an individual can be analyzed to determine which patterns of behavior lead to criminal or anti-government behavior.” Read the whole thing.
STEALTH TRIO: A B-2 Spirit in formation with two F-22 Raptors near Diamond Head State Monument, Hawaii.
BUFF IN OZ: A USAF B-52 takes off from Royal Australian Air Force Base (RAAF) Darwin, Australia. The bomber’s on its way back to Guam.
RELATED: The caption refers to a specific U.S.-Australia exercise, but at the strategic level think Quad. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue: Japan, Australia, America and India. You can find more details in Chapter 3 of my latest book, Cocktails from Hell: The Dragon Revives.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: China’s commercial spies encounter blowback. It’s long overdue.
VERY RELATED: Chapter 3 of my latest book, Cocktails from Hell: The Dragon Revives. Also, Glenn’s review in USA Today.
FAST FROZEN ROPE: U.S. Army soldiers in Alaska practice rapid descent from a Blackhawk using the Army’s Fast Rope Insertion/Extraction System. Yes, FRIES works in the cold.
CLAUDIA ROSETT ON THE UN’S ATTEMPT TO CONTROL GLOBAL IMMIGRATION POLICY:
The spearhead of this U.N. campaign is an international agreement with the high-minded name of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. That’s not remotely what this document boils down to. While proclaiming a utopian “unity of purpose” among the 193 highly diverse member states, this Global Compact would have the U.N.’s largely unaccountable, self-aggrandizing and often opaque bureaucracy, operating in service of its despot-infested collective of governments, set the terms for all.
The lengthy text reads like a template for setting up the world’s most politically correct welfare state, with a colossal menu of entitlements and central planning for migrants; never mind the cost to the pockets, rights and freedoms of the existing citizens. This “compact” does not restrict itself to refugees. It anoints the U.N. as arbiter of how to handle cross-border human mobility worldwide, meaning migrants, permanent or temporary, whatever their reasons for wanting to move. In this scheme of the universe, the U.N. proposes to become the overarching authority “addressing migration in all its dimensions.”
She adds that the compact was adopted without a vote. Read the entire essay.
ENDANGERED COFFEE SPECIES: Wild arabica and robusta on the brink.
From Popular Mechanics:
The beans that made your morning cup of joe are probably from one of the two species of coffee: Arabica or Robusta. Those two are responsible for most of the commercial coffee in the world, but they are just two of hundreds of inter-related species of the coffee plant in the world—and many of those species are in danger.
In the arabica and robusta mix the article adds a trace or two of hysteria, but it’s still worth reading.
ROCKETS IN KUWAIT: A U.S. Army HIMARS in a live fire exercise with Kuwait Land Forces. Photo taken January 8, 2019.
BOOK REVIEW: Ironclad Captains of the Civil War by Myron J. Smith, Jr. As Smith “addresses the careers of these men [the ship commanders], he also imparts a great deal of information about the operation of the early ironclads, the course of the war, and naval service during it.” The reviewer says it’s a reference work — if so, it’s a reference with a great title.
APACHE SUNRISE: A U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter flies in formation over Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
THE PROBLEMS WITH TINY HOUSES: They tend to depreciate in value. Tiny homes ≠ tiny consumption. Read the whole thing.
173RD AIRBORNE BRIGADE ASSAULTS THE ALPS: A cold weather training exercise with the Italian Army’s Alpine Brigade Julia. Look at the equipment load. Sometimes light infantry doesn’t feel light — if you’re the light infantryman.
HIGH SPEED PASS OVER TORONTO IN AN F-35: Dramatic photo. It’s a still that captures the energy and speed. Great colors and color contrast. Congrats to the USAF Airman 1st Class who snapped it.
ETHICAL IVORY IN THE PERMAFROST: You can’t make this stuff up…well, you could, but who’d believe you?
HIGH SPEED: The “future” USS Wichita undergoing acceptance trials.
THRUST VECTORING, 2019: A USMC F-35B takes off from the amphibious assault ship USS Essex, January 3, 2019.
MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA: Kim Jong Un reaffirms denuclearization commitment, vows efforts for second summit with Trump.
