Size Comparison: Iran vs Europe

People wondering why it is very hard to subjugate Iran need to consider its size. Iran is quite large and mountainous. No doubt they've dispersed their ordnance. It'd be almost impossible to find it, and their missiles and drones are launched from mobile units.

Iran v Europe

USA Taking Greenland

Here's a counterproposal to the idea that the US should get Greenland. I'm putting this here for balance.

Personally, I think the US taking over Greenland makes a lot of sense, and earlier I embedded the reasoning behind that as explained on the UnHerd podcast.

With the US now looking at Greenland, it is only a matter of time, perhaps, until the US looks at the South Pacific and annexes New Zealand to gain easy access to Antarctica. The US has a base at Christchurch International Airport, from which they fly down to McMurdo Station, which is situated on Ross Island. Technically, this all sits within NZ territory, and given climate change and the resources contained there, the US may want complete control of the region.

I don't think these latest moves come exclusively from Donald Trump. What we are seeing is a shift in American thinking, from having close allies, like Five Eyes, to having branch office operations. We now see Britain, Denmark, Norway, etc being treated like a corporate branch office. Do what we say, or we shut you down type of thinking. My only surprise in witnessing this shift is that it is happening much faster than I anticipated.

F-35 Compromised?

I speculated about this earlier and now I see buyers of US military equipment in Europe are openly questioning whether the equipment's efficacy has been compromised.

The short answer is, yes, equipment linked to servers in the US can be modified, making it less effective by altering what targets that equipment detects.

Europe's Crybaby Leaders

Check this out, in response to JD Vance's criticism, European leaders cry like a bunch of eight-year-olds. 

Europe is going to Freeze this Winter

https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/09/finnish-economist-i-am-telling-you-people-that-the-situation-in-europe-is-much-worse-than-many-understand/

“If you turned the electricity off for a few months in any developed Western society 500 years of supposed philosophical progress about human rights and individualism would quickly evaporate like they never happened.”

Yes, things can get ugly, very fast.

Ukraine: Russia's Phase 2

I don't believe any of it. The other day, Russia said its phase 1 of the invasion of Ukraine was over and phase 2 would begin. Its focus would be on the Donbass region of the east.

I think this announcement was an obvious distraction. Here are my four phases of the Russia invasion of Ukraine; I may be wrong here, it's just how I see things panning out:

Phase 1: invade and encircle cities. Use special forces to secure critical areas, conscripts do the rest, the key being to bypass areas of most resistance. Get west of the Dnieper river and hold.

Phase 2: ramp up the use of more sophisticated air and sea launched missiles, targeting fuel and ammunition supplies. Wrap up encircled cities and when done, take those forces and push west. The goal here is to not leave pockets of resistance behind and to leave nothing mobile moving.

Phase 3: From Kyiv head south, and from Kherson head north. This closes the trap. From the east, punch through. Amphibious landing south of Odessa, push north-east. Supply Transnistria and they join in and push north.

Phase 4: Belarus may enter the war and cut off the border with Poland. Russian forces once fully securing the Dnieper river, push west to join Belarus. If Belarus has not entered the war, Russia just does this on its own.

Result: All of Ukraine is now under effective control. Transnistria is recognised and connected. All of the Donbass are merged into Russia. The rest of Ukraine is de-militarised and a puppet regime is installed. 

Edit to add @ 29/3/2022; I notice reports of Russia giving up ground around Kyiv and Kherson. This is consistent with my thinking. Russia appear to be pulling out some regiments and I expect they'll send them east. When Mariupol falls, that will also free up about 20,000 battle hardened troops. Russia in having this many fronts is splitting the Ukraine defenses. Ukraine must defend each attack or they lose quickly. Russia will now punch through from the east. If they do this right, almost all of the Ukraine army will be defeated in less than a month from hereon. With attacks on fuel and ammunition storage, Ukraine will simply run out of fuel and bullets. 

Predictions 2021

What lies ahead for 2021? Some ideas from me:

1. Second US Civil War or the beginning of certain states seceding from the United Sates of America

2. The Great Crash and eventual widespread economic collapse

3. War between China and the US and its allies

4. Jacinda Ardern leaves New Zealand to take up a job with Big Tech or the United Nations

5. Meghan Markle finally dumps that twit Prince Harry

6. CANZUK goes beyond talk to actually being considered a real thing

7. NZ may join Australia after its economic meltdown

8. Italy starts discussions around leaving the EU

9. Australia cuts off China from its iron ore and rescinds the lease for port of Darwin

10. Britain booms after leaving the EU and many Remainer heads explode.

Please add your predictions in the comments below.

