Has Russia Blown Its Wad In Bakhmut?

December 26th, 2022

Since August, Russian forces (including a large contingent of Wagner Group mercenaries) has been assaulting the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in the Dunba with almost monomaniacal focus, despite very little to show for their efforts. Despite small successes for Russia (a few streets here, an industrial area there, even capturing a garbage dump on the edge of town was listed as a major Russian achievement a few weeks ago) almost all of Bakhmut has remained stubbornly in Ukrainian hands.

However, over the last day or two, tentative reports having come in that not only have Russian attacks slacked off, but that Ukrainian forces have recaptured not only just about all the hard-won territory Russia had gained in the city itself, but that some outlying areas were liberated after months of control. At the same time, there are numerous, persistent reports that Russia is running low on artillery shells in the region. (To be fair, repeated predictions that Russia must be running low on dumb ammunition of various types have failed to pan out heretofore.)

Here Suchomimus reports that Russia has been pushed out of the industrial areas of Bakhmut in the east, and that Ukraine has recaptured most of the town of Opytne to the immediate southeast.

This follows the Institute for the Study of War analysis from a couple of days ago that the Russian pace of attack has slowed.

Russian forces’ rate of advance in the Bakhmut area has likely slowed in recent days, although it is too early to assess whether the Russian offensive to capture Bakhmut has culminated. Russian milbloggers acknowledged that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area have managed to slightly slow down the pace of the Russian advance around Bakhmut and its surrounding settlements, with one claiming that Ukrainian forces pushed back elements of the Wagner Group to positions they held days ago. Ukrainian social media sources previously claimed that Ukrainian forces completely pushed Russian forces out of the eastern outskirts of Bakhmut around December 21. ISW has also assessed that Russian forces made slightly fewer overall advances in the Bakhmut area in November and December combined as compared to the month of October.

Russian forces will likely struggle to maintain the pace of their offensive operations in the Bakhmut area and may seek to initiate a tactical or operational pause. The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense (UK MoD) reported on December 24 that Russian forces currently lack the necessary stockpile of artillery munitions to support large-scale offensive operations and that sustaining defensive operations along the lengthy frontline in Ukraine requires the Russian military to expend a significant number of shells and rockets daily. The Ukrainian Joint Forces Task Force released an interview on December 24 with a Ukrainian servicemember in the Bakhmut area detailing that Russian forces have been conducting an extremely high pace of assaults on Ukrainian positions in the area with little corresponding progress. The Wagner Group’s reported heavy losses in the Bakhmut area in recent weeks have also likely strained Russian forces’ current operational capabilities in the area.

The Russian military’s personnel and munitions constraints will likely prevent it from maintaining the current high pace of offensive operations in the Bakhmut area in the near-term. Russian forces previously allocated significant resources in a meat-grinder effort to seize Severodonesk and Lysychansk in spring–summer 2022. Russian forces culminated after capturing Lysychansk in early July and failed to capture neighboring Siversk to the east or Slovyansk to the northeast. The Russian military’s fixation with conducting a highly attritional campaign to achieve the tactical objectives of capturing Severdonetsk and Lysychansk ultimately undermined the Russian military’s ability to achieve its larger operational objective to envelop Ukrainian forces in a cauldron along the E40 highway and eventually drive to Donetsk Oblast’s western administrative borders. Russia’s relentless and costly push on Bakhmut may also degrade Russia’s ability to pursue long-term objectives in the Donbas theater.

Another sign Russia may be running out of shells in Bakhmut: A tweet from Wagner Group saying just that, while also calling the Chief of Russian General Staff a “faggot.”

“We have no shells! The boys are dying for us!”

As usual with Ukraine news, all this is very tentative, and could be reversed to tomorrow. But right now it looks like Ukraine has the upper hand in Bakhmut.

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Posted in Guns, video | 7 Comments »

Merry Christmas!

December 25th, 2022

Merry Christmas! Enjoy Stellarscope’s version of “Silent Night”:

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Posted in video | 2 Comments »

LinkSwarm for December 24, 2022

December 24th, 2022

I just ran out of time to post all the links I had for yesterday’s LinkSwarm, so here’s the rest.

  • “Life expectancy in the US declined by 5% last year, lowest level since 1996.”

    Life expectancy in the United States last year dropped to its lowest point in a quarter century, and it’s not all because of Covid.

    Last year saw a 5% decline in life expectancy for Americans, dropping to under 77 years of age.

    And while some experts want to try to tie the drop to Covid-19, the numbers reveal that there’s much more at work here than people being killed by the China Virus. There’s another epidemic that is killing Americans at an alarming rate: The Opioid Epidemic.

    From the Wall Street Journal:

    Covid-19 was the third-leading cause of death for a second consecutive year in 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday, and a rising number of drug-overdose deaths also dragged down life expectancy. Overdose deaths have risen fivefold over the past two decades.

    The death rate for the U.S. population increased by 5%, cutting life expectancy at birth to 76.4 years in 2021 from 77 years in 2020. The CDC in August released preliminary estimates demonstrating a similar decline. Before the pandemic, in 2019, life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 78.8 years. The decline in 2020 was the largest since World War II.

    While the drop coincides with the Covid pandemic, the increased numbers aren’t caused by the disease alone.

    The leading cause of death in the US is still heart disease and cancer.

    Then there’s the opioid epidemic.

    The country during the pandemic has recorded more than 1.2 million excess deaths, which is a measure of all deaths beyond prior-year averages and can represent both undercounted Covid-19 deaths and collateral damage from other causes, including more overdoses. The CDC put the final count for 2021 overdose deaths at about 106,700, a record that is 16% higher than the prior year. The final count differs from a preliminary count for last year that topped 108,000 because the CDC in its final counts doesn’t include overdose deaths that occurred among non-U. S. residents.

