Saturday, September 4, 2021
Friday, September 3, 2021
Full time jobs as a percentage of population now average 48.3% through August 2021
Full time as a percentage of population rose to 49.18 in August after peaking in July, as is typical, at 49.28.
The measure ebbs after summer and flows in the spring, mirrored by a peak oscillation in usually part-time employment in the winter, which is a much smaller part of the population, historically averaging 27+ million in the years before the latest catastrophe.
The 48.3% average to date in 2021 is one full point ahead of the average for 2020 at 47.3%, but remains far off the 2019 average at 50.4%, which itself hardly represented a return to what was normal before the Great Financial Crisis.
Full time work never recovered after GFC I, which exposed the hollowed out character of the US economy after decades of out-sourcing, off-shoring, and mass low-wage immigration.
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The absolute number of nuclear warheads matters but their hard-target kill capability matters more, and we don't have it against the Chicoms
All presidents since Reagan/Bush have failed to prioritize US hard-target kill capability, including Trump, so our enemies both in Russia and China have been compensating for that.
Eroding the certainty of destruction erodes deterrence.
The Chicoms haven't been emphasizing concrete manufacturing just to build vacant buildings and roads to nowhere.
Mark B. Schneider:
In 1985, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Vessey briefed President Ronald Reagan about the need for improved hard-target kill capability, including the need for 100 MX (Peacekeeper) ICBMs. We actually got 50. Of the three U.S. hard target capable systems created by the Reagan administration, two (the Peacekeeper ICBM and the Advanced Cruise Missile) were eliminated by the George W. Bush administration. This left only the high-yield WW-88 Trident warheads. Reportedly, the U.S. produced only 400 of the high-yield WW-88 warheads for the Trident II missile. Obviously, they can’t all be used against Chinese silos even if one makes a number of best-case assumptions. Moreover, it is not clear that the 1990 accuracy of the Trident II will be adequate if the Chinese are building silos based upon the new 30,000 psi super concrete now commercially available. The 1970 accuracy of a Minuteman III, while a great achievement in 1970, is hardly the same today against really hard targets. Unfortunately, the Minuteman III life extension program did not aim to upgrade the accuracy of the Minuteman.[8] It is not comparable to the Peacekeeper. There are plenty of important targets, including hard targets, the Minuteman III can cover, but super hard targets are not among them.
Even before the discovery of the new Chinese silos, a case could be made from a targeting standpoint for a strategic nuclear force of 2,700-3,000 nuclear warheads. There is a great difference between target coverage (assigning a warhead to a target) and damage expectancy (the probability of target destruction). Claims by Minimum Deterrence advocates, such as the Global Zero "Commission" report that a small nuclear force can do effective counterforce targeting are bogus. Regarding China, the report’s targeting plan involved “(85 warheads including 2-on-1 strikes against every missile silo), leadership command posts (33 warheads), war-supporting industry (136 warheads).” With the new Chinese silos, this targeting approach would require almost 1,000 warheads. Moreover, the approach itself is flawed because it ignores the Underground Great Wall, which protects the Chinese mobile ICBM force, the Chinese Navy and Air Force, and the large Chinese force of nuclear-capable theater-range missiles. The Global Zero report also assigned two warheads against every Russian silo. The report talked about target coverage, not damage expectancy, because its recommended force structure would likely have performed very badly against the facilities it targeted.
Against the very deep hard, and deeply targets (HDBTs) [sic; should read "very hard deeply-buried targets] there is essentially zero chance that they can be destroyed with a single U.S. nuclear warhead. The 2018 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review only partially reversed the Obama administration’s decision to eliminate the two most effective U.S. bombs against HDBTs, the B61 Mod 11 and B-83. These bombs will be retained longer than planned but not be life extended. Once again, numbers matter, and we no longer have the numbers. Conventional weapons have little and declining capability against HDBTs.[9] As one report stated, “One GBUJ-57A/B [Massive Ordnance Penetrator] can only penetrate 8 meters of 10,000 psi rock or concrete. This could drop to 2 meters of 30,000 psi material.”
More.
Thursday, September 2, 2021
While America has been bogged down in Afghanistan, China has been building nukes
From Bill Gertz:
China is building a third missile field that will hold more than 100 new DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles, The Washington Times has learned.
Construction of a silo array for DF-41s was identified from satellite imagery by U.S. intelligence agencies in the past several weeks and appears equal in size to two other new Chinese missile fields recently identified, according to Pentagon officials familiar with intelligence reports on the strategic development.
Adm. Charles Richard, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, said Thursday that the first two missile fields being built are part of China‘s “explosive” expansion of nuclear forces. ...
