Hambone v3.0

Wednesday Open Comments

Resurrecting America’s Spy Network: The Struggle to Rebuild Intelligence Capabilities in China While Biden Sells America Out

 

In a race to revive espionage capabilities compromised in China a decade ago, the U.S. intelligence community is facing significant challenges, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing insights from multiple current and former U.S. intelligence officials. The setback occurred when a suspected bug in covert communications technology exposed nearly two dozen CIA spies, including former high-ranking Chinese Communist Party officials, leading to their swift purge by the increasingly hostile government in Beijing.

The aftermath of this devastating compromise left the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) struggling to reestablish its intelligence network in Beijing, hindering its ability to gather crucial information about China’s leadership plans and intentions. A former senior intelligence official, who recently had access to classified reporting, expressed concern to the WSJ, stating, “We have no real insight into leadership plans and intentions in China at all.”

/snip

“Former DNI John Ratcliffe: We Collected Specific Intel of a Plan by China to Interfere in 2020 Election to Help Joe Biden – They Will Do It Again in 2024” The installed Biden regime isn’t incompetent. They are intentionally destroying us and selling us out to China.

/snip

To address the intelligence gap, the CIA is actively recruiting analysts and case officers with expertise in Mandarin, emerging technology, and collaboration with the private sector. Former officials mentioned that, despite the setback, the CIA has been continuously building and maintaining intelligence operations in China, with a renewed emphasis on the China mission.

However, gaining insight into the inner workings of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and President Xi Jinping’s intentions remains a significant challenge. The loss of agents between 2010 and 2012 hampered the intelligence community’s ability to understand and predict Xi’s leadership style. Despite CIA reports predicting a more nationalistic and security-minded leader, the Obama administration allegedly failed to fully appreciate the consequences.

Xi’s subsequent development of a massive surveillance state has further complicated human spying operations. The primary source of U.S. intelligence now relies on satellite imagery to track Chinese military deployments, cyber tools for electronic communications, and analysis of Xi’s public statements to discern his plans.

To Sum It All Up: the U.S. intelligence community faces an uphill battle in rebuilding its capabilities in China, with the decade-old compromise casting a long shadow. The renewed focus on the China mission underscores the evolving dynamics of great power competition and the critical need for effective intelligence gathering in the face of formidable challenges.

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70 responses to “Wednesday Open Comments”

  1. bsue54 Avatar
    bsue54

    Good BRISK morning, every buddy… Shortie Dawg walked really rapidly this morning, and doesn’t act like she wants to go back outside… At 41, we got yesterday beat by 7 degrees so I guess she’s just in a mood LOL. I guess everyone else had sense enough to stay snuggled up in their bed til the sun comes up and it warms a bit more.

  2. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    Two Wednesdays? As I mentioned last night in my #27 drove straight through from Midland to LA yesterday. We rolled in at 10:32 PM after leaving Midland at 7 AM, 1063 Miles in 15 1/2 hours, (late for me)and I was plum worn out. I didn’t get to bed until well after midnight (late for me) and slept like a log, didn’t wake up until almost 6 AM. I don’t remember the last time I’ve slept that late but I’m up and at-um now and ready to get back into the groove. 42 here and shooting for the low 60’s so that’ll work.

    Mornin’ Gang

  3. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    I removed my Wednesday front page post and the two comments went with it.

    I looked at the ALL POSTS page on the dashboard and the last post before I started composing was my Tuesday night posting.  I posted and scheduled my Wednesday Killer Robots piece at 9:16 PM CST last night and it was the only Wednesday-12/27  titled post on the dashboard.

    We’re supposed to be able to see all of each other’s post in real time as they are scheduled on the dashboard.

  4. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    I removed my Wednesday front page post and the two comments went with it.

    Thanks Mr Moderator, I figured you decide which one to keep and save the other.

    We’re supposed to be able to see all of each other’s post in real time as they are scheduled on the dashboard.

    Dream on, the more any young whipper snapper tries to improve a product the more screwed it it becomes.

    Y’all could E Mail each other but you probably don’t have time with all that’s going on.  😉

  5. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    “Lorie, darlin’, life in San Francisco, you see, is still just life. If you want any one thing too badly, it’s likely to turn out to be a disappointment.

    The only healthy way to live life, is to learn to like all the little everyday things, like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself.”

    ~ Former Texas Ranger, and co-owner of Hat Creek Cattle Company, Captain Augustus Mc Crae.
    I’m going to have find that series and watch it again. 😉

  6. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Texpat…I also checked. It was rather late when I checked and realized that today had not been teed up yet and I scrambled to put something up.

    Sorry for the confusion, folks.

  7. Bonecrusher Avatar
    Bonecrusher

    So. . . . .Is we is or is we isn’t?