    Opioid deaths increased because of lockdowns.

    People locked in their homes are more likely to have heart disease.

    Thousands and thousands and thousands of people missed cancer screenings and got lesser treatment thanks to lockdowns.

    As we covered here at NTB recently, the excess deaths we are seeing aren’t because of Covid, but the lockdowns.

  • Speaking of unexpected post-Flu Manchu deaths, Pfizer and Moderna are suing each other.

    n August of this year, I reported that Moderna is suing Pfizer and BioNTech for infringing patents that are key to Moderna’s mRNA technology platform that was used to develop the covid vaccine.

    In response, Pfizer has now countersued Moderna.

    The ongoing legal battle now sees Pfizer and its partner BioNTech reject its rival’s claims it copied the shot.

    Pfizer has accused Moderna of rewriting history, and dubbed its lawsuit ‘revisionist history’.

    Manhattan-based Pfizer requested from a federal court in Boston that Moderna’s lawsuit be dismissed.

    Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, fired back at Moderna on Monday in a patent lawsuit over their rival Covid-19 vaccines.

    They are seeking dismissal of the lawsuit in Boston federal court and an order that Moderna’s patents are invalid and not infringed.

    We need effective biotech companies that are not infected by politics or social justice. Unfortunately, those don’t appear to be the companies we have.

    Pfizer asserts their vaccine technology was arrived at through independent research.

  • Commies never change.

    Everything you need to know about the motives and methods of the 21st-century Left can be learned from studying 20th-century Communism. What Mises said about Marx and Engels, and the ad hominem quality of their rhetoric — slander and insults, rather than actual arguments — was even more true of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, et al. Having once seized power, the Bolsheviks immediately proceeded to suppress all potential rivals. Within a month, they established the Cheka (predecessor of the NKVD and, later, the KGB) and appointed Felix Dzerzhinsky as its leader. Eight months later, the Red Terror began in earnest, and within a matter of weeks, the Bolsheviks had summarily executed more victims than were sentenced to death in the entire preceding century by the Tzarist regime

    Snip.

    The other day I wrote a piece about how the Left can’t argue anymore. My thesis was pretty simple: because they have owned the cultural means of production so long they have lost the need for or ability to argue things logically.

    I still believe that. Having rarely been exposed to a conservative argument that [they] haven’t been able to dismiss merely through repeated ridicule the Left pretty much only engages in ad hominem attacks. Even very smart prominent Lefties . . . seem incapable of doing much more than insulting their opponents any more. It all boils down to Bad Orange Man or MAGA simps. . . .

    But I ran into a slightly different perspective on the matter while cruising Twitter, and I think it deserves consideration: sometimes, at least, the person throwing out an absurd take isn’t actually hoping to convince you of anything. They are, rather, trying to discredit the source and do nothing more. The ad hominem attack is the only point — to destroy the credibility of their opponent, without actually convincing you of any particular argument.

    Thus the need to label anything that refutes The Narrative as “disinformation.”

  • “‘Hyde Amendment’ Equivalent for Gender Modification Filed in Texas House.”

    State Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) filed proposed legislation to prohibit state tax dollars from being used to pay for gender modification procedures.

    House Bill 1029 states, “No funds authorized or appropriated by State law shall be expended for any gender reassignment.”

    “Just as the Hyde Amendment, which has enjoyed bipartisan support for almost 50 years, bans tax dollars from funding abortions, I’m proud to file a bill which protects Texans from being forced to pay for their neighbor’s sex change,” Harrison said in a statement. “Irrespective of how anyone views these procedures, it should be uncontroversial that tax money should not fund them.”

    Harrison added that the bill was filed in response to a statement made by President Biden’s Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra that public money should be used to provide these procedures to those who want them.

  • On the same theme: “Kristi Noem’s Health Department Fires Transgender Group Ahead of ‘Gender Summit.'”

    South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican, directed her state Department of Health to terminate a contract with The Transformation Project, a transgender activist group that is hosting a “Gender Identity Summit” next month, after The Daily Signal drew the governor’s attention to the summit and the group.

    “Gov. Kristi Noem is reviewing all Department of Health contracts and immediately terminated a contract with The Transformation Project,” Ian Fury, Noem’s chief of communications, told The Daily Signal on Friday. “The contract was signed without Gov. Noem’s prior knowledge or approval.”

    Fury sent The Daily Signal a copy of the document dissolving the state contract.

    “South Dakota does not support this organization’s efforts, and state government should not be participating in them,” Noem told The Daily Signal in a statement provided by Fury. “We should not be dividing our youth with radical ideologies. We should treat every single individual equally as a human being.”

    Fury said that The Transformation Project had not complied with its state contract. The organization had failed “to submit required quarterly reports for two consecutive quarters,” among other violations.

    All funding to any radical social justice group should be cut, and the people responsible for funding them fired for cause.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Even Sweden is done with the transexual nonsense.

    The very progressive and liberal nation of Sweden is showing that they still have at least a little bit of common sense in health leadership.

    Sweden has decided to cut ties with WPATH, the World Professional Association of Transgender Health because they’re a bunch of activists.

    Swedish health authorities have officially broken ranks with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) with the announcement that gender clinics will no longer be attempting to perform experimental sex changes on under-18s but will instead offer “psychological support to help youth live with the healthy body they were born with.”

    According to an article published in the Swedish medical journal Läkartidningen, new guidelines will be published before the end of the year advising against puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery for under 18s. This is in direct contrast with the WPATH Standards of Care 8 (SOC8) released earlier this year which advises affirmation and medical intervention as the first line of treatment for gender-confused minors.

    Sweden is rejecting these recommendations because it’s clearly an extreme measure to do sex change operations on minors.

