Poland Won’t Import Your Troubles (But Will Import American Weapons)

January 2nd, 2025

“Your troubles” in this case include wokeness, illegal aliens, Islamic radicalism, EU overeach, Russian troops or gun control.

First up: An interview with Polish MP Dominik Tarczynski:

I haven’t remotely watched all of this yet, but just the first two minutes of excerpts are fire:

  • “Muslims hates us, and they do not even hide it. They said that they will take over this country by the numbers of children. ‘We are making babies, you are not.'”
  • “Not even one illegal will come to Poland. Never I said that not even one Muslim will come to Poland, and they called me islamophobe.
  • “Obviously, not every Muslim is a as a terrorist, but most of the terrorists are Muslims, and that is a fact.”
  • “We can use live bullets, now, so if you want to come to Poland [illegally] you will be killed.”
  • “Whatever happens in America, six months later we have it in Europe. If the wokeness will continue in America it will spread around the world.”
  • “The world needs Trump, because we need normality.”
  • “If you do not know your history you will not build your future. 70 years of Communism that was so unbearable and now we are leaders, because we know what it means to lose your freedom.”
  • “If politicians will not be brave to stop this madness, nothing will change. So what we should do is to fight for European Union, make it great again, make it Christian again, and not let them take by hydra our land.”

    • Also, being situated between Germany and Russia, Poland has suffered invasions, occupations and genocides at the hands of those two neighbors (and others), so it’s no surprise that they’re buying modern military equipment in a big way.

    In 2024, the Polish Ministry of Defense (MOD) plans to sign over 150 contracts for the purchase of various types of military equipment, stated Deputy Minister of Defense Paweł Bejda at the Sejm (Polish Parliament) on March 7, 2024. He assured that further purchases will be made based on the results and recommendations of the audit currently being conducted at the Ministry of Defense, regarding, among others, assessment of the functioning of the system for acquiring military equipment.

    The MoND has plans to conclude contracts for, among others, AH64 Apache attack helicopters, radar aerostats, additional tanks, Homar-A and Homar-K (HIMARS in Poland is called Homar) multi-launch rocket launchers, and helicopters of various types including multi-role and support, as well as modernization of F-16 aircraft. In addition, the matter of individual soldier’s equipment is considered an important concern. So far, the main focus has been large and expensive operational programs which has left other areas underinvested, like basic equipment for Polish troops, such as uniforms, helmets, bulletproof vests, etc.

    Among the 150 contracts announced by the Ministry of Defense, the following will be higher priority:

  • AH-64 Apache attack helicopters,
  • aerostats “Barbara” project,
  • more K2 tanks,
  • HIMARS missile launchers,
  • Chunmoo rocket launchers,
  • modernization of F-16 fighters,
  • aircraft armament,
  • individual soldier equipment,
  • ammunition for tanks,
  • unmanned reconnaissance and strike systems,
  • multi-role helicopters,
  • support helicopters.

    • Of course, that’s not all Poland is buying. They’re also picking up 48 Patriot launchers, 200 M1A2Sep3 Abrams tanks, and MQ-9A Reaper and MQ-9B Guardian drones.

    Having seen what Russia did in Ukraine, Poland is determined to make sure they have the means to fully defend themselves even before the fully weight of NATO can be brought to bear against any potential invasion.

    Something else Poland is doing: Giving all their children mandatory gun training.

    (Hat tip: 357 Magnum.)

    Poland is doing its best to live up to Habitual Linecrosser’s nickname of “Little European Texas.”

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    Posted in Border Control, Communism, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military | 4 Comments »

    Invasion USA: El Paso Edition

    January 1st, 2025

    There’s a word when organized groups of armed men attempt to forcibly enter your country, and that word is “invasion.” Well, Invasion USA—

    Not that one

    —happened at El Paso this week.

    Knife-wielding Tren de Aragua gang members are mobbing border crossings at El Paso, Texas, in an attempt to break into the US — and have said they will attack border guards who try to stop them, according to a shocking Texas law enforcement memo leaked to The Post.

    Last week, 20 of the Venezuelan gangbangers — armed with blades, tire irons and broken liquor bottles — tried to force their way into the US at a border gate, the missive from the Texas Department of Public Safety read.

    Another attempt to break through is expected for New Year’s Day, the memo warned.