Analysts at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, first told The Washington Post in June that commercial satellite photos had revealed the construction of scores of silos near Yumen in China‘s Gansu province for the new missiles. Some missile sites were placed underneath a 230-foot cover in an attempt to conceal the silos from the prying eyes of satellite spies.
Last month, the Federation of American Scientists discovered the second DF-41 field some 240 miles northwest of Yumen near the city of Hami in Xinjiang Province. Xinjiang is also the location of China‘s active nuclear testing site, which the Pentagon said recently had begun increased operations after years of limited, irregular activity.
Mark Schneider, a former Pentagon nuclear policymaker, said the discovery of a new missile field is significant and indicates that Beijing’s ICBM force will soon be more powerful than U.S. nuclear forces were at the height of the Cold War.
“It is now beyond any reasonable doubt that China is going for large-scale strategic nuclear superiority over the U.S.,” said Mr. Schneider, now with the National Institute for Public Policy. “The new silos will give China the ability to deploy thousands of strategic nuclear warheads on DF-41 ICBMs.”
Mr. Schneider said he believes the main motivation for the large buildup is that Beijing is planning some type of military action in the next few years and hopes to deter a U.S. military response to action against one of China‘s neighbors, such as Taiwan. ...
Until the discovery of the DF-41 silos, China‘s land-based, silo-deployed ICBM force consisted of around 20 DF-5 ICBMs.
More.
Wednesday, September 1, 2021
US COVID-19 deaths surged in Aug vs. Jul, but deaths for the five months Apr-Aug 2021 are down a whopping 50% vs. Apr-Aug 2020
Deaths Apr-Aug 2020 were 179k, but fewer than 89k in 2021 for the same months.
And every one of those months in 2021 was lower than its corresponding month in 2020.
We'll be happy to see that be the case also in September.
Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Maybe when Joe Biden kept spewing tweets valuing no one left behind he was actually signaling to expect the exact opposite
Politicians always telegraph their greatest failures.
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Monday, August 30, 2021
Honestly I don't understand how General McKenzie can continue to serve under a Commander in Chief Surrender Monkey and do his bidding with a straight face or a clear conscience
U.S. Central Command chief Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, who served multiple tours in Afghanistan, as did his son, appeared somewhat stunned when he spoke to the press on Monday, detailing surprisingly civil interactions with Taliban commanders who oversee the network he has fought to defeat for two decades. When asked how he felt about that, he demurred.
"I was very conflicted," McKenzie said in a candid moment during a televised briefing at the Pentagon from his headquarters in Tampa, Florida. "I am going to be thinking about that in the days ahead."
He described Taliban cooperation with the U.S. evacuation mission in recent days as "actually very helpful and useful to us as we closed down operations."
McKenzie detailed that despite assertions from Biden and other top leaders, the U.S. did not withdraw all of its own citizens, nor the Afghans it had pledged it would protect in exchange for their cooperation in the war effort. The military presence on the ground at the airport retained the ability to bring them out of the country, but many were not able to get to the airfield amid the chaos in the capital city.
"The military phase is over, but our desire to bring these people out remains as intense as it was before," McKenzie said. "The Department of State will now take the lead on it."
The U.S. would not have been able to accomplish that mission if it had stayed for an additional week or so, he added, batting down suggestions from Capitol Hill and elsewhere that Biden should have ordered an extension to his deadline. ...
McKenzie assesses as many as 2,000 "Hardcore ISIS fighters" are operating in Afghanistan now, some of whom were freed in recent days from jails the U.S. originally ran at Bagram and elsewhere.
Al Qaeda is now free to move about the country . . . of Afghanistan
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies reported Monday that Osama bin Laden's chief of security returned to his hometown in Afghanistan earlier in the day accompanied by a band of heavily armed Taliban fighters in brand new military trucks.
"The video of al Haq is evidence that Al Qaeda commanders now feel secure enough to appear publicly in a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan," the foundation's Bill Roggio wrote in an analysis note.
More.
Meanwhile, the Laugh of the Day is CNBC saying "scores without power" in Louisiana and Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Ida
Yeah, like 55,000 score.
I guess the kids think that's a fancy word for "a lot".
Holiday weekend help is already on duty, apparently.
If we followed Typhoid Annie's advice, we would add 175 million dead to the 58 million that normally die
In the first year of the pandemic, 2.2% of cases globally died. 2.2% of global population would mean almost 175 million deaths. In 2019 just 58 million died globally from all causes, pre-pandemic.
There's no guarantee 2.2% will die of COVID going forward, but Typhoid Annie is still stark, raving mad.