    However, the Biden admin has told us that they’re totally on board with the radical recommendations.

  • “Oh look, Biden’s cross-dressing, women’s-luggage-stealing nuclear waste official also helped craft an LGBT school policy adopted by districts around the country.” Maybe we shouldn’t have freaks like Sam Brinton running the asylum.
  • How come a Dalton, GA Walmart has sex toys being sold next to children’s toothbrushes?
  • I’m shocked, shocked to discover that two-time loser Democrat Stacey Abrams is bad with money.

    Despite surpassing her 2018 fundraising record, Stacey Abrams’s 2022 Georgia gubernatorial campaign fell into deep debt due to reckless expenditures, according to staffers and operatives who worked on the failed campaign.

    The campaign still owes more than $1 million to vendors, Abrams campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo confirmed to Axios.

    Some of the campaign’s lavish expenditures included the rental of a home near Piedmont Park in Atlanta, which Abrams envisioned as a “hype house” for TikTok videos but which was ultimately underutilized, staffers told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Some aides occupied the empty large house as a work space. It can now be rented for $12,500 a month, the publication noted.

    The campaign’s youth outreach strategy also proved pricey. Against the better judgement of many staffers, who found the idea irresponsible, Abrams launched a pop-up shop and “swag truck” to hand out merchandise, such as T-shirts and hoodies.

    Abrams burned through cash on polls that ended up being inconsequential and consultants whose contributions were unclear, staffers also said.

    Many employees in the campaign were given generous salaries compared to other candidates’ teams. For example, the campaign advertised paid canvasser jobs at $15 an hour, higher than the typical rate, according to a Georgia Tech blog discovered by the Journal-Constitution.

    Benefitting from glossy, identity-focused coverage, Abrams brought in nearly $98 million as of early November. Yet, her campaign nearly ran out of money in the final stretch. Most of the 180 full-time staffers who worked for her were told they’d receive their last paycheck just a week after Election Day, according to Axios.

  • “‘Walk Away’ Founder Brandon Straka Sues MSNBC Hosts For Defamation Over False Statements.”
  • YouTube bans Pornhub.

    YouTube has banned the official Pornhub account, which boasted more than 900,000 followers, after repeated violations.

    The platform’s move comes in the wake of other Big Tech companies, like Meta/Instagram and TikTok, removing such accounts. Other corporations, like Visa, Mastercard, Roku, Comcast, Unilever, Kraft-Heinz, and PayPal, have also cut ties with Pornhub.

    “Upon review, we terminated the channel Pornhub Official following multiple violations of our Community Guidelines,” YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon said, according to Variety. “We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and channels that repeatedly violate or are dedicated to violative content are terminated.”

    MindGeek, Pornhub’s parent company, has been hit with multiple lawsuits from survivors of child sex trafficking who claim videos of their abuse were platformed on the pornographic site.

  • Dispatches from Generation Eloi: “NYC Students Refuse To Leave Campus Building Until They’re Given All “A” Grades.” I’d not only give them all Fs, I’d erase any earned credits and expel them without a refund. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • “Texas Legislator Files Prohibition Against Higher Education Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Offices.”

    A ban on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices within institutions of higher education has been filed in the Texas House.

    State Representative-elect Carl Tepper (R-Lubbock) filed House Bill (HB) 1006 that requires higher education institutions in Texas to “foster a diversity of viewpoints [and] maintain political, social, and cultural neutrality.”

    The teeth of the bill command these universities to “demonstrate a commitment to intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” by eliminating DEI offices or anything like them “beyond what is necessary to uphold the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

    It also allows anyone to bring forth civil action against an entity for violation of the prohibition, something Tepper confirmed was modeled after a similar mechanism within the Texas Heartbeat Act.

    Additionally, the definition of “expressive activities” protected under state law is expanded to include “published or unpublished faculty research, lectures, writings, and commentary.”

    Tepper told The Texan, “These offices have been out of control for a while now and people are getting really frustrated with them.”

    Faster, please.

  • Weather update: Some power outages in central Texas, but no more than 2-3 thousand. As of this writing, the outage map only shows 109 homes without power in the Austin area.

    • Merry Christmas!

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    Posted in Austin, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Jihad, Media Watch, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for December 23, 2022

    December 23rd, 2022

    Greetings, and welcome to a Christmas Eve Eve LinkSwarm! It got down to 14°F yesterday, and only up to a balmy 30°F or so today. In addition to trying to stay warm, I’ve been working finishing up my latest Lame Excuse Books catalog, which went out earlier this evening. (Drop me a line if you want a copy.) Due to that, I think I’m going to break this LinkSwarm into two parts.

  • House passes pork-filled omnibus spending bill that 18 Republican senators let escape the senate. The amount of bad stuff in here will probably require multiple links tomorrow…
  • The real cause of homelessness in California.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom, newly inaugurated Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and legislative leaders are pledging decisive action on California’s homelessness crisis, which raises a pithy question: Why did it erupt during a period of strong economic growth?

    The reasons often offered include a moderate climate, the availability of generous welfare benefits, mental health and drug abuse. However, a lengthy and meticulously sourced article in the current issue of Atlantic magazine demolishes all of those supposed causes.

    Rather, the article argues persuasively, California and other left-leaning states tend to have the nation’s most egregious levels of homelessness because they have made it extraordinarily difficult to build enough housing to meet demands.

    Author Jerusalem Demsas contends that the progressive politics of California and other states are “largely to blame for the homelessness crisis: A contradiction at the core of liberal ideology has precluded Democratic politicians, who run most of the cities where homelessness is most acute, from addressing the issue.

    “Liberals have stated preferences that housing should be affordable, particularly for marginalized groups … But local politicians seeking to protect the interests of incumbent homeowners spawned a web of regulations, laws, and norms that has made blocking the development of new housing pitifully simple.”