  8. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    So. . . . .Is we is or is we isn’t?

    Don’t know about you but I am. 😀

  9. squawkbox Avatar
    squawkbox

    Hat tip Ole Timer Lynn

  10. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Tedtam @ 8:08 AM

    I posted mine at 9:16 PM CST according to Word Press.  You can scroll down on your post in the ALL POSTS list and see what time you posted.  I don’t understand why we can’t see each other’s posts in the evening.

  11. Bonecrusher Avatar
    Bonecrusher

    MTG got SWATTED again for the 8th time, this time on Christmas day.  I am pretty confident that if the Feds wanted to know who was doing this, they could find out.

    I think the penalty for SWATing should be the same as that for attempted murder.

  12. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Leftwingers are destructive imbeciles who cause great damage to people’s lives when given any authority.

    Two Pizza Hut operators in California are eliminating their in-house delivery services at hundreds of stores, resulting in more than 1,200 driver layoffs, according to federal-employment notices reviewed by Business Insider.

    The layoffs, effective throughout February, affect Pizza Hut delivery drivers across California, including at Sacramento, Palm Springs, and Los Angeles locations. The Pizza Hut franchisees are reducing staff as fast-food chains in the state brace for a new law that increases worker pay to $20 an hour in April.

    and,

    A new law, AB 1228, replaced the controversial FAST Act this year. The minimum-wage increase for fast-food workers was changed to $20 an hour. The new law was viewed as a compromise between the labor unions representing fast-food workers and the restaurant industry.

    The law affects 557,000 fast-food workers at 30,000 restaurants in California.

    This is just the beginning of the downward spiral.  

    Never forget – the people most hurt are those who never get hired in the first place.  These are almost exclusively the young and the poor comprising the unskilled class.  A company struggles to train people at entry level and it costs them money because the employee is not productive enough to even offset their payroll and benefit costs.  If the initial threshold cost of hiring an employee is too high, a company will find another way to survive and that 16 or 17 year old girl who needs the job is unemployed.

    Welcome to Your New World of Robot Restaurants Where No Human Employee Can Be Seen or Heard.

    The robotics industry is rejoicing and partying like never before.  It’s all champagne and prime steaks over there.

    I had to postpone my Killer Robot post, but I seem to be unable to avoid talking about robots anyway.

  13. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    FWIW; MTG = Marjorie Taylor Greene

  14. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    10 Bonecrusher

    Marjorie Taylor Greene was not the only one to be swatted this week.

    Representative Brandon Williams R-NY also was a victim in New York.

    Michelle Wu, the despicable mayor of Boston, was also swatted and I’m just as furious about her case as any other.

    Cops and innocent people have already been killed in these fake 911 call situation.  Anyone who does this should be charged with a felony and spend some years in prison contemplating their Inner Stupidity.

  15. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Texpat:

     You can scroll down on your post in the ALL POSTS list and see what time you posted.

    I always check this.

    90% of the time I can see your work, even if in progress.  It must’ve been after ten when I checked.

    Ah, well, it’s a good thing we’re friends.  I assume you just rescheduled your post.

    When is Ellie Ruth arriving?  And how is Momma doing?

     

  16. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Now that the blinding sun has passed the window, I can now sit at my computer.  In the meantime, I made another rosary.  Today’s rosary: pearls all ’round.  I also watched my ReturnToTradition.org podcasts – it seems pachapapa is getting more pushback from more bishops, but here in my diocese a priest blessed two men in a ceremony that involved rings.

    Like THAT won’t be confused with a matrimonial ceremony.  PP’s edict said the “blessing” couldn’t have elements of a sacramental marriage, but everyone knew what would happen.  The ambiguity in the orders was intentional.

    That news was in Stine’s live stream in the early morning hours.  The daily podcast was a review of a vision that St. Pio had, in which poor priests were causing Jesus much agony.  If you don’t know Padre Pio, he was one of the most powerful saints in Catholic history, and IIRC he died in 1959.  We have evidence of his bilocation.  His spiritual children speak of his talking and using his angel as messenger just as we talk to each other. People lined up for hours to receive confession from him.  He had the ability to know their sins, even the ones the penitents forgot.  He could “read” souls and turned away those who were not contrite and could not make a good confession.  He suffered Satanic attacks in his cell at night that could be heard outside his door, but he was always protected.  When his village was scheduled for bombing during WWII, the pilots of the bombers turned back because they saw a man in the clouds hovering before their plains, dressed as a monk.  There’s a picture of Pio with those pilots that was taken after the war, and the pilots recognized him.  He is most well-known for carrying the stigmata for 30 years.