Globally speaking, the India variant wave appears already to have peaked both in respect of cases/million and deaths/million
It also looks as if the India variant has been not only less deadly, but less infectious as well, not more as most experts had been saying.
The January outbreak remains the dominant one of all the waves so far as to cases, but as to deaths we are clearly seeing a step down in severity.
I'm sure vaccine advocates will chalk it all up to the success of the vaccines, ignoring that the latest wave began on the first day of summer, fully six months into the mass vaccination effort, which most certainly did not prevent infection and transmission as the US CDC continues to say to this day. Pointing this out on Twitter a few days ago got Alex Berenson finally and permanently banned.
The Vaccine Church wants to credit the dramatic decline in cases since January to the vaccines, but refuses to own the wave of July and August. Instead it blames the unvaccinated at the same time it admits that vaccinated people get infected and spread the disease, as was proven by the dramatic Provincetown, Massachusetts, incident. Conveniently for the investors in big pharma, the CDC doesn't count breakthrough cases unless they end up in hospital or die, excluding from the statistics an entire class of superspreaders. There are literally hundreds of millions of them.
Meanwhile as to deaths few will consider that the easy fruit had already been harvested by the Grim Reaper before the India variant even arrived, that as to cases prior infection immunized millions while millions more who were vaccinated relaxed masking and social distancing, with official encouragement, spreading the virus.
There is also the simple fact of seasonality, which may loom larger than we know.
No one can really say.
There isn't just one variable to blame or credit, but that is what tired, frightened, small, greedy, and often hysterical minds end up doing.
It's human nature.
The virus may or may not peter out, but we'll always have human nature.
Sunday, August 29, 2021
LOL Mike "Mish" Shedlock goes full Keynes on C19 vaccines
Israel's high vaccination rate isn't high enough. The country jumped out ahead of all other countries on vaccines, and 78% of eligible Israelis over 12 years old are vaccinated.
More.
Mish is a long time popularizer of the Austrian School of Economics.
Saturday, August 28, 2021
Biden kills one in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, with drone strike after Kabul airport suicide bombing kills 13 Americans
This response epitomizes what has been wrong with US policy in Afghanistan since 9/11, and everywhere, frankly.
America treats this like a matter of law enforcement instead of like what it is, a war.
It cannot bring itself to punish the nation and destroy its ability to make war, pretending justice for an individual is sufficient.
That's why we've been there for 20 years, hunting down individuals. We make fine but false distinctions between ISIS, al-Qaeda, Taliban, etc., instead of destroying them all.
The Taliban, now America's chosen people in Afghanistan, has simply run out the clock and exhausted us with our own inadequate, enervated Rules of Engagement.
Trump used to understand this but quickly was co-opted by The Blob, because his character was and remains weak, the fundamental reason why his presidency was such a disappointment.
LOL California's Governor Newsom takes drastic action to make it look like he's not a total raving lunatic as recall vote looms Sep 14
And so temporarily, or so they say, the state has been forced to set up five natural gas power plants in order to avoid rolling blackouts. This move is the result of an emergency order signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month.
More.
Friday, August 27, 2021
Yesterday Trump would have destroyed all the equipment on the way out of Afghanistan, today on Hannity he would have kept Bagram Airfield
What will it be tomorrow?
He's an incoherent lunatic.
Taliban blunders story by NBC is complete rubbish designed to absolve the Taliban: What the Taliban did was intentional and precisely gives them the cover these naive reporters bought hook, line and sinker
In their push to retake Afghanistan, the Taliban made the security situation much more precarious by breaking prisoners out of prisons — including hardcore fighters housed at Bagram Air Base, Taliban officials acknowledged to NBC News.
Two Taliban leaders said in an interview that their biggest blunder was “releasing thousands of prisoners, among them hardcore Islamic State commanders, master trainers and bomb-makers. They were very trained people, and they are now organizing themselves.”
The Taliban itself was never designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, but the Haqqani network, which has close ties to Al Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence, has long held that distinction.
More.
The idea that the Taliban is not a terror organization is a lie, a fiction maintained by our lunatic US State Department and its friends in the press.
White House: Yes, The Taliban Is a Terrorist Organization
GOP accuse Obama of "negotiating with terrorists," WH says Bergdahl was POW.
But Tuesday White House National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden noted that the Taliban was added to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) by executive order in July 2002, even if it is not listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Department. Either designation triggers asset freezes, according to the State Department, though they can differ on other restrictions imposed on the target organization. The Treasury Department told ABC News the Taliban is still on their SDGT list.