    Before the social justice warriors running the Biden Administration threw open the borders, I had never heard of Tren de Aragua, but now they’re taking over hotels in El Paso, apartment complexes in San Antonio and Colorado, and now they’re even in our middle schools.

    Someone somewhere in the bowels of the Obama/Biden policy establishment made the conscious decision to let criminal illegal alien gangbangers into the United States, knowing full well that the side effect would be more dead Americans. And they made the judgment that those dead Americans were acceptable collateral damage for reaching that “permanent Democratic majority” they were dreaming of.

    November’s election results suggest that American voters strongly disagree.

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 7 Comments »

    Marvel Rivals Censors On Behalf Of Communist China

    December 31st, 2024

    Video game YouTuber Asmongold documents some interesting behavior in the new video game Marvel Rivals: It censors your text messages if you try to say anything critical of Communist China.

    Marvel Rivals is a “third person hero shooter” that’s just been released featuring Marvel characters. Unusually in a year in which AAA video game titles lost the companies releasing them big money due to gamers rejecting them for being woke, Marvel Rivals has garnered generally good reviews.

    Like many games, it has a chat system. But testing other reports on the game, Asmongold verified that it will not let you post such messages as:

  • Free Taiwan
  • Free Hong Kong
  • Free Tibet
  • Taiwan number one
  • Tiananmen Square
  • 1989
  • Dalai Lama
  • Winnie the Pooh (ironic, considering Disney owns what Winnie the Pooh IP isn’t in the public domain)
  • Wuhan Virus
  • Mao Zedong

    • It flags all these as “text contains inappropriate content.”

    I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that Marvel Rivals was developed and published by Chinese developer NetEase Games for Marvel Games.

    Remember, when you subcontract IP development to China, you’re importing censorship…

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    Posted in Communism, Media Watch, video | No Comments »

    Jimmy Carter And The Weirdness Of The 1970s

    December 30th, 2024

    The past is another country, and it’s hard to understand Jimmy Carter (who died yesterday at age 100) without understanding the very weird decade that thrust him into prominence.

    The cultural milieu of the 1970s usually gets squeezed down to “disco” and “cocaine,” but there was an awful lot more (both good and bad) going on then. It was one of the greatest decades for movies ever, but with a focus on unlikable antiheroes, urban decay and downer endings (Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver). The reaction to that extreme brought us Rocky and Star Wars (and, speaking of cocaine, The Star Wars Holiday Special). There was a tremendous ferment in music, from progressive to punk rock, very little of which was getting played on the radio, while things like “Muskrat Love” and “Disco Duck” topped the charts.

    Traditional religious belief was in decline, but people flocked to see Satan in movie theaters and it was a golden age for all sorts of crackpot cults and pseudoscience.

    Politically, the unpopular (though not as unpopular as depicted in the movies) Vietnam War had come to an end with America pulling out, South Vietnam collapsing, and the genocidal Khmer Rouge coming to power in Cambodia. Democrats had controlled both the House and Senate for all but four years since FDR’s election. Watergate had taken out Nixon, but not before he had carried 49 states in crushing George McGovern.

    The 1976 Democratic Presidential Primary was a different kettle of fish. Scoop Jackson was considered an early favorite, but faded. Carter, seen as moderate centrist in contrast to McGovern’s far left “acid, amnesty and abortion” vibes, won a plurality at the Iowa caucuses. George Wallace, still a segregationist (don’t let Democrats get away with their “the parties switched places/southern strategy” myth) dominated the Mississippi caucuses. From then on out, Carter dominated the primaries, distancing himself from Wallace, Jackson, Arizona Rep. Mo Udall and California’s Jerry “Governor Moonbeam” Brown. Then he beat Gerald R. Ford, the first un-elected Vice President to ascend to the Oval Office, after he survived a brutal primary challenge from Ronald Reagan, who hadn’t jumped into the race until September of 1975.

    Once in office, Carter, a nasty piece of work masquerading as a plaster saint, proved unequal to the multiple challenges besetting the nation. Post-Bretton Woods inflation resisted all attempts to tame it, and was soon joined by high unemployment rates, hitting ordinary Americans with a one-two punch of stagflation that Keynesian economists assured us was impossible.

    In foreign policy, Carter’s supine weakness encouraged the fall of the Shah and the rise of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic in Iran, which led to Iranian hostage crisis, all of which encouraged the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan.

    Even beyond policy, Carter seemed snakebit. “Lust in my heart,” Billy beer, the jogging collapse, the “malaise” speech. And, let’s not forget, the killer rabbit. Even nature seemed to have it in for Carter.