    I watched an interview with the son of a man who served St. Pio.  His father had recovered a scab from one the stigmata wounds and asked if he could keep it.  Pio said he could, but it wouldn’t last beyond Pio’s death.  The father framed it and hung it on a wall; the son remembers the aroma of roses that emanated from it.  When Pio passed, the scab which had been hanging on the wall for years, began to slowly disappear.  After a few days, it was completely gone.

    So, when St. Pio says something, I listen.  If you can get your hands on a biography on him, it’ll be quite interesting reading.

    BTW – St. Pio was very devoted to the Holy Mother and prayed dozens of rosaries every day.  So I guess I’m doing the Lord’s will with my rosary work.

  17. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

     LITTLE PACKAGES ☙ Wednesday, December 27, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS

    Good morning C&C, it’s Wednesday! We’re running out the clock on 2023, which neatly ends this year on a Sunday. Today we have a quick update (or I’ll never get it out): a primer on and real-life example of the “agree and extend” persuasion technique; SADS Fox reporter; and a teeny-tiny but terrifically-important study to lift your post-holiday spirits even higher.

    News:

     I’m a litigator. Well-meaning non-lawyers often casually tell me that I argue for a living. I usually argue about that. As a lawyer, I don’t have arguments, I make arguments, and I make arguments doing my real job: persuasion. My job is to persuade people — people like judges and juries. Let’s look at a very helpful persuasion technique that I often use to win arguments.

    This morning I stumbled over a perfect example for yesterday’s Substack about meeting Covidians halfway. I found yet another goofy Covidian (a healthcare professional) oddly fretting that we anti-vaxxers will somehow blame Covidians for all the excess deaths and injuries not for the vaccines but because of their masking and isolating and trying not to catch covid (granted, the logic is pretty fuzzy): [insert tweet]

    Mr. C. gives kudo to the following guy for doing a good job of persuading:

    image 2.png

    He thinks Matthew was effective in his argument/persuasion style.  He first met the Covidian halfway and created rapport.  With that connection made, Matthew could then introduce his position that the jabs could be a problem, without bruising the Covidian’s sensibilities too much.

    I said Matt introduced the jabs as a possible cause “gently” because he avoided confrontational language like “it’s obvious, dummy,” or “wake up, the shots kill,” but instead made the minimal truthful argument they are the riskiest approved shots. And then — again, not in a confrontational way — he informatively offered a supporting fact in neutral language (Europe banned shots for healthy young people).

    I call this method of argumentation “agree and extend.” It is a good tactic even outside the pandemic context. It’s especially useful for moving people toward your position by degrees….

    Conceding a point and then gradually moving your opponent in your direction, said opponent being more willing to listen to your side because he now sees you as at least a partial ally.  Gently making those moves in persuasion is more effective than spooking your debate opponent, who will then react out of emotional fear and protection.  Kinda like how sheepdogs work: calmly, gently, patiently.

    There are other problems with the defective jabs like they make nonsense proteins, are contaminated with E. coli, and including SV40 promoter genes — but we don’t need those to increase the anti-vaccine coalition. Covidians already believe the virus is causing excess death and disability. If they could be persuaded that the spike protein part of the virus is the culprit, then it’s just one tiny step to the vaccines, which after all is where most of the spike protein comes from.

    In other words, if the spike protein is harmful in a reservoir, then it’s also harmful when it comes from a shot, right?

    ***

    From the S&U Department:

    Fox News lost an audio anchor who was only 33 when an “infection” took him the day before Christmas.

    …The New York Daily News reported Matt died “following a brief illness” — the new euphemism for “he died suddenly” — and led its article by noting that Matt allegedly had an “autoimmune disease” for twenty years (since thirteen?)…

    Rick, Matt’s “husband,” asked that his death not fuel any anti-jab rhetoric.  Matt was a big pro-jabber, so…

    Some commenters still weren’t sure though, since Matt seemed to be doing okay for the last twenty years until just recently. What changed? What kind of infection was it? When was the last time he was in the hospital, if ever?

    Condolences.

  18. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Next up, a study on the jab and T2 diabetes.  One victim is a gent who had no previous personal nor family history of T2 diabetes, nor did he have any symptoms or known exposure to WLR – but he did get 3x jabbed:

     A wildly significant little study — it’s actually just a case report — quietly popped up in the American Journal of Translational Research last month, titled “Successful treatment of new-onset diabetes mellitus and IgA nephropathy after COVID-19 vaccination: a case report.” It offers substantial hope to vaccine injured folks, far beyond its plain meaning.

