An interesting view of regular America from a German here to go to World Cup games
Link goes to his X page. Nobody does road trips with the zest of Germans. A sample post:
The vibes are insane. Driving through the great state of Louisiana on our way to New Orleans. It’s crazy how diverse this country is, every day the scenery looks different. pic.twitter.com/9Ug5KdIAmS
#2
There have been a good number of Europeans on Youtube doing road shows. Basically saying the same thing. Once you get out of the Blue urban areas and away from MSM and Hollyweird indoctrination, its a different world. They come to notice that while we are one country, its like 50 fifty different ones as it was designed for.
#5
Hope he stays away from Los Angeles but he'd probably like Santa Barbara.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/13/2026 12:50 Comments ||
Top||
#6
I don't do X very much, but I am following Freddy. His enthusiasm about driving through the Southeast is a very pleasant alternative the all the negative news from the MSM.
James Barnett,Vincent Foucher &M urtala Ahmed Rufa’i
[TANDFONLINE] ABSTRACT
Formed in 2020–2021, the Sadiku group is the extension to northwestern Nigeria of the jihad waged in the country’s northeast by Jama’at Ahl al-Sunna li-Da’wa wal-Jihad (JASDJ), the outfit created by the late Abubakar Shekau and commonly known as Boko Haram. Sadiku’s operation appears to be the most successful attempt at expansion outside the northeast by a Nigerian jihadist to date. Drawing on original interviews with his former associates, this study analyses Sadiku’s relative success.
A stranger in the northwest, a region dominated by bandits uninterested in jihadism, Sadiku showed remarkable flexibility in coopting local components: Darul Salam (a Salafi rejectionist group), the local—and mostly Christian—population, and bandits. Sadiku’s experience confirms that all jihad is necessarily local: even with a portable ideology like Salafi-jihadism, insurgents require local associates and deals. Sadiku’s “navigation” has been difficult, however, resulting in internal contradictions and tensions with the JASDJ core in the northeast as well as erstwhile bandit allies. Here we see the complexities of expansion: even in brutal sectarian organizations like JASDJ, the demands of local context can result in a degree of flexibility, but this, in turn, creates its own problems, undermining jihadists’ religious self-perceptions and expectations.
[American Spectator] For decades, America has been told that the key to better schools is more money. Underperformance, the argument runs, is really a question of resources. Just give the teacher unions what they ask for, and good outcomes will follow.
Mississippi is starting to show that this simply is not true.
Over the past decade, Mississippi has made such progress in fourth-grade reading that people have taken to calling it the "Mississippi miracle." Mississippi ranked 9th in the country for fourth-grade reading in 2024, up from 49th in 2013 — a 40-place climb in a decade, from near the bottom of the table into the top ten.
Mississippi’s fourth graders now read better than their peers in New York, Minnesota, and California — every one of them a state that spends a great deal more per child than we do. And here is the part the spend-more crowd would rather you did not dwell on. We get those better results for far less money.
The higher the per-pupil spending, the worse the grades.
Mississippi spends around $12,300 per pupil, one of the five lowest figures in America. New York spends $31,918 — more than two and a half times as much — and its children read less well for it. New York, in other words, buys more than two dollars of schooling for every one of ours, and ends up further behind.
If commercial business kept demanding more money for a product that has gone done in practical value, they be out of business unless it was government approved monopoly.
#5
Mississippi is starting to show that this simply is not true.
What's the old saying about the wisdom of the founders - about having multiple incubators, to try different ideas?
I luuuve that Mississippi is leading the way!
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/13/2026 10:11 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Do they correct for cost-of-living differences?
Posted by: James the lesser ||
06/13/2026 10:16 Comments ||
Top||
#7
The kids and teachers don't see much in addition funds when the come. It gets hoovered up by unions, administrators and county/state commissioners and given to demoncrat politicians.
Outlaw public unions and break the teacher's union and things will improve.
[PJMedia] The veteran and venerable Israeli military-affairs analyst Ron Ben Yishai has filed a report from Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... that gives—dare we say—an encouraging picture of the current condition of another of Iran’s terror proxies, Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... While Hezbollah is spread throughout Leb ...Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects.... , Hamas is concentrated in a much smaller space, Gaza. The IDF, which battled Hamas in Gaza for more than two years running since the debacle of October 7, 2023, now controls about 65% of Gaza, and Hamas is in a jam.
Ron Ben Yishai, now 83, spent some time at an IDF outpost in southern Gaza and has a lot of light to shed on the current state of the enclave.
The IDF, for one thing, has been using its presence in Gaza to blow up the notorious Hamas tunnels. Since October 7 the IDF has destroyed about 280 miles’ worth of them, and at present there’s nothing at all that Hamas can do to counteract the process.
The IDF has also, using high-quality intelligence, been "systematically eliminating senior [Hamas] commanders, key military specialists and police officials responsible for maintaining governance."