Sunken Civilisations

Here's a really good account of how the Black Sea evolved and the civilisations that lived along its shores. Every part of the documentary is priceless, but if impatient skip to the 45 minute mark for riveting stuff.

Coronavirus Recession

I'm calling 2020's biggest event, caused by the Coronavirus COVID-19, the Coronavirus Recession. This is a supply-side recession, not a demand-side one, for many that'll be a challenge. For old heads not so much, we remember the oil shocks of the 1970's. The effect will be much the same, you simply won't be able to get some things, learn to live without.

Not every measure will be done for health related reasons. I see the US President's suspending flights from Europe to America as more a political move. Is it punishing European countries for not putting in their fair share of defence spending? Personally, I think this must have something to do with it. After all, Donald Trump exempted the UK, which is in Europe. The UK puts in their full share and they left the EU. The US has sent a message loud and clear right there.

This means airlines will go bust. Airports too, along with hotel chains, restaurants; but not so much fast foods, people will eat at home.

Someone was wondering if this was the biggest single event since the Second World War. No, not yet anyway, the GFC is still ongoing and has had a greater effect, as did the Cold War itself. But this is very serious, no doubt about it. I mean, the NBA season has been suspended. What am I going to do with my free time now?

Brexit Arrived

A timely Brexit song, I can't believe this has happened in my lifetime and at the same time Prince Harry decided to throw his life away and to try and become a Kardashian, the twit.

Tourism: New Zealand needs good myths

It was the bridge of lies, err, bridge of sighs in Venice which got me thinking about this: Venice has woven an intricate set of myths around its romance. It's complete bollocks of course, often knowingly so (my wife thinks many locals actually now believe the lies, but I demur).

New Zealand has to get in on the act. Scenery alone doesn't cut it, there are a lot of places in the world that are stunningly beautiful (I'm committing heresy saying it). And when I say get in on the act, I mean relentlessly go on about it, rather like Australia promotes its better climate when in fact it is nothing of the sort, it's either burning, in drought, or a mosquito infested swamp.

The idea of running a 24 hours TV channel in Europe comes to mind. We noticed in Italy that countries in Africa even promote themselves this way in Europe. Nothing about NZ, why not?

Europe and President Trump

A benefit of having President Trump in office is that the USA can now clearly see what the US means to Europe. The US is there to pay for the party, that's it. Nothing more than that. Wise up America.

Trump Tells NATO

Another one of those I never thought I'd see the day moments has occurred with President Trump telling NATO members they have to front up and pay their share. About time. The look on the assembled faces was hilarious.

It never ceases to amaze me how the US taxpayer pays to protect Europe, then Europe gets to sell their cars in the USA, which puts American auto workers out of jobs. It's true and the Europeans with only a few exceptions have developed this sense of entitlement. With any luck, no longer.

Have The French Gone Mad

It looks like the French have gone mad, or have they? They're going to have a new President and for the first time in a long while not from one of the old established parties. Will they go for a right-wing woman in Marine Le Pen or the centrist Emmanuel Macron? Who knows, but the future of the EU is at stake as Le Pen wants a Frexit. That's a French Brexit.

British Empire 2.0 (BE2.0)

The day has finally arrived and the UK has formally handed in their resignation from the EU. I never thought I'd see the day.When I was born there was still such a thing as the British Empire - just. It was falling apart but it still existed. I've got an Atlas from the period and it has places like Nyasaland and Rhodesia in it. Today they're Malawi and Zambia/Zimbabwe.

For at least 30 years I've been banging on about how Britain should get out of the EU. How could it be any good for Britain, you can see who's benefiting when you take a trip to Germany; the latter got a new country while the former got screwed over. It's as plain as the nose on my face.

Places like Australia and New Zealand have fared well after the Empire. But there's still that nagging in the back of the mind of an older sibling departed. What is the 'home' country? The UK of course. It still has the best universities, arts, invention. I know people in the UK and one recently said to me that two countries are still thought of by them as 'us' and that was Australia and New Zealand. I chimed in with what about Canada? And he said they were more like America Lite. Note that Canada, you're slipping.

It's funny to listen to the EU and commentators saying Britain must do this and it must do that. What Britain can do is say shove it. If you can't leave, what was the point in joining in the first place. I see no reason why Britain can't negotiate new trade agreements while organising their exit. If for some reason they cannot, then do so in secret. What is Germany going to do about it, go to war?

What we are talking about is a culture clash. The system was never going to work for Britain. On the continent, the German, French and other European elites run things. They're Count Von Wotsit or can trace their lineage. They act like that too. Brussels is there to entrench their perks. But in Britain, the pantechnicon drivers of the Midlands decide things and every British politician knows it. If you want to know where this all originates then study the Battle of Agincourt. What I'm saying is that in Britain, knights don't run the show, they're given status on sufferance.