    It seems that kidney disease is a new “concern” for the jabbed.  Another reason for me to never get the needle, with my pre-diabetic condition and the rampant T2 on my mother’s side of the family.  So glad I was able to avoid it, even though I may be plagued with headaches ’til I die.  I still thank God for the strong gut twist that gave me warning, and for the headache that gave me an excuse to refuse the jab.  But I digress…

    Haha. So much for “safe and effective.” The researchers stated as an obvious fact that the mRNA vaccine can cause new-onset (and relapsed) kidney disease. They didn’t even squawk it was “rare.” (They even said typically occur awfully close to the word disease.) They ignored the drooling idiots infecting the useless CDC and captured FDA, neither of which apparently has the slightest idea at all that mRNA vaccines can cause kidney diseases.  Lalalalala we can’t hear you…

    One good thing…because the disease was atypical, the researchers were able to come up with a treatment: (1) rejecting insulin (which was helpful), (2) administering steroids for inflammation control, and (3) using a leukemia drug for the jab related autoimmunity issue.  Those last two items are normally rejected for T2 treatment, because (2) usually makes things worse.

    This case is unique because the kidneys and pancreas were simultaneously affected by the vaccine. Although correlation does not imply causation, the onset of symptoms of injury of two organs soon after vaccination should be considered as the inciting event. And in this case, it was strange that the patient’s blood sugar level was dramatically high within a short period, without any history of diabetes or a propensity to the disease. Therefore we suspected that the diabetes was caused by an immunological mechanism triggered by the COVID-19 vaccination.
    Based on the vaccine-related mechanism of the immune reaction, we treated the patient with glucocorticoid (a steroid) and cyclophosphamide (a leukemia drug) and successfully controlled the diabetes mellitus within a short period.
    In general, glucocorticoids are considered a medication that can worsen diabetes and harm pancreas function, ostensibly leading to an increase in blood glucose levels. Given this response, glucocorticoids are rarely used to treat diabetes mellitus.

    Because these doctors admitted that the jab was responsible instead of the usual causes, and because they didn’t toe the company line and did some independent thinking, they came up with an effective treatment instead of flailing about in bafflement.

    Good for them.  There is hope for the medical profession after all.

    In an interesting side note, this patient got the Chinese Sinovac vaccine, which is based on inactivated virus and not mRNA. But based on the growing body of academic evidence (well illustrated in the report’s footnotes), the authors explicitly included mRNA vaccines at nearly every opportunity. The other fascinating point was what the report tells us about how harmful spike really is. Since the Sinovac jab only includes “attenuated” or inactive virus, and still can give you sudden diabetes, it must be that even dead spike protein can cause very serious adverse events.

  19. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Texpat & Tedtam

    When Texpat told us that the Christmas Day OC would be more suitably posted by one of us, I went ahead and did one.

    Later, I went back to dashboard and saw that Tedtam had also done one, so I deleted mine.

    I’m curious Tedtam….did you not see mine?

    Just for the record, if I open the dashboard and scroll to the “Activity” heading, I always see y’all’s Scheduled posts.

  20. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Tedtam

    When is Ellie Ruth arriving?  And how is Momma doing?

    Delivery is scheduled for Thursday, January 4th, 8 days from today.

    I am scrambling trying to get several thing completed before the baby arrives because I have to do limo driver duty for my grandson after Ellie Ruth shows up.  I am frustratingly trapped at home at the moment waiting for my mechanic to call and say my vehicle is ready.

    Momma is hanging in there and we’re closely monitoring the symptoms for preeclampsia which caused an emergency premature caesarean delivery of our grandson 5 years ago.

     

  21. squawkbox Avatar
    squawkbox

    Today’s Coffee and Chrome

    West Side Diner, formerly Poirier’s Diner, is a historic restaurant at 1380 Westminster Street in Providence RI

  22. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    14 Shannon & Tedtam

    I always choose “Posts” and “All Posts” from the sidebar menu on the dashboard.  It opens the entire archive of 4,355 headline front-page posts in the history of this site.  I only use the “Add New Post” button at the top of that page.  We should all be looking at the same data.

  23. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Squawk

    You’d be surprised how many of the ugly 1970s and 1980s diners up here get renovated today and returned to that heavy chrome Art Deco style.  It’s very cool looking.

  24. mharper42 Avatar
    mharper42

    Morning, gang! Chilly in Houston this morning. I know because Billy Cat was especially hungry — I actually gave him 3 bowls of canned chow and he licked the bowl clean all 3 times. I stayed outside with him all 3 times. It has happened a few times that an unknown cat has turned up to see if it can get a bite.

    At supper time, even if it’s not dark yet, when I take Billy’s food outside, 2 or 3 of the raccoons that live in my backyard come on out to see if they can scare the cat away. If I’m out there sitting in a lawn chair 4 feet away from Billy, the raccoons don’t get anything — unless I put out some dry dog food for them around the water tub.