    All of that combined to make Carter vulnerable enough to lose soundly to Ronald Reagan in 1980.

    It must be said that late in his term, Carter would finally embrace some policies that would pave the way for Reagan’s success: Rebuilding the military, deregulating significant segments of the economy, and appointing Paul Volcker to the federal reserve.

    I suppose I’m supposed to talk about his charitable work in his retirement, but Carter’s primary traits seemed to be that he got both crankier and more leftwing as time went on, and seemingly more bitter over how America had rejected him in 1980.

    Carter’s longest lasting legacies will probably be the Camp David Accords (which cost the American taxpayer billions in subsidies to Egypt and Israel every year), and the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23), a nuclear powered fast attack/electronic warfare submarine (Carter served in a submarine prior to his political career).

    100 is a good, long run, especially given that the last year was spent in hospice care. Many a wag online has suggested that God kept Carter alive long enough to see Trump win a second term.

    Sic Transit Gloria.

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    Posted in Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy | 14 Comments »

    Chinese Gambling Interests And The Texas House Speaker’s Race

    December 29th, 2024

    I’ve not been covering every twist and turn of the Texas House Speaker’s race because it’s obvious there’s a lot of Liar’s Poker going on. The current state of play is the Rep. David Cook is the Republican choice to be speaker of a majority Republican House, while Rep. Dustin Burrows is the latest head of the Joe Straus/Dennis Bonnen/Dade Phelan RINO hydra to keep Democrats in power-sharing in the House, along with at least one or more actual Democrats (I think Rep. John Bryant and Rep. Ana-Maria Ramos also declared they’re running) also supposedly running. After Cook secured the GOP caucus nomination, Burrows said he had a list of enough Democrats and Republicans backing him to become speaker, even though multiple reps on his list said they hadn’t agreed to back him at all.

    It’s quite confusing.

    Now we have more information on just who is backing Burrows, and it turns out to be Chinese gambling Interests.

    For the past two legislative sessions, a Chinese casino operator, Sands, has been trying to expand gambling in Texas.

    Sands, which established itself in Las Vegas, divested entirely from the U.S. market in 2022. That was the same year they went all-in on China, where the company operates a casino complex. Sands signed a 10-year concessions agreement with the Chinese government to continue its gambling operations.

    The operation is in Macao, a special administrative region China took over in 1999. Sands, according to Yahoo Finance, derives a substantial portion of its revenues from China.

    This is problematic. No business in China is allowed to operate without CCP approval. Doing business in China requires companies to operate at the whims of a political machine singularly focused on power expansion. This is an environment where American businesses are made to bend the knee to set up shop.

    An example of this is the formerly family-friendly Disney Corporation. In the 1990s, then-CEO Michael Eisner and his lieutenant Bob Iger both went on an apology tour in China after releasing a film that upset Beijing.

    Eisner promised the company would not take action that “insults our friends.” In 2010, it was widely reported that current-CEO Iger met with the CCP’s head of propaganda. He gave his word that the Mouse House would use its platform to “introduce more about China to the world.”

    China is constantly working to maintain its public image abroad, and cultural institutes are a big part of its efforts in the U.S. Last week, Sands reportedly donated $15M to the University of Las Vegas to establish a Chinese Culture Institute.

    Like Disney’s promise to introduce more about China, Sands’ China Institute will promote appreciation and understanding of the Chinese language, traditions, and history to UNLV students.

    It will also facilitate student and faculty exchanges, not unlike former vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz’ trips.

    Why would Sands busy itself spreading CCP propaganda? Simple: it’s incentivized to do so. According to a release announcing UNLV’s new institute, Sands “has been a steady supporter of fostering Chinese culture since it opened Sands Macao in 2004.”

    Last week, in a bid to secure the Texas House speakership surreptitiously, State Rep. Dustin Burrows broke caucus rules and went to the House Democrat caucus and its leader, Gene Wu, to gather enough votes.

    A Houston-based state representative, Wu is an outspoken and abrasive member best known for publicly hoping that then-President Trump would die from COVID-19. Wu has a liberal voting record and has also faced scrutiny for his alleged ties to the CCP.

    His ascent to lead Democrats in the Texas House was a shock to Capitol observers after the 2024 election. Burrows’ uniting with Wu is noteworthy, especially given the latter’s links to the CCP and the gambling interests trying to invade Texas.