    Demsas singles out Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area as examples of how environmentalists, architectural preservationists, homeowner groups and left-leaning organizations joined hands to enact a thicket of difficult procedural hurdles that became “veto points” to thwart efforts to build the new housing needed in prosperous “superstar cities.”

    While thriving economies drew workers to these regions, their lack of housing manifested itself in soaring rents and home prices that drove those on the lower rungs of the economy into homelessness.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • Benjamin Netanyahu manages to form new government in Israel. It only took two months since the election!
  • Mayor Adler’s legacy in Austin:

  • Members of Houston rap group The Sauce arrested for making sauce. And by “sauce” I mean “meth.”

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Barnes and Noble to closes 30 stores in 2023…wait, they’re opening 30 stores??? Did I suddenly wake up in 1999?
  • Not news: Buying a used Blazer in El Paso. News: an ex-Cartel Blazer.
  • Lawsuit frees the Eleanors.
  • History matters talks about why the Soviet Union agreed to share control of Berlin with the allies after World War II. Pretty much all the History Matters videos are worth watching, but this one is particularly amusing.
  • “Journalists Warn Of Frightening Trend Where Rules Apply To Them.”
  • Awww:

    I want to know what song is playing on that TV…
    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

    • Pressed for time, so more links tomorrow…

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    Posted in Budget, Crime, Democrats, Republicans, Supreme Court, Texas | 1 Comment »

    Russian Atrocities Earn Ukraine New Kit

    December 22nd, 2022

    Since Russia has opted to commit war crimes by repeatedly bombing civilian infrastructure with the goal of inflicting mass civilian causalities, the western world has responded by opting to give Ukraine even more advanced military kit.

    The U.S., as usual, is leading the way, supplying a Patriot Missile Defense battery and JDAMs.

    SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL: All right, well, thanks very much for joining us. Today’s background briefers will include (inaudible) and me, (inaudible). For attribution, please refer to (inaudible) as “a senior defense official” and to me as “a senior military official.”

    And with that, I will turn it over to our senior defense official for some opening remarks, and then we’ll be happy to take your questions.

    SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Good afternoon, everyone. I’d like to start by just recognizing where we are in this war. We’re in over 300 days after Russia launched this war to try to stamp out Ukraine’s existence as a free nation. And at this moment, we are welcoming President Zelenskyy to Washington, D.C., a sign of Ukraine’s determination, its spirit, its resolve, and an opportunity for us to be able to reinforce our support for Ukraine during President Zelenskyy’s visit.

    So you will hear more from the White House later this afternoon about President Zelenskyy’s visit. In the meantime, what I wanted to do is give you some important details about our new security assistance commitments that President Biden announced today, totaling $1.85 billion.

    Now, these — these commitments come in two parts, and we’re announcing both of these together. First, we have a presidential drawdown package that’s valued at $1 billion. This is the 28th such drawdown of equipment from DOD inventories for Ukraine since August of 2021. And then the second is an additional $850 million in commitments under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

    So first, let me talk about the presidential drawdown package, and this package includes for the first time a Patriot air defense battery and munitions. This is another signal of our long-term commitment to Ukraine’s security. As you know, Patriot is one of the world’s most advanced air defense systems, and it will give Ukraine a critical long-range capability to defend its airspace. It is capable of intercepting cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and aircraft.

    It’s important to put the Patriot battery in context. For air defense, there is no “silver bullet.” Our goal is to help Ukraine strengthen a layered, integrated approach to air defense. That will include Ukraine’s own legacy capabilities, as well as NATO-standard systems. Patriot will complement a range of medium- and short-range air defense capabilities that we’ve provided and that allies have provided in prior donation packages, and for us, that includes NASAMS and Avenger systems. Patriot does require training, and we expect it will take several months to ensure Ukrainian forces have the training they need to employ it successfully.

    Now, in addition to Patriot, this drawdown package includes several other highlights. First, it includes an additional 500 precision-guided 155-millimeter artillery rounds, and it includes several different mortar systems and rounds for those systems. Second, it includes precision aerial munitions, and then third, it includes additional MRAP vehicles and Humvees, and I think important to note, this is 38 MRAP vehicles, but we’ve provided 440 to date, and it’s 120 Humvees, but this comes on top of 1,200 Humvees that we’ve provided to date.

    Now for the second part of today’s announcement, the $850 million under USAI, I just want to remind that this is an authority under which we procure capabilities from industry, rather than drawing them down from U.S. stocks. So USAI capabilities typically take longer to deliver. Now under USA — AI, we are committing to provide a range of different non — what we call nonstandard ammunitions. This is what we formerly called Soviet-type ammunition. It includes 152-millimeter artillery rounds, 122-millimeter artillery rounds, and these will be able to help the Ukrainians bring more of its legacy systems, its legacy howitzers back into the fight in greater numbers. We also plan to — to provide 122-millimeter Grad rockets, and this is to support Ukraine’s Grad rocket artillery capability, as well as tank ammunition to help Ukraine sustain operations with its existing tanks. Another capability we’re providing via USAI are satellite communication terminals and services. This will add resilience to Ukraine’s communications infrastructure. And then as always, we have funding from (sic) training, for maintenance and for sustainment in support of the equipment we and our partners have provided.

    Here’s a more detailed breakdown in convenient Tweet form:

    Europe is supplying other weapons, but is unable to keep up with the furious rate of munition use.

    Ukraine’s military fortunes also depend on European countries, such as Germany, that let their defense industry atrophy in peacetime and are struggling to catch up as they focus on securing energy supplies.