  25. squawkbox Avatar
    squawkbox

    Texpat

    I love those diners.  I would like to come there and see them.  BTW  I am a big fan of art deco, oneof my favorite photo subjects.

     

  26. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    I always choose “Posts” and “All Posts” from the sidebar menu on the dashboard.  It opens the entire archive of 4,355 headline front-page posts in the history of this site.  I only use the “Add New Post” button at the top of that page.  We should all be looking at the same data.

    I do.  Every time.

    Weird that we can’t see each other’s posts all the time.  WordPress has selective memory or something.

  27. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Squawk:

      BTW  I am a big fan of art deco, oneof my favorite photo subjects.

    The air flight museum near my home, at Hobby Airport, is art deco.  Very cool looking.  You have to look for it since it’s not right on Hwy 35, aka “Telephone Road”.   It’s a block or so east of Telephone, closer to the airport.

    IIRC, the building originally held the ATC functions.   We attended a wedding reception there and were able to see all of the exhibits.  I took a lot of pics and was going to make a post on it, but I think I lost the photos. /sigh

    Since I used to work for an airline, I was fascinated by some of the items.  Old stewardess uniforms (yes, stewardESS uniforms),  the dishes used to serve food, models of the older aircraft, all sorts of stuff.

  28. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Heads Up, Shannon

    From the Wall Street Journal

    Banking Crisis Plays Out at America’s Smallest Lenders

    Rural community banks are at risk from giant underwater bond portfolios

    INDUSTRY, Texas—Doak Hartley usually can’t go to a restaurant, grocery store or even church in town unnoticed. The chairman of Industry Bancshares gets stopped by customers asking about how to get a loan or where the economy might be headed.

    Lately, the questions are more complicated. Some want to know how many of Industry’s deposits are insured. (Between two-thirds and three-quarters at each of its banks.) Others have heard that Industry has a negative net worth and want to know what that means. (The bank owes more money than it has.)

    “Banking really is 24/7 if you live in a small community,” says Hartley.

    Industry Bancshares, with some $5 billion in assets, is the parent company of six banks with more than two dozen branches scattered across stretches of farms and ranches in eastern Texas. It is one of the small banks in rural America whose local focus has long been a strength, inspiring years of loyalty from their neighbors to keep money down the street. Many of these banks are now reckoning with decisions they made when money was abundant and rates were low, crunched by the Federal Reserve’s rapid interest-rate increases.

    Industry is a tiny town west of Bellville in Austin County and their bank has been an institution in the area forever.

  29. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    They busted rescued an elderly lady in Florida the other day with 309 animals in a doublewide mobile home down in Florida.

    I’m always glad mharper keeps it in the less than a dozen range.  I can’t imagine her sitting in jail.

    A Frostproof, Florida, woman has been arrested for animal cruelty and animal neglect charges after 164 birds, 142 cats and three dogs were seized from her property by police, who added the ammonia levels inside the home were “lethal.”

    The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release that a deputy was dispatched to the home on Dec. 21 to conduct a welfare check on a 75-year-old woman who was reportedly living in a possible “hoarder situation” with cats inside the house.

  30. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    21 Texpat

    Hmmm.

    First National in Bellville became part of Industry Bancshares a number of years ago.

    As far as I know Austin County State Bank has three other rural Texas banks under its umbrella.

  31. Super Dave Avatar
    Super Dave

    “Frostproof” now that is a great nane for a Florida city. It’s south of Orlando and east of Tampa. And NO it’s NOT frost-proof. Most of the time yes but once every 2o years or so,…… 😉

  32. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Jill Biden’s press secretary Michael LaRosa was ‘forced out’ of White House after he ‘tried to take gay dates’ to his room on secure floor of hotel where president was staying during NATO summit in Madrid

    The First Lady’s press secretary Michael LaRosa tried to take a date he’d just met up to his room on a secure floor while overseas in a hotel where the president was staying, insiders exclusively tell DailyMail.com

    Sources say LaRosa, 40, did it twice during the same trip while accompanying Jill Biden to the NATO Summit in Madrid, Spain, in June 2022, and that this was part of a pattern of behavior that led to his forced resignation the following month.

    A Secret Service source confirmed the incident and claimed that it happened twice on the same trip.

    Richard Rachel Levine

    Luggage thief Sam Brinton

    Rose Montoya, the tranny who flashed fake breasts on White House lawn

    Kooper, the queer comedian, who made a Covid jab video in the White House with Jen Psaki

    When does this end ?  What all is going on that we don’t even know about ?

     

  33. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    23 Shannon

    You know what financial advisors say about a “diversified portfolio”.

    It looks as if a lot of these banks ignored their own advice.  Buying bonds ain’t like gold.  Gold can go down in price, but never become worthless like a bond can.