    One of Gene Wu’s largest political donors during the 2024 election cycle was Sands.

    The casino’s political action committee donated $4,000 to Wu. Although that’s not a large contribution compared to the PAC’s global giving in Texas, it was enough to be one of Wu’s largest donations of the cycle.

    Wu has attended events hosted by Chinese consulates and opposed the 2020 federal closure of the Houston Chinese Consulate, which was shut down due to espionage concerns. He has also been a vocal opponent of legislation aimed at banning hostile foreign entities, including China, from purchasing land in Texas.

    In 2023, when the Texas House was entertaining a measure to establish casinos in the state, Wu voted to gut an amendment that would have forbidden gambling companies with links to China from operating in Texas.

    The 2023 bid to link Texas to China via gambling ultimately failed, but the Texas Lottery, through acts of commission and omission, has managed to pull it off.

    Jackpot.com is a platform that has been selling lottery tickets online in Texas since 2023. The company also operates an exclusive lottery in China called Lotto China, which has raised eyebrows given China’s strict control over gambling operations within its borders. Additionally, the country has been known to export gambling to neighboring countries as a tool for conducting surveillance.

    Call be old fashioned, but I don’t think Texas Republicans should be beholden to Chinese communist gambling interests…

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    Posted in Communism, Democrats, Republicans, Texas | 4 Comments »

    China’s Population Only 600 to 800 million?

    December 28th, 2024

    We’ve previously covered that China’s demographics are in severe decline and that China’s GDP may be overstated by 60%. Now a researcher says that China’s population could be overstated by 37-50%.

    (Before we dig in, two caveats: First, the channel is Lei’s Real Talk, from someone who came over from communist China and was a stu7dnet in the U.S. when the Tiananmen Square, but she doesn’t use her full name, which she says is to protect her family back in China. Second, she’s using AI to answer some of her questions. Still, the math-based questions don’t seem conducive to the “AI hallucinations” we see elsewhere, but some caveat lictor seems in order.)

  • “We know China is facing a series of economic challenges. Weak consumer, confidence falling real estate prices, high debt, industrial overcapacity, sluggish exports, and so on and so forth. But the underlying issue of the faltering economy, in my opinion, is a severe population crisis.”
  • “China’s actual population is far below than the official figure of 1.4 billion.”
  • “I want to compare China and India’s population between the 30-year period from 1990 to 2020. Let’s also compare their average fertility rate between the two countries and their medium age.” If you run those very basic numbers, things don’t add up.
  • “In 1990, China’s population is over India is by about 270 million [1.14 billion vs. 870 million], and 30 years later China’s population is still over India by 30 million [1.41 billion vs. 1.38 billion].”
  • “However, if you look at the fertility rate, India’s average fertility rate [2.97%] during the 30 years years is so much higher than China’s [1.70].” All these are the official published rates.
  • “With that kind of fertility rate in India consistently over 30 years, India’s population should be larger than China’s. Mathematically it’s impossible that China’s population is still greater than India’s.”
  • I’m skipping over a detailed breakdown of the two country’s respective fertility rates by decades.
  • “I asked GPT to apply the fertility rates for each country and give me the total population in 2020 for India and China respectively, and this is the results it generate. In 2020 population, India’s population was 1.38 billion, China’s was only 890 million.” India’s number is off the official figure by 4%. China’s number is off by 37%, or 520 million people. And this is at a time when life expectancy for China has been increasing.
  • Analysis of various other population factor considerations snipped.
  • “I asked AI to recalculate everything by replacing the official fertility of 1.7 and 1.5 from the year to 2000 to 2010 replaced them with Dr. Yi Fuxian [University of Wisconsin Madison demographic researcher whose work we previously mentioned here] fertility assessment of 1.1. It came up with a shocking total population of 695 million, and that’s less than half of the announced population of 1.4 billion.”
  • We didn’t see a huge drop in economic output because China’s economy is investment driven.
  • “Population loss took place over 30 years, and particularly started since 2000, and this reduction in population didn’t show up as reduction in consumer spending until this generation reached the age of 18, or even older, when they started to spend money. So now we start to see the impact on consumer spending because there’s a time lag.
  • Plus Flu Manchu deaths.
  • “China suddenly saw a wave of kindergarten closures, so in some cases private kindergartens have been shrunk by 20% in some regions.”
  • “So for all these factors combined, I think China’s real population may be between 600 million and to 800 million.”