    Ukraine’s battle against the Russian invasion is consuming ammunition at rates unseen since World War II. Kyiv’s forces have been firing around 6,000 artillery shells a day and are now running out of antiaircraft missiles amid a relentless aerial onslaught by Russia, according to experts and intelligence officials. At the height of the fighting in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas area, Russia was using more ammunition in two days than the entire stock of the British military, according to the Royal United Services Institute, a British think tank.

    No country in NATO other than the U.S. has either a sufficient stock of weapons to fight a major artillery war or the industrial capacity to create such reserves, said Nico Lange, a former top official at the German Defense Ministry. This means that NATO wouldn’t be able to defend its territory against major adversaries if it were to be attacked now, he said.

    “Governments have been slashing contracts for decades, so companies shed production lines and employees,” said Mr. Lange, a senior fellow with the Munich Security Conference, a global security forum.

    The current shortage of shells and missiles is largely due to a shift in the military doctrines of NATO allies in recent decades: Instead of planning for World War II-style ground battles, they focused on targeted, asymmetric warfare against unsophisticated opponents, said Morten Brandtzæg, chief executive of Nammo AS, one of the world’s largest arms manufacturers.

    “We need orders of magnitude more industrial capacity,” said Mr. Brandtzæg, whose company is co-owned by the governments of Norway and Finland.

    Ukraine uses up to 40,000 artillery shells of the NATO caliber 155mm each month, while the entire annual production of such projectiles in Europe is around 300,000, according to Michal Strnad, owner of Czechoslovak Group AS, a Czech company that produces around 30% of Europe’s output of such munitions.

    “European production capacity is grossly inadequate,” Mr. Strnad said. Even if the war were to stop overnight, Europe would need up to 15 years to resupply its stocks at current production rates, he said.

    As always, there are rumors that Russia has had to buy artillery shells from north Korea and, as always, these rumors should be treated with several grains of salt. Russia used up huge amounts of its smart munitions early, but early predictions that Russia would quickly run out its own dumb artillery shells have thus far proven to be premature.

    The Patriot system may prove to be more symbolic than really useful, if only because Russias has already used up sop much of its medium range missile stocks. JDAMs, on the other hand, could prove to be very effective at targeting Russian military assets.

    In any case, it’s now clear that a war Russia thought would be “three days to take Kiev” will now drag on as a war of attrition for a year or more, and a goodly portion of the western world has signed up to supply Ukraine with munitions for as long as it takes.

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    Posted in Foreign Policy, Military | 8 Comments »

    Biden Administration: You’re Not Exporting Any Of That Dirty, Sinful Natural Gas! Ted Cruz: Guess You Don’t Need Any Of These Department Of Energy Nominees Approved, Then. Biden Administration: [Folds]

    December 21st, 2022

    The Biden Administration, in its never-ending quest to punish the oil and gas industry for supplying cheap, reliable energy, tried to block the export of liquefied natural gas to Asia. Then Ted Cruz stepped in.

    The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the approval of permits to export liquefied natural gas to Asia after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) held four agency nominees hostage.

    Two Sempra Energy facilities on the West Coast will now be able to ship Texas-produced liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Asia, increasing the supply that competes with Russia to fuel the rest of the continent. They will also allow the transport of LNG supplies by pipeline to Mexico.

    The approvals come after the Biden administration’s reticence and Cruz’s corresponding holds placed on four nominees to positions in the DOE. Those nominees are David Crane, to work under DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm; Jeffrey Matthew Marootian and Gene Rodrigues, both nominated to serve as assistant secretaries; and Evelyn Wang, up for director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

    A Senate procedural tool, the hold is “an informal practice by which a senator informs Senate leadership that he or she does not wish a particular measure or nomination to reach the floor for consideration.”

    Cruz used a similar maneuver back in May to force permit approvals, including one for a Port Arthur facility.

    “This decision is a long overdue win for Texas and America,” Cruz spokesman Dave Vasquez said in a statement provided to The Texan.

    “These permits will enable West Coast liquefied natural gas export facilities to send U.S. natural gas from Texas and other Western states by pipeline to Mexico, and from there export the LNG to Asia. As a result, American allies and partners in Asia will have access to newer and cleaner alternatives to the coercive energy blackmail pushed by Russia and China.”

    The permits will enable the cheaper sale of Texas LNG supply to Asia; it also enables shippers to avoid the congested Panama Canal, thus expediting the supply. In total, the two permits will allow the exchange of 2.33 trillion cubic feet per year of LNG.

    In 2021, Texas producers generated 10.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

    It’s good to have a senator on your side that knows how to play the game…

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    Posted in Regulation, Republicans, Texas | 5 Comments »

    Another Cold Blast Heading To Texas

    December 20th, 2022

    Real winter weather in central Texas rarely starts around the nominal start of the season (which officially begins here in Austin at 3:48 PM tomorrow (December 21st)), but this year an arctic blast is barrelling down on us Thursday.

    The Arctic air is forecast to arrive Thursday morning into the afternoon. Temperatures will drop sharply — possibly by as much as 40° in just two hours behind the frontal passage. By Thursday evening, temperatures drop below freezing then plunge into the single-digits and teens Friday morning.

    I’m not yet seeing single digit forecasts on my phone app yet, but 14°F is damn cold enough.

    Wind gusts of 30-40 mph Thursday night through Friday morning are likely to drop wind chills below zero in some areas — capable of causing frostbite in 30-45 minutes and likely prompting our second-ever Wind Chill Warning. The first of these warnings was issued in Feb. 2021.

    With three consecutive hard freezes in our forecast Friday morning through Christmas morning, it is imperative you take steps to protect your pets, pipes, plants and people. Temperatures finally start to warm Christmas Day and the following day.