  34. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    I’m glad Heritage has started taking some active, aggressive moves instead of being so passive like years past.

    The conservative Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project is suing the CIA for records related to its investigation of COVID-19’s origins, the Daily Caller has learned.

    Heritage’s Oversight Project filed a lawsuit Friday against the CIA after the agency did not comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records connected to its team tasked with investigating the lab leak theory, which posits that COVID-19 was created in and escaped from a laboratory rather than being transmitted to humans by animals.

    plus this,

    In September, a whistleblower came forward to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic alleging the CIA provided financial rewards to six agents on the COVID discovery team to change their position and come out against the possibility of the virus originating in a lab in Wuhan, China.

    Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wrote a letter on Sept. 12 to CIA Director William Burns requesting information on the whistleblower allegations.

    Assessments from the FBI and Department of Energy have concluded that COVID-19 most likely came from a lab in Wuhan where bat coronaviruses were being researched.

     

  35. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Eisenhower Carrier Group shoots down 20 Houthi attack drones in 20 hours.

  36. squawkbox Avatar
    squawkbox

    Weird that we can’t see each other’s posts all the time.  WordPress has selective memory or something.

    That is bunk.  I check the posts every night and I always see everyone’s scheduled posts including the last 3 days.  I DO NOT WANT TO SOUND SHORT HERE but the problem is people not looking close enough to see who is doing what when.  it is not a wordpress problem.

  37. Adee Avatar
    Adee

    The week between Christmas and New Years seems to frequently be the “Odds and Ends” week taking care of year-end stuff before midnight on December 31 for tax purposes and other things left behind in the closet all year.  Charitable donations given now so they are tax-deductible for this year that is flying by usually are high on the list. And indeed there are many charities in need of help this year that might have been overlooked.

  38. Adee Avatar
    Adee

    #29 Squawk,

    I have no problem checking on previous days’ posts when we’ve been out of town to catch up on what I missed before I post something once we’re back.

  39. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    After being a permanent resident for 51 years, I just received my very first Jury Summons from Austin County.

  40. Adee Avatar
    Adee

    Shannon,

    Do you have an age exemption if you wish to take it?

  41. Adee Avatar
    Adee

    Whoops, what happened there?

  42. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Some clowns decided to form Doctors Against Genocide and protest Israel at the National Holocaust Museum.  Now they have canceled it because of the backlash.

    Dr. Eli David tweeted this:

    500,000 killed in Syria?

    380,000 killed in Yemen?

    240,000 killed in Afghanistan?

    500,000 killed in Sudan?

    300,000 killed in Iraq?

    It’s fine. No “Doctors Against Genocide”

    Israel defends itself against Hamas? “Doctors Against Genocide” is formed!

  43. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    32 Shannon

    Tell Judge Dan I said hello.  I hope he doesn’t think you are me.  I was kicked out of the jury pool twice before I got in as jury foreman.

  44. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    I was surprised to see that the age exemption is now 75+.

  45. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    Funny, considering that Texas voters recently rejected an Amendment that would increase Judges retirement age to 75 from 70.

    As I recall, that was the only Amendment that failed to pass.

  46. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Helen Dale is a British woman who went to school and became a solicitor (lawyer).  In order to save her family embarrassment, Helen instead became a novelist and writer.  Here she expands upon the three ring presidents circus in Congress recently.

    Helen missed the Congressional hearing and didn’t hear about it until she arrived at some academic Christmas party later.

    Various party people tried to convey to me the calamitous nature and effect. I’m afraid I struggled to believe them. Nothing could be that bad, I thought, especially given US Congresscritters are far politer than UK Commons MPs or—to make the contrast even starker—Australia’s by turns amusing and spittle-flecked parliamentarians.

    When I did finally see it—24 hours later—it seemed I was watching Australia’s Senate Estimates, except the accents were all wrong. An attack-dog politician in the Australian style was going after three university vice-chancellors (what we call university presidents) who were making an absolute meal of their testimony. Kids these days say “cringy” or “cringeworthy,” but I prefer my mother’s phrase: toe-curlingly embarrassing.

    I started to wonder if it were made so ruinous because we could all see their faces. There was a moment there, with the Penn woman’s awful gurning—her mouth twisting into a smile—where I wanted to pick up a corner of the carpet and crawl underneath. It was almost unwatchable. I concluded the visuals were making it worse—gurning is something done for sh*ts and giggles at parish fairs in the North of England—and hunted down a BBC Radio 4 report on the controversy which, of necessity, was audio-only.

    and this,

    “How?” I hear you ask. “Harvard alone has an endowment north of fifty billion dollars.”