Damn fool Trump should just shut up and go away
"Prudence" might as well be an Arabic word to Trump. He knows nothing, and is incapable of knowing. He is a foolish, destructive spendthrift, who would have pulled entirely out of Afghanistan, same as Joe Biden.
There is no final difference between the two men.
Thursday, August 26, 2021
General McKenzie in particular, CENTCOM Commander since 2019, strongly echoed the Trump agreement with the Taliban after Feb 29, 2020, stating explicitly the intention to "go to zero" troops and partner with the Taliban, the terrorists
CENTCOM has no comment today about this revelation that it has given a list to the Taliban of the people the US wants evacauated from Kabul
U.S. officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of names of American citizens, green card holders and Afghan allies to grant entry into the militant-controlled outer perimeter of the city’s airport, a choice that's prompted outrage behind the scenes from lawmakers and military officials.
More.
General Kenneth McKenzie, elevated to CENTCOM Commander by Trump in 2019: "we share a common purpose" with the Taliban and they are "useful to work with"
David French was right about Trump's agreement with the terrorists in his column on March 3, 2020
There is a difference between peace and retreat. The Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban represents a full retreat. It’s an agreement that most Republicans would deplore if a Democrat president made the deal, and they’d be right to be angry.
More.
The country wasn't paying attention, however. The pandemic was all anyone could talk about.
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Sean Hannity told a whopper today just after 4pm Eastern: He said Trump's agreement with the Taliban let the US keep Bagram Airfield
This is simply false.
Under the terms of the agreement, the US agreed to withdraw initially from 5 bases, and then from "all remaining bases".
There is no such provision as claimed by Hannity.
Trump would have presided over a complete withdrawal of all US and Coalition forces from Afghanistan had he been re-elected.
Conservative talk radio has been pretending for a week that Donald Trump intended a different outcome than a complete withdrawal.
It's just not true.
Trump not only committed the sin of negotiating with terrorists, he tried to pass them off as new partners in the war on terror, making our continued presence moot, which is utterly absurd.
Ever had Trump Wine? A Trump Steak? A degree from Trump University?
Donald Trump is responsible for the framework leading to the debacle we are witnessing in Afghanistan under Joe Biden.
They are a pair of Pontius Pilates, washing their hands of the country.
Laugh of the Day: Peter Meijer, MI-03, the Republican version of drama queen AOC, pulls stunt and flies into Kabul
Peter Meijer, billionaire scion, West Point drop out, & leader of an aimless, mediocre life, is a drama queen who desperately wants to cover himself with the patina of the brave soldier in extreme circumstances one last time before it's all over. Just like Jan 6.
Mike Pompeo pretends it was smart diplomacy to negotiate with terrorists in the first place, and to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan
The Taliban’s threat has been a constant for years; it was a very real threat during President Donald Trump’s administration. We met that threat with American strength and smart diplomacy. ... The Trump administration’s Afghanistan strategy utilized a combination of deterrence and negotiated agreements based on conditions in the country to keep the Taliban in check while we withdrew our forces. This kept Americans who were still there safe while reducing our military footprint in the region.
Tuesday, August 24, 2021
Famous Israeli doctor can't explain new outbreak in Israel, fires shotgun blaming India variant's transmissibility, waning Pfizer immunity, lack of mask discipline
Asked what has brought Israel to peak transmission even as the country has already provided third doses of vaccines to 1.5 million citizens, Rahav, who has become one of the best known faces of Israel’s public health messaging, sighed, saying, “I think we’re dealing with a very nasty virus. This is the main problem—and we’re learning it the hard way.”
“It is a combination of waning immunity, so that inoculated people get reinfected, and at the same time the very transmissible Delta variant,” Rahav said, adding that Israelis lacked the discipline to revert to mask usage as the numbers began rising. “But it is not an Israeli problem,” she added. “It is everywhere.”
In other words, they have no idea why.
More.
Monday, August 23, 2021
The Pfizer vaccine is failing pretty spectacularly in Israel, which presently ranks 4th worst in the world for cases per million and 12th worst in the world for deaths per million
63% of the country is fully vaccinated with Pfizer, which has now rushed into a booster shot program giving a third dose to about a million to date.
Daily new cases of COVID-19 have soared in Japan since the opening ceremonies of the Olympics on July 23rd
Local media has reported that bars and restaurants defied restrictions during the event. One Tokyo izakaya owner told the Japan Times that he planned to serve alcohol despite a ban because he was fed up with the public "being sacrificed for the Olympics".
More.
Sunday, August 22, 2021
The woke general on the right was made Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by Donald Trump effective Oct 1, 2019
He was US Army Chief of Staff 2015-2019 and Commander of III Corps at Fort Hood 2012-2014.
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