    Follow the below tips from Austin Water to protect your home’s plumbing:

    1. Protect Indoor Faucets. Open cabinets beneath kitchen and bathroom sinks to allow warmer air to circulate around pipes. Be sure to remove any toxic substances located in these cabinets if there are children or pets living in the residence.
    2. Drip Only if Needed. After the measures above are taken, drip one cold-water faucet slowly if you feel your pipes may still freeze. The faucet you choose should be the one that is the greatest distance from your main shutoff valve. It does not need to be a running trickle. If you do drip your faucet, capture the water for future use.
    3. Power Outages. If you experience a power outage for more than 24 hours, stop dripping your faucets and turn off your water at the meter.

    Because we’re not expected to get snow and ice, hopefully we can avoid widespread power outages this time, but if not, here’s the Austin power outage map.

    With cold weather due Thursday, there’s still time to get in an Amazon order to prepare. So here (again) are a few cold weather prep items you might find useful:

  • Faucet Covers. If you’re a homeowner, you probably already have those, but if not, here they are, and they seem to work better than a rag or dripping the faucet, and neither of my faucets busted in the ice storm. That link goes to the cheap Styrofoam version, but these plastic ones look a bit bigger and stronger.
  • O’Keeffe’s Working Hands cream: I walk my dogs 2-3 times a day pretty much every single day of the year, and I found my hands getting cracked and raw in the cold, even through gloves. O’Keeffe’s Working Hands fixed the problem. I frequently give this stuff out as Christmas gifts.
  • Carmex lip balm. A small, cheap jar that solves the chapped lips problem in winter. I know some people prefer Chapstick, but to me the main result of using Chapstick is that 30 minutes later you fell a need to use more Chapstick.
  • Kerasal Intensive Foot Repair for cracked and painful feet. More info here. Podiatrist recommended!
  • De-icing spray. You can stand there for 15 minutes ineffectually scraping your frozen windows like William H. Macy in Fargo, or you can keep a bottle of this in your trunk.
  • Water leak detector: A lot of people don’t have these, but I consider them essential basic gear, as they can save you hundreds or thousands of dollars in water damage. Usual made in China caveats apply, but it’s very simple tech (two parallel wires on the exterior that water closes the circuit and sets off when wet). That link goes to a 5-pack, because I recommend putting one behind every toilet, under every sink you use, under your water heater, and next to your washing machine (I’ve had mine start rocking for an unbalanced load that pulled the drain hose loose). (There’s an even cheaper five pack from another manufacturer (also made in China) that I have no experience with.)
  • Flashlights. I have an old bulb-type Maglite, but here’s a pretty close equivalent with LEDs. As a bonus, it’s also heavy enough to conk someone out. I have flashlights in my bedroom, my kitchen and in my car’s glovebox. The highest rated flashlight on Amazon is the Streamlight 75458 Stinger DS, which is about four times as expensive as the Maglite. I assume it’s brighter and with a longer life, and maybe you have a use case that justifies the cost. And if you have flashlights, chances are you’ll also need…
  • Batteries. The Maglite takes D-Cells, and you’re going to want, at a minimum, enough to reload every flashlight twice, which should be enough to get you through a couple of evenings of power outages. Check your flashlights every six months when you check your smoke and CO detectors. Speaking of which, those and the water leak detectors take 9 volt batteries, and you want enough around to be able to change out every battery in your detectors as needed. Those links go to Duracells, which I’ve been pretty happy with. Sam’s and Lowes frequently have cheaper bulk deals, so check there if you’re out and about.
  • Gas And Water Emergency Shut Off Tool. The Orbit 26097 provides a water shutoff valve, a gas shutoff valve, manhole cover lift tool, and a rubberized grip. You need one of these for the same reason you need a water leak detector, i.e. it will greatly limit damage before the plumber gets there. One caveat: I used one last week to cut off the water in advance of a new washer being installed (just in case the ancient water valves in the laundry room started leaking) and the manhole cover part of the tool broke off when I was moving the manhole back into place. The rest is still good, but quality metal shouldn’t snap like that. I’ll have to dig out the warranty info for a replacement.
  • Sawyer Products Water Filtration System: If you’ve ever been under a water boil notice, the Sawyer system is Good Enough to get you through, even if it is a slight pain to fill and squeeze the bag enough times for my dogs and I to drink (but still less of a pain that boiling water and waiting for it to cool).
  • Duct tape is useful to have year-round, but especially during an emergency, to patch a small leak or keep something together until the emergency is over and you can replace it. Link goes to 3M all-weather duct tape, which is better than the generic stuff for outside tasks, like sealing around the edge of a faucet cover.

    • Stay warm…

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    Posted in Austin, Texas | 7 Comments »

    What If Russia’s Partial Mobilization Is Actually A General Mobilization?

    December 19th, 2022

    In a non-embedable video, the YouTuber formerly know as The Russian Dude announced that he had been called up for military service as part of Putin’s “partial mobilization” to throw more cannon fodder into the Ukrainian meatgrinder. (I’m pretty sure that’s an important decision point in why he’s now known as The Canadian Dude.)

    Oddly enough, all his male friends received conscription notices as well.

    Commenters have long stated that Putin doesn’t want to declare a General Mobilization, because under Soviet Russian law, that requires an actual declaration of war, something still lacking in Vlad’s Special Military Operation.

    Now this is not even a theory, only conjecture based on a single data point, but what if Putin is actually carrying out a General Mobilization of all eligible males of military age while calling it limited mobilization? It’s not like Putin’s war machine hasn’t already committed more heinous crimes, or that Russia has an independent press capable of calling him on it any more.