    • Given the GDP overstatement estimates, this enormous overstatement of China’s population seems plausible. It also makes all those wild claims of “China will soon overtake the US economically” look even more ridiculous.

    China’s “one child per couple” policy will be seen by future generations as one of the greatest self-inflicted catastrophes in history.

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    Posted in Communism, Economics, video | 15 Comments »

    LinkSwarm For December 27, 2024

    December 27th, 2024

    Congratulations on making it to the end of a difficult but exhilarating 2024, and I hope you had a Merry Christmas! Christmas week is always slow, so this will be a smaller LinkSwarm than usual, and thank goodness for that. More Biden misdeeds, lots of Russian stuff blows up, two horrible gay pedophiles go to prison forever, and Democratic judges going out of their way to punish the victims. Let’s dig in!

  • “Biden Continues the Student Loan Gravy Train on His Way Out the Door.”

    President Joe Biden is transferring more student loan debt onto American taxpayers with only weeks left until he departs the Oval Office.

    The Biden administration announced Friday that it is giving $4.28 billion of student debt relief to almost 55,000 more public service workers including teachers, nurses, and law enforcement officials.

    “From Day One of my Administration, I promised to make sure that higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity,” Biden said in a statement.

    “Because of our actions, millions of people across the country now have the breathing room to start businesses, save for retirement, and pursue life plans they had to put on hold because of the burden of student loan debt.”

    The Department of Education is forgiving the debt through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, a policy that permits the forgiveness of remaining student loans for public employees who have made 120 monthly payments.

    Federal bureacurats are simply more equal than mere citizens…

  • Remember how Biden commuted and pardoned some of the worst people in the world earlier this month? Well, he found worse ones still.

    President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row, reclassifying their sentences to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from allowing their executions when he returns to office in January.

    The 37 men were all convicted of murder. Their sentences will be reclassified from execution to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to the White House.

    The men whose sentences are being reclassified include Shannon Agofsky, who murdered a bank president, dumped his body in a lake, and then killed another man in prison; Brandon Basham and Chadrick Fulks, who escaped from prison and killed two women while on a 17-day crime spree; Ricky Allen Fackrell, a white supremacist who killed a prison inmate; and Daryl Lawrence, who killed a police officer during a bank robbery.

    “Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in statement. “But guided by my conscience and my experience, . . . I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”

    Biden only left three men on federal death row: Robert Bowers, the gunman who shot and killed eleven worshipers at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue in 2018; Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who killed nine people at a black church during a Bible study in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber.

    Biden’s so opposed to the death penalty he only refused to commute sentences for those criminals the public would pay attention to…

  • Do blue state Democratic officials think they can defy the federal government on deporting illegal aliens? A hard rain is gonna fall.

    Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson said Thursday that incoming border czar Tom Homan is starting with Democratic Chicago to deport illegal immigrants in order to set a precedent for other cities threatening to block his efforts.

    Since President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Homan as border czar, the former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director has warned Democratic mayors to step aside as some have threatened to refuse cooperation with ICE on mass deportations.

    Snip.

    Hanson argued that Homan’s focus on Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson will set a precedent, emphasizing that the incoming border czar is listening to Democratic constituents concerned about illegal immigration in their city.

    Snip.

    I know the most obnoxious, the most crazy, the most nullification advocate in one of the second or third largest cities is Chicago, that crazy Mayor Johnson,’” Hanson continued. “‘So we’re going to tell him first, you try to stop the federal government and you think you’re South Carolina 1832 or you think you’re firing on Fort Sumner. You’re going to regret it because you were breaking federal law and we have a lot more federal laws that you would want us to follow in your interest than you do federal laws to break.’”

    “That’s going to be interesting because what Homan is basically doing is talking over the mayor’s head to the black constituencies of Chicago and saying, don’t worry, your mayor doesn’t, he’s going to break the law, but I’m going to follow it and I’ll put him in jail for your benefit so that you don’t have to worry about Venezuelans and Colombians shooting you or taking over your social services,” Hanson added.

  • Lawrence O’ Donnell of MSNBC can’t decide whether whether Elon Musk follows Trump like a puppy or whether Musk is Trump’s boss. But the patronizing condescension and contempt remains the same in both cases…
  • The online consensus seems to be that a Russian SAM system hit Azerbaijan Airlines Flights 8243, damaging the control systems so badly that it crashed upon attempting to land, killing at least 38 people aboard.
  • Russia attacks Ukrainian positions with cars and pickups. That goes exactly as well as you would expect…
  • Russian cargo ship heading to Syria sinks off the coast of Spain.
  • “Trump plans to continue US military aid to Ukraine after inauguration.