So my advice to the UK is this; step up to the mark and lead again. The 'colonies' can do pretty well without you but we'd rather have you around to do our thinking for us, or at least the higher level thinking. Stop pretending not to be a superpower for goodness sake. Build your Navy back and start being Hornblower again (fictional character CS Forester wrote, good books). Not so much Flashman though, him we can do without.
>>Win Prizes here <<

Greens Can't Be Trusted

The Greens are almost always wrong about everything and here's why:-

Myth: the world is over-populated.

Wrong: we are not even close to being over-populated. I'll give you this factoid to illustrate; if you took every person on planet earth and sent them to New Zealand's Stewart Island, they'd fit standing up shoulder to shoulder.

Here's a map of Stewart Island:-

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Stewart_Island_map-en.svg/260px-Stewart_Island_map-en.svg.png

Another way of looking at this, I've flown the Siberian route from Tokyo to London, done it twice in fact. It takes twelve hours or thereabouts and during that flight about nine hours is spent flying over wilderness. The only time it is obvious that you're flying over population is the three hours coming down to London over western Europe.

Or if you don't like that example, try Los Angeles to London, same result, flying over the US and Canada, you look down and struggle to find any evidence of humanity.

Myth: Kyoto agreement and the rest will save the planet

Wrong: these so-called climate change agreements are there to protect Europe's interests and to transfer wealth from the industrialised world to the second and third world.

Why is 1990 the line in the sand with Kyoto? Why not 100 BC or 100 AD or any other year for that matter? The answer to this is simple; Europe knew that they had natural gas supplies coming on stream later in the 1990's and that at 1990 their emissions were unusually large. Hence they'd be able to easily meet their targets because their emissions were going to fall anyway, seeing as natural gas is far friendlier than burning fossil fuels.

I remember Nick Smith, that weaselling Minister for climate nonsense in New Zealand grandstanding around Kiwiland with his doctorate in civil engineering. outright lying to Kiwis about why they needed a new tax to save the planet, as if such a small nation could do anything about it. What Smith said and what was an outright lie, was that Kiwis would never be paying Russia to not cut down trees.

Why was Nick Smith telling a lie? He would have known about the Marrakesh amendment to Kyoto that did contain a provision that amounted to paying Russia to not cut down trees. That is a transfer of wealth from the first world to the second world. Outrageous communist nonsense, from those who have, to those who have never done a day's work in their lives.

Look at this another way if you don't like the above example. Imagine that that good old freedom fighter and consolidator of sensible societies everywhere, Genghis Khan, lived earlier, around the time of Hadrian. He wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective as trees stood in his way. There would have been no sweeping across the steppes as he'd have been dodging the forests, he'd have had to keep to the coastlines of the Black Sea and when he did that the Romans would have picked his armies off. They had a navy and they'd make landings behind him, cutting off his supplies.

Do you see my point? The Black Forest is called that because no light penetrated. It was vast, but now it's just this quaint patch of greenery.

Why the frig are we, new world people, expected to pay for their stupidity, that is, Eurotrash wingnuttery that saw them cut all their trees down. Any climate solution must involve Europe putting their trees back to create a carbon sink of some value.

Myth: Greens are really cute fluffy bunnies.

Wrong: the Greens everywhere are just the communist party re-branded. Back in the 70's and 80's members of the Greens today were often communists and no-one voted for them, ever. When the Berlin Wall fell and communism collapsed, or the regimes just morphed into totalitarian capitalism, these ideologues decided to jump ship and acquire a brand that was saleable. They chose Greens.

It's easy to see they're communists if you look carefully enough; they think the state is always right and the individual should submit to it, they don't like private property and they think profit is bad, and they're generally in favour of loose morals and try to undermine traditional family values. More importantly they oppose western industrialised countries having strong armies. Oh dear, don't be obvious there Greens.

The worrying thing is that Green ideology appears attractive to impressionable young people so it's over the us oldies to put these young people right. My suggestion, and I've done this with my own children, is never let anything Green get a free pass. Ridicule, object, condemn, but do not let Greens have a say in anything as they're the enemy and want to destroy our civilisation and must not be allowed to.

European Voters Ignored

Europe may be in for a backlash on the scale of Brexit or Trump if the bureaucrats in Brussels keep ignoring voters:-

BRUSSELS trampled over the result of a Dutch referendum

On a wider scale, giving the Ukraine any hope whatsoever that they can be part of Europe, just moves the region closer to war. Russia won't stand for it. So why keep poking Russia with a stick?