Author: VD

Negotiating with the Agreement-Incapable

Reportedly, the Russian delegation said that the Ukrainians need to withdraw from the four new Russian regions if they want a ceasefire. Ukrainian delegation said no. The Russian side stood up, said “Next time, it’ll be five,” and left the room.

When negotiating, it’s very important to understand the power dynamics in place. This may be a genuine report or it may be apocryphal, but the fact is that it is entirely up to the Russians when and where they decide to stop. The Kievites can preen and posture all they like, but they are entirely at the mercy of the Russians. One wonders for whom they think they are performing.

The most recent body exchange:

  • 34 bodies of dead Russian soldiers
  • 909 bodies of dead Ukrainian soldiers

That’s a 26.7-1 fatality rate. Russia isn’t merely winning the war, it is obliterating the UFA.

UPDATE: “We didn’t say five. We said eight.”

DISCUSS ON SG

Free Trade is Deader than Dead

Free Trade, and the Comparative Advantage theory that supported it, were always examples of the Ricardian Vice, in which all other relevant variables are stripped away in order to support false conclusion based on a single variable. But among the many fatal flaws of Free Trade, and there are at least nine, is the loss of national security based on outsourcing consumer production to potential enemies.

Engineers have discovered ‘kill switches’ embedded within Chinese-manufactured parts in American solar farms, raising fears that Beijing could manipulate power supplies or even ‘physically destroy’ grids across the US, UK and Europe.

Energy officials are now assessing the risks posed by small communication devices discovered inside power inverters – an integral component of renewable energy systems that connects them to the power grid.

While inverters are built to allow remote access for updates and maintenance, the utility companies that use them typically install firewalls to prevent direct communication back to China.

But rogue communication devices not listed in product documents have been found in some solar power inverters by US experts who strip down equipment hooked up to grids to check for security issues, two sources told Reuters.

Using these devices to skirt firewalls and switch off inverters remotely, or change their settings, could destabilise power grids, damage energy infrastructure and trigger widespread blackouts, experts said.

‘That effectively means there is a built-in way to physically destroy the grid,’ one of the sources declared.

In other words, it appears that China can turn off power to the West any time it chooses, thanks to the economists and politicians who encouraged the outsourcing of solar power manufacturing there.

DISCUSS ON SG

The Charade is Ending

The Russians are observably tiring of all the Western antics and attempts to spin their way out of obvious defeat:

I hope everyone can understand why the Russian President didn’t come to Turkey or even consider the EU proposed Ceasefire.

This is a waste of our time.

We are all for peace, but we have the might to keep the SMO going, not you. The only ones to suffer will be the Ukrainian population.

Don’t act like this is us begging you, we could declare war and crush you in days if Putin decides, and the world would watch us do it.

We do this to spare your population.

Sooner or later the Russians will put an end to the Kiev regime, and, one hopes, the Brussels regime as well. But until then, we’ll have to listen to the yapping of the satanic little lapdogs desperately trying to word-magic reality more to their liking.

DISCUSS ON SG

The End of Airpower Confirmed

Simplicius observes how the US failure in the Red Sea has underlined the lessons of the NATO-Russian war.

The US is unable to safely conduct operations near even Yemen’s airspace, with its so-called ‘rudimentary’ air defenses. F-35s—claimed to be ‘the most advanced fighter jets ever assembled’—are unable to safely operate without being detected. What do you think it could be that’s allowing the Houthis to detect “invisible” F-35s to such an extent as to fire on them, causing evasive maneuvers? Is it hand-me-down Iranian radars, which themselves are likely hand-me-down Russian ones? How would the vaunted F-35s and B-2s handle the far larger and superior national Iranian AD network if they can’t even handle the Houthi one?

The costs of that complete failure have been staggering:

He proposed an eight- to 10-month campaign in which Air Force and Navy warplanes would take out Houthi air defense systems. Then, he said, U.S. forces would mount targeted assassinations modeled on Israel’s recent operation against Hezbollah, three U.S. officials said.

Saudi officials backed General Kurilla’s plan and provided a target list of 12 Houthi senior leaders whose deaths, they said, would cripple the movement. But the United Arab Emirates, another powerful U.S. ally in the region, was not so sure. The Houthis had weathered years of bombings by the Saudis and the Emiratis.

By early March, Mr. Trump had signed off on part of General Kurilla’s plan — airstrikes against Houthi air defense systems and strikes against the group’s leaders. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth named the campaign Operation Rough Rider.

At some point, General Kurilla’s eight- to 10-month campaign was given just 30 days to show results.

In those first 30 days, the Houthis shot down seven American MQ-9 drones (around $30 million each), hampering Central Command’s ability to track and strike the militant group. Several American F-16s and an F-35 fighter jet were nearly struck by Houthi air defenses, making real the possibility of American casualties, multiple U.S. officials said. That possibility became reality when two pilots and a flight deck crew member were injured in the two episodes involving the F/A-18 Super Hornets, which fell into the Red Sea from the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman within 10 days of each other…

But the cost of the operation was staggering. The Pentagon had deployed two aircraft carriers, additional B-2 bombers and fighter jets, as well as Patriot and THAAD air defenses, to the Middle East, officials acknowledged privately. By the end of the first 30 days of the campaign, the cost had exceeded $1 billion, the officials said.

So many precision munitions were being used, especially advanced long-range ones, that some Pentagon contingency planners were growing increasingly concerned about overall stocks and the implications for any situation in which the United States might have to ward off an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China.