    U.S. President-elect Donald Trump plans to continue military support for Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Dec. 20, citing undisclosed sources.

    Three officials familiar with discussions revealed that Trump intends to keep supplying US military equipment to Ukraine after his inauguration.

    Trump’s foreign policy team also informed European officials that he plans to push NATO allies to raise their defense spending to 5% of their GDP. NATO member states currently follow a goal of allocating 2% of their GDP to defense spending.

  • Gay pedophile ring sentenced.

    A Georgia couple was sentenced to 100 years in prison without parole after adopting two boys and sexually abusing them.

    William and Zachary Zulock will each spend the rest of their lives behind bars, after pleading guilty to aggravated sodomy, aggravated child molestation, incest, and sexual exploitation of children. Each were sentenced on Dec. 19.

    Hell is too good for them…

  • Another part of the Democratic Party’s war on common decency: California judge orders rape victim not to “misgender” her rapist. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Looks like crypto currencies have yet another use: letting Russian banks evade sanctions.

    Sanders said he first encountered some of these services while investigating Kremlin-funded disinformation efforts in Ukraine, as they are all useful in assembling large-scale, anonymous social media campaigns.

    According to Sanders, all 122 of the services he tested are processing transactions through a company called Cryptomus, which says it is a cryptocurrency payments platform based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Cryptomus’ website says its parent firm — Xeltox Enterprises Ltd. (formerly certa-pay[.]com) — is registered as a money service business (MSB) with the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).

    Sanders said the payment data he gathered also shows that at least 56 cryptocurrency exchanges are currently using Cryptomus to process transactions, including financial entities with names like casher[.]su, grumbot[.]com, flymoney[.]biz, obama[.]ru and swop[.]is.

    These platforms are built for Russian speakers, and they each advertise the ability to anonymously swap one form of cryptocurrency for another. They also allow the exchange of cryptocurrency for cash in accounts at some of Russia’s largest banks — nearly all of which are currently sanctioned by the United States and other western nations.

    An analysis of their technology infrastructure shows that all of these exchanges use Russian email providers, and most are directly hosted in Russia or by Russia-backed ISPs with infrastructure in Europe (e.g. Selectel, Netwarm UK, Beget, Timeweb and DDoS-Guard). The analysis also showed nearly all 56 exchanges used services from Cloudflare, a global content delivery network based in San Francisco.

    “Purportedly, the purpose of these platforms is for companies to accept cryptocurrency payments in exchange for goods or services,” Sanders told KrebsOnSecurity. “Unfortunately, it is next to impossible to find any goods for sale with websites using Cryptomus, and the services appear to fall into one or two different categories: Facilitating transactions with sanctioned Russian banks, and platforms providing the infrastructure and means for cyber attacks.”

  • “Wells Fargo Exits Net-Zero Banking Alliance After Texas Probe Into Anti-Energy Policies Attorney General Paxton has ended a review of the bank and allowed state governmental entities to do business with Wells Fargo again.”
  • Another day, another fake hate crime hoax. “A Tennessee college revealed that racist messages found written on campus were fabricated by a student in an apparent attempt to make Donald Trump supporters look bad. Rhodes College confirmed to Fox News Digital that a student had admitted to leaving the messages strewn about campus that were found over Thanksgiving break and were being investigated as a hate crime. Instead, it turned out to be yet another race hoax.”
  • Georgia woman arrested for evicting squatter from her house. And then the judge scolded her for her “privilege.” Sounds like a whole lot of people need federal equal protection lawsuits filed against them. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Despite his newly purchased pub being packed, Jeremy Clarkson says it’s it’s nearly impossible to turn a profit in Keir Starmer’s UK.
  • Critical Drinker raves about Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu.
  • “Representatives Upset Spending Bill Killed By The People They Represent.”
  • Luigi Mangione To Host Next Week’s Episode Of ‘SNL’.”
  • “California Announces Mass Deportation Of U.S. Citizens.”
  • Hide and Seek. Difficulty level: Golden Retriever.