    Maybe Putin wants to roll the dice on one final spring push for Kiev, putting a million men under arms to launch a massive attack, relying on the Russian doctrine of quantity having a quality of its own to final snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

    Like I said, conjecture only, but it certainly doesn’t make any less sense than the multiple bungling stupidities Russia has committed in the war…

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    Posted in Elections, Military, Obama Scandals | 9 Comments »

    Two Juicy EU Scandals Bubble Up

    December 18th, 2022

    Two big EU scandals seem to be breaking (one the European media is all over like a winter junket to a fact-finding mission in Greece, the other they’re ignoring the way American media try to ignore any Biden family scandal), and I’m trying to figure out what to make of it all.

    One problem with such stories is that I have to refresh my memory on the labyrinth structure of EU power designed to shield the Eurocratic elite from the wrath of mere voters. This is necessary to avoid obvious goofs like mistaking the European Council with the completely different Council of the European Union. The popularly elected European Parliament is the angler-worm appendage the EU wants you to pay attention to rather than the deep state maw of the European Commission.

    So: The scandal everyone is paying attention to is Qatargate, where a rich, middling despotic gulf petrostate has evidently been hosing down the faces of eager Euro-types with bundles of unmarked bills to improve their image while hosting the quadrennial outbreak of EuroFlopBall.

    Let’s start with the summary from the source of all vaguely accurate knowledge.

    In an ongoing political scandal, politicians, political staffers, lobbyists, civil servants and their families are alleged to have been involved in corruption, money laundering and organised crime involving the states of Morocco and of Qatar in exchange for influence at the European Parliament.

    Morocco is a red herring herring here, amounting to basically one bribe to one guy.

    Qatar denies the allegations. Law enforcement authorities in Belgium, Italy and Greece seized €1.5 million in cash, confiscated computers and mobile phones, and charged four individuals with the alleged offences.

    In July 2022, the Central Office for the Repression of Corruption, a unit of the Belgian Federal Police, opened an investigation into an alleged criminal organisation. The investigation was led by the investigating magistrate Michel Claise.

    Acting on the investigation, on 9 December 2022, Belgian police executed 20 raids at 19 different addresses across Brussels in connection with the conspiracy and made eight arrests across Belgium and Italy. The homes and offices of the suspects were searched, including offices within the premises of the European Parliament buildings in Brussels. In line with the Belgian Constitution, the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, was required to return from her home in Malta to be present for the search at the home of Eva Kaili, who has diplomatic immunity as an MEP and a Vice-President of the European Parliament.

    One advantage to this particular scandal is that Eva Kaili is pretty easy on the eyes.

    Following the raids at Kaili’s home, her father was later arrested as he tried to flee the Sofitel hotel at Place Jourdan in Brussels after being tipped off about the raids. Investigators found a suitcase with “several hundred thousand euros” on his person as he attempted to flee.

    Suitcases full of cash! Your sign of a quality scandal!

    Included in the raids were locations linked to Antonio Panzeri, an Italian former MEP. Upon searching his home, police found a large quantity of cash in his “well stocked safe”.

    Let’s be fair to Mr. Panzeri: The money in his safe could be from an entirely different bribe.

    At the same time investigators raided the offices of the international NGO Fight Impunity, an organisation set up to promote the fight against impunity for serious violations of human rights and crimes against humanity, of which Panzeri is the president.

    After the conclusion of the Brussels raids, police had arrested Eva Kaili; Antonio Panzeri; Francesco Giorgi, Kaili’s husband and an advisor of the Italian MEP Andrea Cozzolino; Alexandros Kailis, Kaili’s father and former Greek politician; Luca Visentini, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC); Niccolò Figa-Talamanca, Secretary-General of the NGO No Peace Without Justice; and an unnamed assistant of the Italian MEP Alessandra Moretti. Alexandros Kailis was released from custody and Visentini was conditionally released. €600,000 in cash was reportedly found at Panzeri’s home with additional cash being found at Kaili’s father’s home, his hotel room and the home shared by Kaili and Giorgi. In total, the combined amount of cash found in the raids totalled €1.5million. Following Kaili’s arrest she was detained at the Prison de Saint-Gilles [fr] until her transfer after five days to a prison in Haren, Brussels.

    Wait, an NGO with “peace” and “justice” in its title is just a conduit for graft and bribes? What are the odds?

    No one answers the door or the phone at the offices of the two campaign groups linked to a cash-for-favors corruption scandal at the European Union’s parliament, allegedly involving Qatar. No light is visible inside.

    No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), a pro-human rights and democracy organization, and Fight Impunity, which seeks to bring rights abusers to book, share the same address, on prime real estate in the governmental quarter of the Belgian capital.

    The heads of the two organizations are among four people charged since Dec. 9 with corruption, participation in a criminal group and money laundering. Prosecutors suspect certain European lawmakers and aides “were paid large sums of money or offered substantial gifts to influence parliament’s decisions.” The groups themselves do not seem to be under suspicion.

    Qatar rejects allegations that it’s involved. The Gulf country that’s hosting the soccer World Cup has gone to considerable trouble to boost its public image and defend itself against extensive criticism in the West over its human rights record.

    The lawyer for Fight Impunity President Pier Antonio Panzeri is not talking. He declined to comment about his client’s role in an affair that has shaken the European Parliament and halted the assembly’s work on Qatar-related files.

    Yeah, Pier Antonio Panzeri and the aforementioned Antonio Panzeri are the same guy. “Pier Antonio Panzeri (born 6 June 1955) is an Italian politician who served as Member of the European Parliament for the North-West with the Democrats of the Left, the [Italian] Democratic Party and Article One, as part of the Socialist Group, from 2004 until 2019.” A Democratic Party socialist taking bribes from foreign despots? Shocked face, what are the odds, etc.

    Now it looks like the Qatargate scandal may reach all the way to the European Commission.

    As the Qatargate scandal widens, questions are being asked as to whether its reverberations will reach the Commission, the EU’s executive branch. Recent revelations suggest the EU’s Chief Diplomat Josep Borrell could be implicated.