    Well, I live in a country that once had institutions many times richer (in relative terms) than Harvard, Penn, or MIT. And in four short years—1536 to 1540—all of them had passed into history. Attempts to revive them at the highest level less than 20 years later failed. I speak, of course, of Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries. As with the monasteries, if Harvard annoys the people of your country enough—especially your wealthy elites—then its 50-billion-dollar endowment will not save it.

    and,

    Claudine Gay, Elizabeth Magill, and Sally Kornbluth didn’t turn up trying to sell Elise Stefanik a piece of the True Cross or an ampoule of San Gennaro’s blood, but they may as well have. They believe things—as their testimony and behaviour both before and since shows—that are vacuous nonsense, rooted in emotionally incontinent wibble. They’ve adopted a tendentious definition of racism that blinds people to injustices against any group seen as dominant. They’ve divided the world into simplistic categories of oppressors and oppressed, of whites and people of colour, of colonisers and colonised. They’ve concluded discrimination is justified on behalf of the marginalised. They think “my truth” can be substituted for “the truth.”

    I am tempted to excerpt too much.  This tirade is irreverent and rich as fresh cream.

    RTWDT.

     

  47. Adee Avatar
    Adee

    #38 Shannon,

    Yes, it was the only one voted down.  I voted for it to become 75.

  48. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Squawk, I don’t think the contributors are getting panties all twisted over the posting snafu.  We just find it – interesting.

    I *do* check each time before I put up a post.  Most times, I see Texpat’s work on the list.  I don’t know that I’ve missed any of the others, but I know that Texpat and I have crossed each other several times.

    Texpat also swears that he checks, too.  Both of us seem to have a modicum of intelligence and common sense.  Him more so than me, I’m not embarrassed to say.

    It ain’t a big deal.  We’re all friends here and have learned to roll with punches.

  49. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    While we are talking about academia..

    Here are a few of the 71 things American higher education found to be racist in 2023.

    Read the whole list HERE.

    Each has a link so I had remove them.

    Not wearing a mask

    Animals

    Robert E. Lee’s horse

    Black people

    Black cops who killed black man

    Cops and robbers display that included a black student as a robber

    Black Communist who liked white composers

    Senator Tim Scott

    Cleanliness

    Clean pantries

    Food

    Clowns are included so Hamous would have like that.

     

  50. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    I actually felt good enough to go outside and enjoy the weather today.  I planted two tubs – onions and lettuce.  I had one onion that sprouted in the kitchen, so it’s in the dirt now.  The others were seeds, which will be interesting, since I think there was some cross-pollination last year.

    I haven’t really grown a lot of onions and I had to watch a video on it.  Mostly, I take the root ends of the green onions from the store and plant those just whenever.  They actually get bigger than I thought they would; many of them are still out in my yard.  I guess I should use them.  I let a few go to seed so I could plant the seed now.

    I put some coriander out, too.  Turns out, it’s a very cool weather crop.  The last time I had some in the garden, it did just fine during the summer.  Since it’s a biennial, it didn’t bolt until the second year.  At least, that one plant acted biennial.  Since I’m not the world’s greatest gardener, it could’ve just been waiting on me to do something and then gave up and did its thing.

    I also repotted my sweet mint.  It was getting quite root bound.

    We have a lot of leaves, so I pulled up some thistles and other weeds, mixed it with some cardboard and leaves in my tubs, then put a layer of dirt on top.  I anticipate that by the time spring gets here, those “dirt” levels will be at least several inches lower as things decompose and settle.

    Next task: clear and plant more tubs, and make hoops for my netting and for some plastic, to turn those tubs into mini-greenhouses to see what I can get to survive the winter.

  51. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    Tommy Smothers, of the Smother Brothers comedy team, passed away.

    I have many fond memories of watching their show.

    RIP.  Hope they’re laughing with you in Heaven.

  52. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    I admit to possibly overlooking others posts if I am trying to write something late at night. My after sundown eyesight is slowly getting worse and I know the cataract surgery is somewhere on the horizon. Hopefully later than sooner.

  53. Tedtam Avatar
    Tedtam

    I was so excited for Mom after her cataract surgery.  It went extremely well, and she went from seeing almost nothing to differentiating the venetian blinds blades right after surgery.

    Then she jabbed her antibiotic drops bottle into her eyeball.  When I watched her the first night, she did her drops perfectly, so I went home the next day, happy that she could see.  She’d had lots of practice with eye drops over the years, so I didn’t worry.

    Then she called me a few days later with a massive eye infection.  It looked like something out of a horror movie.  That was a long, long night, being in two hospitals in one night so we could get to the eye specialist.  I watched her when I brought her to my house when she was released, and that’s when I saw her touch her eyeball with the dropper bottle.  When I said something, she looked irritated and snapped at me, denying she’d ever done such a thing.  She ended up losing the eye.

