PUNK ROCKERS FOR THE EIGHTH AIR FORCE: Punk rock versus Red fascists. I’m not engaging the “is Trump the new punk rock” debate. No, I swear I’m not. I’m avoiding it entirely. (Though…it’s an intriguing, “yuge” idea…) I am providing open source evidence that genuine punk has a conservative edge. Indeed ™. I mean, stifling, stuffy, left-lib propagandists utterly dominate popular culture, and have for decades.

No wonder freedom-seeking rebel souls reject its mental and spiritual prison.

They’ve been rejecting it for decades.

In the video to which I’ve linked, The Explosives sing “Fortress Europe.” DEEP BACKGROUND: This snappy tune comes from the era when Democrats thought Ronald Reagan was the threat, not the Kremlin.

The lyrics in this wry tune include this line:

“Red tanks in the alleys of Prague…”

Hey, it happened. That’s a fact. 1968. Dubchek. The man had courage. Real courage.

Of course, Commie tanks aren’t parked in Prague today. And Reagan deserves some credit for that. That’s a fact. No matter what Nancy Pelosi says to The New York Times.

“We’ll reactivate the Eighth Air Force…”

That’s another line in “Fortress Europe.”

Golly gee. We’ve reactivated the Eighth Air Force.

OK. You can read the lyrics as tongue in cheek. But Red tanks in Prague were grim reality. And American power was the only real response. Even tongue in cheek punk recognized that reality, long before the New York Times.

WHAT IF GPS DIES?: Navigating without Global Positioning Satellites.

WAS BEE-MAGEDDON FAKE NEWS?: This article suggests the NY Times and other mainstream media don’t do a very good job covering agricultural issues.

Covering food and modern farming has not been the Times strong point. Journalist and foodie Michael Pollan’s articles on the virtues of organic food and the dangers of ‘industrialized agriculture’ have been a Times’ staple since the early 2000s. In 2013, he bragged in a video interview with a fellow activist that he long has exploited the willingness of his editors to forego traditional vetting because they share his reflexive anti-industry perspective:

The media has really been on our side for the most part. I know this from writing for the New York Times…. [W]hen I wrote about food I never had to give equal time to the other side. I could say whatever I thought and offer my own conclusions. Say you should buy grass feed beef and organic is better, and these editors in New York didn’t realize there is anyone who disagrees with that point of view. So, I felt like I got a free ride for a long time.

It’s startling that a reputable journalist would boast about manipulating editors who shared a reflexively and uncritical anti-industry—and in this case, an anti-science—world view.

The article is long and involved — just like the subject.

A NOD, NOT FOUR PITCHES: Baseball changes the intentional walk rule.

RETAINING AMERICA’s “HARD POWER”: My latest Creators Syndicate column looks at the Trump Administration’s plans for the Department of Defense.

I HATE GIVING THE WASHINGTON POST INSTAPUNDIT LINKS: But this rates as good news — if it’s accurate and not fake.

I’m on a limb…I live on a limb…OK…I suspect it’s accurate.

The White House is preparing to propose boosting defense spending and slashing funding for longtime Republican targets like the Environmental Protection Agency.

Yup. DOD over EPA. All night long. And for the next 5,250 years. (Hey. If Egypt’s hung on 5,500 years –at least in hieroglyphics— why not the U.S.?) If this ain’t accurate news it ought to be. DOD is the real U.S. environment/economic/physical security protection agency and –by damn!– that’s Constitutional!

ADDING TO GLENN’S PRIOR POST: The Walther PPK is a very wearable solution for feminine defense. Now, my admiration for the truly gifted designer John Browning has no bounds. Why, my favorite John Browning creation, the M2HB .50 caliber machine gun, is an absolute work of beauty, an exquisite design, appropriate for all but the most heavily armored occasions. Yet it’s a helluva thing to lug. Ladies, you’d need a three-person purse to deploy it, plus an ammo team. On the other hand, Ma Deuce is an all-American accessory item (with a tough gal name) that makes a statement the bad guys (from Hitler to ISIS) understand.

RELATED: The Forever Machine Gun. I should have included this background information on Ma Deuce in my original post.

MOST LIBERAL AND MOST CONSERVATIVE CITIES IN THE U.S.: I’m not sure I believe this list is accurate. I do believe that Forbes has come up with fantastic click bait.

It looks like Vodka Pundit lives in a sane place. If you believe Forbes. But I guess Fort Carson and the Air Force Academy are good indicators.

ARMY REVISES TRAINING FOR COMBAT IN URBAN TERRAIN: Training to fight and defeat a “near peer” in cities and towns.

In Iraq and Afghanistan the troops got used to a foe who had no air power, few real electronic weapons and that enabled many American troops to acquire some bad habits for anyone trying to fight a more conventional opponent.

