Hey, welcome to the “on the road” editions of the Scuttlebutt. Please notice the cup at the tip jar Where we restock the bar. We’re currently in Ranchester WY.
Spending the last three days herding a 36-foot motorhome with a four door jeep behind it across this country gives you a little time to think. (When not cursing assholes or fighting the 45 knot crosswinds.) While we’re limiting ourselves to about 350+/- 50 miles a day, it’s still a long time behind the wheel, even though that means the trip to Indiana will take a week. BTW, for those of you not from the states, that think 350 miles isn’t much… That’s Glasgow to London, or Paris to Geneva. Yes, I could do the whole route in three days, I’ve done it before, but I was younger then, and a little bit dumber.
Anyway, I have come to realize that the landscape I find attractive is also the deadliest stuff out there. Mountains with trees heavy with snow, the sere southwest desert (I don’t want to live there, but it is beautiful!) The sea with heavy whitecaps… All these things I find gorgeous and enjoyable.
Flat lands, prairies, rolling grasslands, flat seas? Hate it. Not sure what that says about me, though the stuff I find attractive hasn’t managed to kill me yet, so there’s that. Maybe it’s that many folks only feel alive, when staying that way is in question? Whatever the reason, I’ve driven through some of the most beautiful countryside our nation has.
Well, enough about that.
I have to mention the whole New Jersey Drone thing… Not because I have any answers, I don’t. I did see something rather believable though, from a guy on TwitX as called to my attention by a good friend of mine.
It seems that the NRC may have lost a rad source. https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/event/2024/20241213en.html "The licensee reported to NJDEP on December 3, 2024, that a Ge-68 pin source that they sent for disposal has been lost in transit on December 2, 2024. The source is a Eckert & Ziegler model HEGL-0132, with current approximate activity of 0.267 mCi. The shipping container arrived at its destination damaged and empty.”
This seems to me to be as likely a reason for the drones as any of the other possible things being batted around:
China doing a probe to see how we would react, Iran trying to commit suicide by poking the eagle with a stick, UAP (the new UFO name) or “aliens,” or Mass freakouts ala’ the UFO scares of the 50s. The PRC and Iran both have more interesting targets if it’s them…
Seriously? Trump’s golf course, a reserve depot, and a bunch of stuff of very little intelligence value? I mean even if we count Earl NJ as a target, and I haven’t seen anything indicating these drones have been seen over Earl Naval Weapons Station (If you know, you know) that’s just not that high value of a target compared to other places that they could look at with sea launched drones (NAS Oceana jumps to mind, as does Norfolk Naval.)
Mass freakouts? Well, it’s happened before… I haven’t seen any really good quality footage to disprove that theory, but I haven’t looked very hard, I’ve been too busy driving and living my life.
Aliens? Well, let’s just say that if you have FTL travel, you probably aren’t going to need to fly around with human-style navigation lights.
The various agencies assuring us that “it’s nothing to worry about, there’s no national security danger…” Honestly, I would stick my head out the window to be certain right now, if the FBI told me that the sky was blue. Then I would match it with a Panton color Swatch.
That said, if the fearless band knows someone is looking for some possibly stolen radioactive source, I expect something very like the bloviations currently coming out of their talking heads, because for some reason, the Federal government’s first instinct is to deny, evade, and obfuscate when ever something goes ‘not according to plan.’
Moving on.
Politico has some rather disturbing things to say about the heir apparent if South Korea ends up impeaching President Yoon, at https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2024/12/17/yoons-downfall-may-roil-bidens-indo-pacific-legacy-00194899
I could not give a fuck less about “Biden’s Indio-Pacific Legacy.” The man has fucked up every single thing he’s touched, and his entire legacy is going to consist of a debate over whether he was that crooked, or that stupid.
And yet, a South Korean leader who wants to maintain “strategic ambiguity” over PRC v USA, and figures that Taiwan can go fuck themselves… Well that can’t help but embolden the PRC and increase the chances of a shooting war.
On the bright side Lieutenant-General IGOR KIRILLOV, commander of the nuclear, biological and chemical forces of the Russian army, dying from a Ukrainian bomb in residential Moscow is a plus. I’ve said it before, anything that does harm to Russia, Iran, North Korea, or the People’s Republic of China, is something I’ll drink to. The more our enemies are damaged, the less likely we will have to have a shooting war with them.
In the “Bold strategy, let’s see how that works for them” department, a couple of PAOs for the USMA (West Point) chose to out and out lie, in an attempt to smear Pete Hegseth. https://thefederalist.com/2024/12/11/west-point-refuses-to-say-if-officials-who-spread-false-info-about-pete-hegseths-academy-record-will-be-punished/ It seems that they were claiming “Hegseth was never applied for or was offered an appointment to the US Military Academy,” Unfortunately for these folks, Hegseth has the receipts. Literally. He has the letter signed by the general running the academy at the time, informing him that he was granted an appointment. DOH!
This seems like a really stupid thing to do to the guy that’s liable to be the next Sec. Def. I mean if you get away with it, and smear him to the point where he loses the nomination, great… But it’s a really high risk act, if he saved the letter. And that’s a big enough thing that most folks would save the letter. Clean up on aisle 47. I suspect that Sec. Hegseth will have some very pointed questions for the head of the Military Academy, who after all, works for the Sec. Def.!
Biden or his people are apparently racing to sell off the material bought to build a wall on the border with Mexico, according to various reports, including https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-biden-races-to-sell-off-border-wall-parts-before-trump-takes-office Elon Musk has also talked about this shit. Now there is a trick to be played here, and I mentioned it on Musk’s X account, just in case he actually reads it:
As I recall from a very long time working for the DOD, anything that is deemed “Surplus” has to be offered to the states before going to auction. Governor Abbott, paging Texas Governor Abbot, red courtesy phone, please.
Texas has been building wall pieces for the last couple years, I bet they could find a good use for these panels, and to get them free? Well, shit, that’s a no brainer.
Remember when all of the questions came out as to who had leaked the investigation report on Matt Gaetz? Well, it seems we have an admitted culprit. Rep. Susan Wild (Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, was absent from the panel’s meeting last week after being traced as the source of leaks to the press regarding the investigation into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) according to https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5031565-susan-wild-ethics-committee-gaetz/
Dwell on this shit. The top Democrat in the “Ethics committee” decided to leak confidential information and PII stuff to the press. What does Ethics mean? What does crooked mean?
It's been a long day, so I’m going to get this in the post, talk at you next week.
QOTD "If Penny were black, there would have been no charges. If Neely were white, there would have been no charges. If both were black, or both were white, there would have been no charges." —Larry Elder (who by the way, is black)
Yours in Service,
William Lehman