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

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    Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Military, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 3 Comments »

    ASML Exits, China Screwed

    December 26th, 2024

    I’ve previously talked about China’s difficulties in catching up to the west in semiconductor manufacturing here, here, and here, among other places. To summarize: Western nations have an advanced, highly interconnected semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem that China doesn’t have the technical expertise to replicate. In particular, China has nothing like ASML’s extreme ultraviolet lithography machines (AKA a “stepper”) necessary to build the most advanced chips with the smallest feature geometries.

    Here’s a piece with ASML’s CEO talking about just how far China is behind.

    Though advancements that SMIC and Huawei have made in the semiconductor sector in recent years are pretty impressive, the companies are 10 to 15 years behind industry giants like Intel, TSMC, and Samsung, said Christophe Fouquet, chief executive of toolmaker ASML. It’s well known that even with the best-in-class DUV tools, Chinese fab SMIC will be unable to match TSMC’s process technologies cost-effectively. This is because Chinese companies cannot access leading-edge EUV lithography tools.

    “By banning the export of EUV, China will lag 10 to 15 years behind the West,” said Christophe Fouquet in an interview with NRC (machine translated). “That really has an effect.”

    ASML has never shipped its EUV tools to China due to the Wassenaar Arrangement, despite SMIC’s reported order for one EUV machine. The details remain unclear, but ASML did not deliver the machine to the Chinese foundry due to US sanctions. However, ASML kept shipping advanced DUV lithography tools, such as the Twinscan NXT:2000i, which are capable of producing chips on 5nm and 7nm-class process technologies.

    As a result, SMIC has been producing chips for Huawei using its 1st-generation and 2nd-generation 7nm-class process technology for years now. This has certainly helped the Chinese high-tech giants weather U.S. government sanctions.

    Having understood that EUV tools are not coming to China, Huawei and its partners have explored extreme ultraviolet lithography themselves with the aim of building their own lithography chipmaking tools and ecosystem, which will take 10 – 15 years at best. For reference, it has taken over 20 years for ASML and its partners from foundational work to complete commercial machines to build the EUV ecosystem.

    China thought it had found a way out of the western ban on high end lithography machines. Turns out: Not so much.

  • “In the past two years, China has spent a staggering 8 billion euros to procure fewer than 120 Advanced immersion DUV lithography machines from Dutch company ASML.” DUV (Deep Ultraviolet) was the generation of machines before EUV, and can’t effectively pattern features of less than 10nm.
  • “On the surface this seemed like a bold and extravagant move. However, as of September 7th, the reality has turned into a bitter irony. Maintenance and upgrades for these machines are now completely restricted. In other words, starting next year these state-of-the-art [not quite – LP] lithography machines could become little more than scrap. To make matters worse, even repairs for older equipment are off the table.”
  • “Lithography machines are the backbone of semiconductor manufacturing, etching intricate circuits onto silicon wafers. Without proper maintenance and upgrades, these machines, worth tens of millions of euros each, will gradually deteriorate into expensive junk. Producing advanced chips smaller than 14 nanometers will become nearly impossible. Yield rates will plummet and costs will skyrocket.”
  • “Even TSMC, a global benchmark, requires ASML engineers to be stationed on site for regular recalibrations every 3 to 6 months. Earlier this year, an earthquake in Taiwan caused TSMC’s lithography operations to halt, and it took a month of recalibrations to resume lithography.” Requalification is indeed a huge pain in the ass.
  • “Machine maintenance depends on ASML proprietary components, software and technical support. Hiring a few engineers, or even the CEO of ASML, won’t solve the fundamental complexities of this highly specialized system. China’s attempts to rely on sheer manpower to bridge this gap are wishful thinking.”
  • “Thinking a few engineers could crack this technology is simply laughable. Lithography machines are just the tip of the iceberg in the complex semiconductor manufacturing supply chain.”
  • “China owns nearly 1,400 ASML lithography machines. With Western restrictions on maintenance spare parts and engineering services, these multi-million euro machines have been reduced to a rob Peter to pay Paul situation keeping them operational for just one more day at a time. Chip production is bound to shrink, creating a vicious cycle.”
  • “New sanctions implemented in September have blocked sales of models like the NXT1970i, shutting down access to both hardware and technology. At best, China’s capabilities remain stuck at the level of ASML’s older NXT 1470 machines, which date back to the early 2000s.”
  • “China’s so-called domestic lithography machines are limited to 65 nanometer dry DUV technology, with some reports claiming they can reach 55 nanometer. However, this is equivalent to ASML 2006-era technology, putting China 18 years behind. Worse, key components for these domestic machines still rely on suppliers from Japan and Germany.”
  • “China’s domestic lithography machines are largely a symbolic effort, more about saving face than actual technological advancement.”
  • There’s no way China can catch up to ASML in EUV lithography, and no way they can eliminate their deep dependence on western semiconductor manufacturing technology.
  • “Cutting edge EUV systems have been banned from China since 2019. Last June, high-end immersion DUV machines were added to the list. Now even older models like the NXT 1970i and 1980i can’t be sold or upgraded. China’s ambitions have been crushed, reducing it to square one.”
  • “This February, the Dutch Minister of Trade openly stated that China uses foreign high tech knowledge to advance its military capabilities, and ASML tools could produce sophisticated weapons. Handing over lithography machines to China is akin to arming an adversary, a move unacceptable on any strategic level.”
  • Without western technology, China’s desire for a technologically advanced semiconductor industry are dead in the water.
  • “The myth of China’s technological rise is unraveling and heading toward decline.”