And through it all, the Houthis were still shooting at vessels and drones, fortifying their bunkers and moving weapons stockpiles underground.

Airpower as it has been conventionally understood is over. Anti-air defenses are only going to improve, given the pressures created by drone warfare, and what can shoot down a tiny, agile drone is usually going to be able to take down a much larger, much less agile jetfighter.

DISCUSS ON SG

The People Have Spoken

In what leather would you prefer to see the two Homer Library editions bound?

  • 54% The new Franklin-style pigskin
  • 34% The new cowhide
  • 11% The original Easton-style cowhide

    There is also considerable enthusiasm for the ability to retroactively back the two Castalia Bindery editions, so we’ll probably get that rolling next week, for the next 2-3 weeks. This will be a useful way of helping us pay for the hubbing tools and the leather-cutting press that we now need to acquire.

    If you are a Bindery backer and you have a religious problem with pigskin, get in touch with me. Due to our great appreciation for your support in helping us get the bindery going, we will arrange to bind your backer editions in the new cowhide. Which, fittingly enough, is something that we can actually do now that we control the production process.

    DISCUSS ON SG

    Speaking of Zero Empathy

    Some bullies just don’t know when to stop relying on bullying others to get what they want:

    Blake Lively allegedly threatened to leak embarrassing private texts from bestie Taylor Swift unless the pop star agreed to publicly back the actress in her feud with co-star Justin Baldoni, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

    The explosive revelation appears in a legal letter filed Wednesday by Baldoni’s lawyers, in response to Lively’s request to quash their subpoena to the singer.

    The court filing alleges that the Gossip Girl alum had tried to pressure Swift, 35, to issue a public statement in support of her and urged her to delete text messages between them during her escalating legal battle with Baldoni, 41.

    I was pretty sure this wasn’t going to end well for Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds, but I had no idea they were in this far over their heads. Taylor Swift goes out of her way to destroy guys she dated for three weeks, imagine what she’s likely to do when faced with this sort of betrayal from a former friend.

    One has to assume Russian scientists are watching the situation closely, since this might be the most devastating non-nuclear weapon to be dropped since the Oreshnik was introduced.

    DISCUSS ON SG

    Homer in Leather

    The original plan was to print THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY in the same Italian cowhide with which we’ve been binding the Library and History books to date. However, after five years of searching, we have finally located quality pigskin leather in the quantities we require and we also have access to some higher-quality cowhide from the same supplier. Hence the poll at the Castalia Library substack concerning the preferences of the backers and prospective retroactive backers.

    DISCUSS ON SG

    Vibrancy > Christianity

    It’s no longer possible to pretend that the Episcopalian Church is Christian anymore:

    Sean Rowe, the head of the Episcopal Migration Ministries, which leads The Episcopal Church, announced his organization will not resettle white Afrikaners refugees from South Africa.

    In a letter published on May 12, Rowe revealed that the United States federal government requested Episcopal Migration Ministries to “resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government classified as refugees.”

    However, he then announced the organization would not be doing it. He explained, “In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step.”

    Episcopalians are more committed to diversity and the Devil, and worshiping at the altar of their black gods, than they are to the Churchian principles that they formerly espoused. Of course, those Churchian principles were always fake modifications of genuine Christian principles.

    So much for all that “Jesus was a refugee” nonsense. Which was always blitheringly stupid and historically ignorant, considering that his family did the Roman equivalent of moving from New Jersey to Alabama because they had fallen afoul of the mayor of Newark.

    DISCUSS ON SG

    Hungary Moving on Transcarpathia

    There are multiple reports that Hungary has moved potential invasion forces to the Ukrainian border:

    Unexpected: Hungary pulls tanks and heavy armored vehicles to the border with Ukraine

    Hungary has deployed tanks and armored vehicles to 5 main checkpoints on the Hungarian-Ukrainian border: Zakhony, Beregshurany, Tisabech, Barabash and Nagybodosh.

    It is noteworthy that this happened after the espionage scandal, when Hungary expelled two Ukrainians from the embassy who were engaged in espionage. This led to the breakdown of negotiations in Uzhhorod, where 11 conditions for the restoration of the rights of the Hungarian national minority were to be discussed on May 12.

    Since the EU is already threatening to strip Hungary of its right to vote, Hungary might as well take action to recover the land that was historically Hungarian and is populated by Hungarian-speaking Hungarians. There certainly won’t be anything that the Kiev regime could do about it, and it would open another front at a time that the regime’s forces are on the verge of collapse all across the various Russian fronts.

    Hal Turner sees this potential reclamation of Transcarpathia as a major threat to the stability of the European Union.

    If this is what Hungary is actually doing, re-taking Transcarpathia, the European Union will likely go berserk. They are already fed-up with Hungary voting to deny additional aid to Ukraine. A vote coming later this week, is specifically being designed to neutralize Hungary’s ability to bloc further EU aid to Ukraine; they will adopt legislation in a manner that prevents a single nation from blocking more aid. Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who leads Hungary, has already seen the writing on the wall of Europe when, last month, discussions took place to strip Hungary of EU voting rights.

    If Hungary is going to switch sides, as it certainly should, this would probably be an optimal time to do so, since there aren’t any forces in Europe capable of intervening, especially not if Russia recognizes Hungary’s right to reclaim its historical land and respects the rights to self-determination of the Transcarpathians.

    DISCUSS ON SG