    She went to her grave blaming the doctor for a botched surgery.

    So, Texpat, the surgery may be something to look forward to.  Just make sure your after care is done properly.

  54. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Nobody needs an AR-15 ?  Nobody needs a 30 round mag because those nice thieves don’t carry guns.  

    They are mostly peaceful criminals.

    Shortly after 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, officers responded to the location for a report of an attempted home invasion robbery. Police spoke to the homeowner, who said three men tried to break down his door but were unsuccessful and fled the scene.

    The SPD says the suspects tried a second time at around 12:25 a.m. the next morning.

    Authorities say four men returned to the house to try breaking the door down with a sledgehammer.

    The homeowner told police he was sleeping and woke up to loud banging at the door. He armed himself with a rifle, and when the suspects tried getting inside, he shot at them.

    Authorities say the suspects fired back at the homeowner before speeding off in a vehicle. It remains unknown whether the homeowner shot any of the suspects during the incident.

    Detectives processing the scene say they located bullet damage in the living room and bedroom windows.

    The SPD says this week’s incidents follow a similar pattern to a series of robberies that happened earlier this year, where the victims of the incidents were of Asian descent, and the suspects were Black men.

  55. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Tedtam

    She ended up losing the eye.

    She went to her grave blaming the doctor for a botched surgery.

    LOL.  That’s a helluva way to sell cataract surgery.

  56. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Is Texanadian loading up the trucks to come back to Texas ?  Are he and his Trophy Wife already here seeking asylum from the Justin Fidel Trudeau communist regime ?

    All federally regulated employers in Canada are now required to stock free feminine hygiene products such as tampons and menstrual pads in all restrooms, including men’s.

    The new regulations, which went into effect earlier this month under Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s left-wing administration, specify that menstrual products must be in “all toilet rooms, regardless of their marked genders,” according to Canada’s Employment and Social Development website.

    “This means that every female-identified, male-identified and all-gender toilet rooms will need to have menstrual products,” the website says, noting that the availability of these items “better protects menstruating employees and makes sure that they feel safe to use the toilet room that best reflects their gender.”The policy applies to all federal public service departments, crown corporations, banks, airports and train yards, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

  57. texanadian Avatar
    texanadian

    Move and  miss the fun? The Clown show that passes for gov up here is an embarrassing display of incompetence . You folks aren’t much better.

  58. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    46 texanadian

    Good to hear from you and hope you and your family are having a fine holiday.

  59. mharper42 Avatar
    mharper42

    #46

    Good response, Texanadian!

     

  60. texanadian Avatar
    texanadian

    We did and had kids, grandkids and great grandkids over today. All good kids. Ordered pizza no stress.

  61. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    39 Texpat

    Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

    Truly a must read.

  62. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    49 texanadian

    Good, Happy New Year to you and yours.

    The children make it all worth it.

    I have friends who have moved to these 55+ communities where children are basically forbidden and it’s nothing but wobbly old geezers.  I’ve always asked: Why the hell do I want to live around a bunch of old SOBs like me ?

    It’s like the old Groucho Marx quip, “I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”

    My quaint little neighborhood is full of children.  I know all their names and they know mine.  I like being around people of all generations.  It makes me feel younger.

  63. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    45

    I am shocked that Canada still has separate Men and Women restrooms at all.

    What a buncha backwards hicks.

  64. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    I kept trying to post a special comment today, but kept getting sidetracked by all the great content.

    I give up. I’ll post it tomorrow. It’ll get lost among all of the great stuff.

    🙂

     

  65. texanadian Avatar
    texanadian

    My grandkids school has changed the restrooms to basically a hallway with enclosed stalls, one with a litter box for a self identified cat.

  66. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    LOLOLOLOLOL

  67. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    I’m just glad I lived long enough to see humanity progress to the point that we can all poop together, regardless of identity.

  68. Texpat Avatar
    Texpat

    Shannon

    I thought you were already supposed to be in Fredericksburg.  Don’t you have a big wedding for your grandson tomorrow ?

  69. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    39 Texpat

    She is so funny at several points.

    Having been raised “Anglican”, I spewed my wine with this one:

    Of course, the schoolgirl stories I was taught about England’s monastic dissolutions are at least partly true: Henry VIII was notoriously broke and never a genuine Protestant in a way, say, Martin Luther would recognise. His religious policies were often incoherent. Famously—in 1537—he founded a new monastery to pray for his wife Jane Seymour’s soul (while continuing to dissolve monasteries hither and yon). The old gag that the Church of England sprang out of a sexually profligate monarch’s jockstrap has something to it.

     

  70. Shannon Avatar
    Shannon

    The wedding is next week in Boerne, TX.

     

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