    • When you buy a piece of high-end semiconductor equipment, you’re not just buying the machine, you’re buying the knowledgebase of deep technical expertise of both the on-site technical staff, as well as the process wizards back in Eindhoven, Santa Clara and Tokyo. There are inumerable parameters that need to be just right, and you need to know how to tweak them if the yield goes south. Without that expertise to guide you, the high end machines quickly become worthless.

    I can imagine President Trump offering China a grand bargain, in which they stop stealing western technology, stop committing genocide against the Uighers, stop clashing with Philippine ships in the South China Sea, meet its treaty obligations regarding Hong Kong, and let international agencies inspects its high level bioweapon labs in exchange for easing semiconductor sanctions.

    I doubt China would take such a deal, as it would be too humiliating for Xi to stand. But I can imagine Trump making it…

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    Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy, video | 7 Comments »

    Merry Christmas: Stellarscope’s “Silent Night”

    December 25th, 2024

    As is the now annual tradition, enjoy Stellarscope’s version of “Silent Night”:

    Merry Christmas!

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    Posted in video | No Comments »

    Paxton Sues NCAA Over Men In Women’s Sports

    December 24th, 2024

    Ken Paxton is giving women in college athletics an early Christmas present this year: A lawsuit against the NCAA for allowing men to compete in women’s athletic competitions.

    Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued the National Collegiate Athletic Association for allowing biological males to compete against women.

    The lawsuit, announced Sunday, accuses the NCAA of “engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by marketing sporting events as ‘women’s’ competitions only to then provide consumers with mixed sex competitions where biological males compete against biological females.”

    Paxton argues that by allowing biological men to compete with women, the NCAA has violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act—a law that “protects consumers from businesses attempting to mislead or trick consumers into purchasing goods or services that are not as advertised.”

    “The NCAA is engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by advertising using logos and branding representing that the goods and services offered to consumers are for ‘women’s’ sporting events when, in fact, the sporting events are ‘mixed’ with both male and female participants,” the lawsuit reads. “The NCAA is further engaging in false, deceptive, and misleading practices by failing to disclose to consumers which participants in ‘women’s’ sporting events are women and which are men, leaving consumers who want to purchase goods and services associated with women in women’s sporting events confused and frustrated.”

    As a result of the deceptive practices, Paxton is asking the court to grant a permanent injunction that will prohibit the NCAA from allowing biological males to compete in women’s sporting events held in Texas or that involve Texas teams. Alternatively, the NCAA could stop marketing its events as “women’s” if they involve mixed-sex competitions.

    Paxton also said that by allowing men to compete in women’s sports, the NCAA is actively jeopardizing females’ safety.

    Previous lawsuits seem to have been filed under equal protection clauses, or various Title IX passages, but the deceptive practices angle has the twin virtues of being both novel and true.

    Trying to force transsexualism down America’s throats constantly polls as one of the Democratic Party’s least popular policies. People with XX chromosomes are female, and people with XY chromosomes are male. Everything else is genetic abnormality or sophistry. 2+2 does not equal 5 no matter how fervently The Party insists it must.

    Hopefully Trump’s 2024 election victory will mark the end of transsexual madness, but an awful lot of social justice warriors will need to be sued before this particular reality-denying delusion is purged from our institutions.

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    Posted in Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 2 Comments »

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