Dig:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reaffirmed his commitment to the denuclearization and vowed efforts to produce good results from his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, Chinese state media said Thursday.
Kim made the pledge during his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Tuesday, according to Xinhua News Agency. Kim was in China for a four-day trip, his fourth visit to the neighboring ally in about 10 months.
“The DPRK will continue sticking to the stance of denuclearization and resolving the Korean Peninsula issue through dialogue and consultation, and make efforts for the second summit between DPRK and U.S. leaders to achieve results that will be welcomed by the international community,” Xinhua quoted Kim as saying during talks with Xi.
Yeah, Instapundit readers, Kim’s a Commie liar, like Angela Davis. But he’s a scared Commie liar.
So we’re on the same page, check out this column which discusses South Korea’s close encounter (inspection) with North Korea’s utterly abysmal railroad system.
In December…South Korean railroad experts conducted a close inspection of North Korean railroads. Over two weeks, a South Korean train crept along some 2,000 kilometers of North Korean track, gathering highly granular data on North Korean rail infrastructure and verifying its miserable condition.
Pyongyang wants Seoul to help rebuild its railroads. South Korea says it will — after denuclearization. Denuclearization requires inspection and verification within the secretive North Korea. Paranoid North Korea let South Korean railroad experts inspect and verify. Was it a tentative first step toward accepting the nuclear weapons inspection and verification regimen CVID requires? Perhaps 2019 will tell provide a few more clues.
CVID = Complete, Verifiable and Irreversible Denuclearization.
Where can you get more details? Yes, of course. Cocktails from Hell. Go ahead. Do it. Order now. Rejoice. Finally, reality is a sales gimmick.
THE STAKES IN CONGO – LIVES AND LIFESTYLES: My latest Creators Syndicate column, bumped and updated with breaking news (see below) plus a relevant observation in a recent review.
Column kick-off:
If you advocate electric vehicles and dote on cellphones whose manufacture depends on Congo’s minerals, then the Democratic Republic of Congo’s flawed Dec. 30 presidential election matters because it can affect your digital lifestyle.
Congo’s stability also matters if you value human life. In Congo’s last civil war (Great Congo War, 1996-2003) some three million to five million people died in anarchic combat and from starvation, disease and exposure exacerbated by war.
UPDATE: Riot police deploy in Kinshasa (Reuters).
“We don’t want people to die when they announce (the results), blood to be spilled,” said Kinshasa resident Ohn Kabamba. “We are fed up, we are tired and we are waiting for a peaceful announcement which will allow us to rejoice rather than cry.”
This is a situation where you prefer to be wrong, not right. But my column ends pessimistically, with the thought that if Kabila attempts to remain in power Congo and central Africa should “prepare for a major bloodletting.”
VERY RELATED: Chapter Six, Cocktails from Hell: Anarchic Violence, Cyclic Intervention, and Mineral Wealth. The chapter gets into China’s interest in Congolese cobalt. Check out Glenn’s USA Today review and James Jay Carafano’s National Interest review.
A quote from Carafano’s review is pertinent:
The fifth of Bay’s “wicked problems” is the Congo, where ongoing cycles of violence and meddling by external powers continually threaten to spin out of control. Unfortunately, these conditions don’t describe the Congo alone. Bay could have picked Venezuela or any number of other troubled states.
Congo’s real-time cocktail from Hell is breaking news.
FIGHTING SMALL BOAT SWARMS WITH USMC LIGHT ARMORED VEHICLES: Read the post. LAV-25s lashed to the ship deck and used to detect and fire on Iranian (etc.) small boat “swarms.” It makes a lot of sense.
THE STAKES IN CONGO – LIVES AND LIFESTYLES:
If you advocate electric vehicles and dote on cellphones whose manufacture depends on Congo’s minerals, then the Democratic Republic of Congo’s flawed Dec. 30 presidential election matters because it can affect your digital lifestyle.
Congo’s stability also matters if you value human life. In Congo’s last civil war (Great Congo War, 1996-2003) some three million to five million people died in anarchic combat and from starvation, disease and exposure exacerbated by war.
My latest Creators Syndicate column.
RELATED: Chapter Six, Cocktails from Hell: Anarchic Violence, Cyclic Intervention, and Mineral Wealth.
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