While Hamas still has about 20,000 operatives, only about 8,000 are experienced fighters and the rest are minimally trained, lightly armed "young men and teenagers" seeking to bring home some shekels.
And Hamas’s troubles go beyond that. Its popularity in Gaza is drying up, and armed clans living in the IDF-controlled areas—"whose members and families [number] in the tens of thousands"—have lately been seriously challenging its rule.
In terms of Israeli security, the situation is much better than it was on October 6, 2023. Six IDF brigades and 18 battalions now protect the Israeli border communities, compared to much fewer forces in the sleepy, self-delusive days before the catastrophe.
Ben Yishai puts it this way: "The way the IDF is currently deployed and operating in Gaza has almost completely neutralized Hamas’s ability to carry out attacks . . . the threat to communities in southern Israel has been almost entirely removed, at least as long as the IDF maintains its current posture."
Therein lie many questions about the future of Gaza.
Although grandiose plans were hatched about Hamas disarmament, the terror group—predictably enough—rejects that option. The "international stabilization force" that was supposed to take over in Gaza "has yet," Ben Yishai notes delicately, "to materialize."
And the Peace Council that’s supposed to help finance a new, peaceful Gaza "has failed to secure even one-third of the funding pledged by its member leaders." That, too, is predictable stuff—though it’s been worsened by the Gulf states’ cash-flow problems since the Strait of Hormuz was closed.
IDF commanders, for their part, are sure that only a few weeks would be needed to seize the remaining Gazook territory held by Hamas. "Plans already exist and require only government approval."
At that point, though, with Hamas neutralized, an old problem would arise: what to do with the two million mostly indigent Gazooks whom Hamas has been holding, in effect, as hostages, and who’ve been raised on a murderous hatred of Israelis.
It was the severe, demoralizing difficulty of ruling Gaza that led Israel—with half or more of the Israeli population supporting the move—to disengage from the enclave in the first place, back in 2005. Of course, that didn’t work out well either.
Ben Yishai hopes the international community, or a future Israeli government, will "succeed in formulating a realistic, adequately funded, phased long-term solution for Gaza’s population without endangering Israel."
It has always been a tall order. For now—unlike Iran, Hezbollah, and the Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s—Gaza is quiet, and it’s a big improvement.
[DeepDraft] My first serious encounter with biofouling was at Teluk Semangka, Indonesia, where my vessel, a modern VLCC, was deployed as a storage tanker for 1.5 months. On paper, it was a straightforward operation with maintain position, change anchors every 15 days, perform routine maintenance, and resume normal service when required. The crew planned on enjoying shore leave and local Luwak coffee, but the anchorage had other plans.
The fouling we experienced was phenomenal, with a thick, calcified crust across the hull that far exceeded the light growth seen during normal trading. Up close, the organic decay carried that unmistakable, pungent stench of rotting marine life. Fully crewed, classed, and insured on paper, she was still no longer the same vessel beneath the waterline.
This experience now has direct relevance to the Hormuz standoff. Reuters reported on 27 May that around 20,000 seafarers remained aboard vessels in the Gulf, while daily transits had fallen from a pre-crisis average of 125 to 140 to about 11 in late May. While the commercial market asks when ships will move, a Master must ask: what condition will they be in when ordered to move?
Posted by: Dopey Photch2701 ||
06/13/2026 08:02 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1775 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[IISS] This chapter analyses recent developments in nuclear weaponry and the related strategic issues in the Asia-Pacific.
ARGUMENTS AND FINDINGS
The risk of nuclear conflict is rising, with the world on the cusp of a nuclear-arms race – if not already in the early stages of one – with the Asia-Pacific at its centre.
Regional states and those with strategic interests are undertaking quantitative or qualitative expansion of their nuclear arsenals, while non-nuclear-weapons states pursue a variety of long-range conventional-strike capabilities. Both are challenging strategic stability.
The growth of China’s military capabilities – both nuclear and conventional – as well as North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal continue to determine the assertive force postures and procurement responses of regional states and the United States.
The risk of nuclear proliferation (non-nuclear-armed states pursuing nuclear weapons) is also growing, as regional states reassess their worsening security situations and question their reliance on existing security guarantees. In turn, they might be more likely to pursue any sensitive nuclear-development work in secrecy.
IMPLICATIONS FOR REGIONAL SECURITY
The growth of capabilities – nuclear weapons and delivery systems, long-range conventional-strike capabilities and ballistic-missile defence (BMD) systems – as the various nuclear dyads and triads of the region compete could be a source of regional arms-race instability.
The growth of conventional-weapons capabilities designed to bolster deterrence, such as long-range conventional strikes, including hypersonic missiles and missile defence, may inadvertently undermine deterrence and mutual vulnerability and raise the risk of crisis instability.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[American Spectator] For decades, America has been told that the key to better schools is more money. Underperformance, the argument runs, is really a question of resources. Just give the teacher unions what they ask for, and good outcomes will follow.
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