    Since erupting last weekend with police raids on MEPs’ homes and offices in the European parliament, the Qatargate scandal has done nothing but mushroom. What began as a criminal probe into current and former MEPs and parliamentary assistants implicated in a bribery ring aimed at burnishing the public image of the current World Cup host has widened significantly — not only in terms of the number of people involved but also the number of organizations and third countries, which now also include Morocco.

    As the scandal grows, both the Parliament and the European Commission are locked in a frantic damage control mission. European Parliament president Roberta Metsola on Thursday (15 December) pledged to unveil a “wide-ranging reform package” in January, which will include measures to bolster whistleblower protections, a ban on all unofficial parliamentary friendship groups (groups of MEPs discussing relations with non-EU countries) and a review of enforcement of code of conduct rules for MEPs.

    “Look! We’re doing something! Now please stop paying attention so we can get back to our normal anti-Democratic rent-seeking governance!”

    Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, herself no stranger to corruption allegations, both in her native Germany and in Brussels, said the following in a Monday morning press conference:

    The allegations against the VP of Parliament [Eva Kaili] are of the most concern, very serious. It’s a question of confidence of our people in our institutions, it needs highest standards. I proposed the creation of an independent ethnics body that covers all EU institutions (in March). For us it is very critical to have not only strong rules, but the same rules covering all the EU institutions, and not to allow for any exemptions.

    Von der Leyen added that the Commission is looking at its own transparency register for all logged meetings between staff and Qatari officials. That is not as comforting as it may sound given the flagrant disregard for transparency and accountability her Commission has shown in its acquisition of billions of COVID-19 vaccines.

    Oh yeah, that scandal, the one the media is a lot more reluctant to talk about: the billions pissed away buying Flu Manchu vaccines and who raked in the dough off that debacle.

    The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened an investigation into the EU’s coronavirus vaccine purchases, an announcement that will refocus attention on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s role in the matter.

    The EPPO is an independent EU body responsible for investigating and prosecuting financial crimes, including fraud, money laundering and corruption. In its announcement on Friday, the EPPO didn’t specify who was being investigated, or which of the EU’s vaccine contracts were under scrutiny.

    However, two other watchdog agencies have previously drawn attention to one particular deal involving high-level contacts between Pfizer’s leadership and von der Leyen.

    “This exceptional confirmation comes after the extremely high public interest. No further details will be made public at this stage,” said the EPPO in its short announcement.

    In April 2021, the New York Times first reported on text messages exchanged between von der Leyen and Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in the run-up to the EU’s biggest vaccine procurement contract — for up to 1.8 billion doses of BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine. The deal would be worth up to €35 billion if fully exercised, according to leaked vaccine prices.

    Obviously the idea that there was anything wrong with any Flu Maanchu vaccines is something the media will go to great lengths not to cover.

    It would be nice to think that both scandals together would cause the EU to seriously address its transparency and democracy deficits, but we all know there’s no chance of that happening…

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    Posted in Communism, Crime, Foreign Policy, video, Waste and Fraud | 12 Comments »

    Peru’s New President Is On Team Riot

    December 17th, 2022

    You may remember from all of nine days ago how lefty Peruvian President Pedro Castillo was removed from power after attempting his own autogolpe. Did that solve the political crisis?

    Eh, not so much.

    Turns out that his successor, Dina Boluarte, is also Marxist, and just like #BlackLivesMatter Democrats, doesn’t believe in letting police prevent rioters from burning shit down.

    Castillo, elected in 2021, was ousted by parliament last week after he tried to dissolve the legislature and stage a coup. This led to the ascension of his vice president, Dina Boluarte, also a Marxist, as president.

    Alarmingly, she has come out against even using rubber bullets to stop the mobs torching buildings and disrupting Peru from Lima to Machu Picchu. According to the New York Times, Boluarte has called on the minister of interior to identify the policemen “who have used these weapons that are harming our sisters and brothers.”

    These “brothers and sisters,” members of “indigenous” groups, unions, and other leftist activists, are instigated from outside through social media accounts based in the U.S., Argentina, Bolivia, and Mexico and include pro-China, pro-Russia, and pro-Iran activists. Some were also involved with our own Black Lives Matter summer of violence.

    Joseph Humire of the Center for a Secure Free Society, one of the best analysts in the U.S. following this sort of online activity, gave me a rundown of those pushing on social media the disinformation narrative that Castillo was ousted because of racism against his Indian roots. They include former Bolivian President Evo Morales, Cristina Kirchner, the recently indicted vice president of Argentina, and Gustavo Petro and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the Marxist presidents of Colombia and Mexico, respectively.

    Similarly, Douglas Farah, who also conducts investigations on illicit networks, has found that the vast majority of the millions of tweets about the riots that broke out in Chile came from Venezuela and its allies, Cuba and Nicaragua, while most anti-riot tweets were Chilean. This shouldn’t come as a surprise: Venezuela’s regime has vowed that it will use its oil money to sow this type of chaos throughout the Americas.

    Humire alerted me to influencers such as the pro-Russia activist Daniel Estulin, who actually brags in a video from Mexico that he is helping instigate the riots in Peru. Humire also reminded me that Andahuaylas, rocked by violent protests this week, is within the same region (Apurimac) where Iran has developed an indigenous network.

    I would take the Iran charge with a grain of salt, since the Andes are not a region where disgruntled Shia provide an opportunity for Iran to create networks of followers. Plus I think the mullahs have other things on their mind right now.

    The basic ingredients for stable prosperity are capitalism, democracy and the rule of law. Because all those limit Marxist Will to Power, leftwing rulers (in South America and elsewhere) seem to constantly be at war with all three.

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    Posted in Communism, Crime, Foreign Policy, unions | 3 Comments »

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