Read the whole thing.

REPEALING AND REPLACING OBAMACARE: Draft legislation indicates the first step is ending the mandate.

The 105-page measure largely tracks talking points that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., unveiled last summer and a similar outline that GOP leaders recently gave lawmakers. The document is 2 weeks old, and GOP aides said it is subject to change.

Still, it provides some new details of Republican thinking and reaffirms others, such as blocking federal payments to Planned Parenthood for a year.

It also shows Republicans have begun translating their ideas into legislative language, even as they continue their seven-year struggle to unify their party behind a bill repealing Obama’s 2010 overhaul.

MALAYSIA THREATENS TO ARREST NORTH KOREAN DIPLOMAT: Unless he cooperates with Malaysian police investigating the murder of Kim Jong Nam (half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Kong Un).

Malaysia said earlier in the week that Hyon Kwang Song, a second secretary at the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, was wanted for questioning. Abdul Samah Mat, the police chief leading the investigation, said authorities would give the diplomat “reasonable” time to come forward. If he doesn’t, police will issue a notice compelling him to do so.

“And if he failed to turn up … then we will go to the next step by getting a warrant of arrest from the court,” Abdul Samah told reporters.

My Creators Syndicate column this week examined Kim Jong Nam’s assassination. (Bumped.)

IT AIN’T NO C-130: The C-130 Hercules rules, with good reason. Spain has asked Airbus to explain the 400M’s deficiencies. This isn’t mansplain’ femni-psycho agitprop to get HuffPo links. This is a real world defense issue.

Spain has invited the head of Airbus to travel to Madrid next month to brief defence officials about its troubled A400M military transport plane, the defence ministry said Friday.

The A400M was commissioned jointly in 2003 by the governments of Germany, Belgium, France, Britain, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey, but since its delayed launch in 2013 it has run into difficulty, with delays in delivery of the plane.

A spokesman for the ministry told AFP Airbus CEO Tom Enders had asked to meet representatives from these countries, and Spain’s junior defence minister Agustin Conde had responded by inviting him and defence officials from those nations to Madrid.

“He sent him a letter inviting him to attend a meeting with the programme’s partner countries, on March 30 in Madrid,” the spokesman said.

Airbus refused to comment when contacted by AFP.

DRAGON LADY WITH A MILESTONE: On February 2 a U-2 spy plane surpassed 30,000 hours of flight time. This is a USAF propaganda photo — and a good one. Just so y’all know, I missed it when StrategyPage’s webmaster posted it.

In October 2007 I saw one of these classic planes take-off on a mission. I was at an “undisclosed airbase somewhere in the Middle East.” Shortly after the U-2 take-off, a Global Hawk UAV landed.

Extract from a very old essay:

The U-2 is no beauty, either, though over time my opinion of the Dragonlady’s looks has changed for the better. On the ground, its huge, thin wings are awkward, but once aloft the black spy plane has the stubborn elegance of an ocean-hopping seabird.

I wonder if that’s the way Kelly Johnson and his Lockheed Skunk Works engineers envisioned the U-2 when they designed it in the 1950s — a manned albatross with the altitude and range to take pictures of the Soviet Union so we could count the Kremlin’s missiles, bombers and tanks.

The Soviet Union no longer exists, and the U-2 on its silent vigil helped defeat it, as did its snazzy, hypersonic offspring, the SR-71, another example of Skunk Works genius. Information gleaned from these planes and satellites first helped contain the Cold War (for example, we learned there was no bomber gap), then win it.

The downside of the U-2, however, hit the headlines in 1960, when U-2 CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union. A spy plane with a man in it runs that risk — all manned aircraft do.

This is one of the upsides of UAVs like the Global Hawk, Predator and the new, improved attack UAV, the MQ-9 Reaper. When a UAV goes down, we don’t lose an American pilot to death, injury or the humiliation and torture of a Hanoi Hilton.

Aw, go read the whole, old thing. The column discusses the supposedly “au courant new improved invented six minutes ago” concept of mixing UAVs and manned aircraft. Hey, I’ll wager there were U.S. military officers thinking about mixing manned aircraft and semi-autonomous unmanned air frames (in a coordinated strike scenario) at least three decades ago.

THE LIVERY STABLE BLUES: February 26, 1917. It’s still a controversial recording. But then, man, like, “what qualifies as jazz?”

Strange contemporary resonance:

The New York Times published editorial after editorial throughout the late 1910s and 1920s touting the dangers of jazz, which had historically been associated with the brothels where it was initially played…

Why, that’s racism and sexism, straight up. Will CNN and the Huffington Post condemn?

GREENLAND VIKING DISAPPEARANCE UPDATE: And you thought the science was settled…FWIW, the article treats the Medieval Warm Period as the fact it is.

VX LIQUID NERVE AGENT KILLED KIM JONG NAM:

Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea’s leader, was killed by a highly toxic nerve agent, says Malaysia.

Mr Kim died last week after two women accosted him briefly in a check-in hall at a Kuala Lumpur airport.

Malaysian toxicology reports indicate he was attacked using VX nerve agent, which is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.

There is widespread suspicion that North Korea was responsible for the attack, which it fiercely denies.

I discussed Kim Jong Nam’s assassination in my latest Creators Syndicate column (written February 21). Emerging evidence appears to support the report that the victim’s face was sprayed with toxic liquid.

INDONESIA MAY CONDUCT JOINT PATROLS WITH AUSTRALIA IN SOUTH CHINA SEA: Beijing’s “artificial island imperialism” continues to get push back.

Indonesia is talking softly, but just mentioning joint military patrols indicates Jakarta is upset.

Indonesia President Joko Widodo will discuss the prospect of joint patrols with Australia in the South China Sea when he meets his counterpart Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the weekend.

Widodo told The Australian newspaper he would like to see joint patrols with Australia, but only if did not further inflame tensions with China.

“If there is no tension I think it’s very important to have the patrols together. We will discuss this with PM Turnbull,” said Widodo.

Indonesia has traditionally taken a neutral position on the South China Sea, acting as a buffer between China and fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that have the most at stake, the Philippines and Vietnam.

But after China angered Indonesia by saying the two countries had “overlapping claims” to waters close to Indonesia’s Natuna Islands, Jakarta staged large-scale exercise on the edge of South China Sea in October.

Here’s some background on the “slow invasion.”

RELATED: This post from last year explains why the The U.S. Third Fleet’s operating area has expanded. The USS Carl Vinson is conducting operations in the South China Sea and remains under Third Fleet command.

IRAQ SUICIDE BOMBER WAS A FORMER GITMO DETAINEE: Family members identified Abu-Zakariya al-Britani as the suicide bomber who attacked a military base in Mosul this past week. He was released from Guantanamo in 2004.

NORTH KOREA’S CRIMINAL REALITY IS INTOLERABLE: Spy novel assassination, whodunnit missile proliferation. Kim Jong Un’s regime is criminal and dangerous.

SO-CALLED FERAL HOG APOCALYPSE IN TEXAS: Apocalypse overstates the case. But there are a lot of’em. The article discusses an option the state is considering: poisoning the feral hogs.That doesn’t strike me as appropriate. Go with the 7.62 mm solution.

RESPONDING TO FUTURE BENGHAZIS: The article discusses the Pentagon’s quick response forces for dealing with future attacks on U.S. diplomatic and security facilities.

BRAZILIAN CORRUPTION SCANDAL INVESTIGATION GOES INTERNATIONAL: It’s going to get even more interesting.

A vast corruption scheme that started in Brazil but morphed into a giant international scandal is about to spread even further, a top prosecutor warned on Monday.

Brazil-based Odebrecht, one of the region’s biggest construction companies, was at the heart of a scheme to bribe Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras in exchange for inflated contracts.

Odebrecht also systematically bribed politicians, mostly in Brazil but also in other countries, even running a department to keep track of the bribery.

Odebrecht admitted to paying $788 million in bribes across 12 countries and agreed with the US Justice Department to pay a $3.5 billion fine, a world record in foreign corruption cases.

Some background from 2016.

CLOSED CIRCUIT TV FOOTAGE OF KIM JONG NAM’S ASSASSINATION?: CNN says that the footage “appears” to record the assassination. The date, time and location support that conclusion. This clip first aired on Japanese television. Kim Jong Nam is the half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Kim Jong Nam definitely suffered an Un-seemly death.

LEMONADE: H. R. McMaster is the new National Security Adviser. Trump already has General Mattis on his team, as SecDef. In McMaster, the President has another stellar military officer with a superb intellect and an earned reputation for out-of-the-box conceptualization.

I still don’t think we know the whole story about LTG Mike Flynn. I don’t know what transpired between Flynn and VP Pence. But the Administration has responded to the perceived political difficulties by finding a first-rate replacement.

MEANT TO DO THIS EARLIER TODAY BUT JUST GOT AROUND TO IT: And it’s worth noting. I scan StrategyPage’s “Today in Military History” three or four times a week. Today was noteworthy. 74 years ago Rommel attacked U.S. forces in the Kasserine Pass. 72 years ago the USMC invaded Iwo Jima. 20 years ago Chinese reformer and mass murderer Deng Xioaping died. But dig this: today in 1648 the Portuguese defeated the Dutch in the First Battle of Guararapes (northeastern Brazil).