Who's the Smartest?

Ahem.

Fred Reed: Jewish Decline and the Rise of China: In the US

Another Contrarian Voice

Fred Reed on Veteran's Day

Plus Srdja Trifkovic on the Great War: Armistice Day, 95 Years Later

Meanwhile, in Mexico...

Fred Reed: The Exodus Begins

Going beyond John Zmirak...

Fred Reed recommeds home-schooling and avoiding the modern university: Disengagement

Disengagement from the system of universities, or as I should say, “universities,” is also advisable. This is true, first, because if you seek cultivation, to gain a grasp of such matters as history, literature, the arts and the sciences, you can do it better on your own. Professors serve little purpose other than to ensure that the student does his homework. If the student wants to study, he can do it by himself, and if he doesn't want to study, he has no business in a university.

Learning facts? Books can for substitute for teachers, so long as they are written by trusted authorities. Becoming acquainted with certain texts? Some commentary by a dependable scholar might be helpful. I could be in one of those lousy moods, but much of the coursework in the humanities could be done outside of the classroom. A possible exception? Learning how to write. But how many professors bother to teach their students good academic writing?

He recommends some sort of vocational training for jobs that will be in demand in the future. I can't disagree with him there. What can we do to promote farming in our communities, and to make it a possibility for our children? Given the still high price of real estate in California, something needs to done to bring the prices down. How can we destroy demand to the point that land becomes affordable for natives?

Mr. Reed has some words about consumerism, as well. His other recent writings are rather enjoyable.


(John Zmirak's column on college, which I posted here.)

Fred Reed reminisces

How We Were
A Rural Memoir

If Fred Reed Were the Dear Leader

Fred to Save Planet

Items of Interest 22 July 2010

Rod Dreher, Bad economy! Bad, bad economy! and China is turning Christian and Goodbye, Beliefnet! Hello, BQO!
Fred Reed, Getting What You Want, Wanting What You Get: An Unbiased Study of Feminism


Energy Bulletin:
The peak oil crisis: thinking about China (original)

Tom Whipple, Falls Church News-Press

Whether Beijing's formula of mixed capitalism and state control of key enterprises will prove to be durable over the long run has yet to be seen. What we do know, however, is that a few more years of surging energy consumption will soon be playing havoc with energy prices around the world.

Oil production during deleveraging (original)

Stuart Staniford, Early Warning

I've been musing on the interaction between a) an extended period of economic stagnation/contraction due to deleveraging, and b) peak oil.

Counterpunch:
Gary Leupp, Obama's Afghan War in Perspective

Bruce E. Levine, How Psychologists Profit on Unending U.S. Wars

Items of Interest, 17 June 2010

Fred Reed on immigration: A Slightly Different Take

Asia News:
Seoul warns, North has 180,000 soldiers ready for war
A former South Korean SO officer warns Pyongyang is looking for a casus belli to drag peninsula into war. Called to settle the question, the United Nations condemns “actions against peace”.

Asia Times:
A North Korean leadership car crash
There aren't many certainties about North Korea; that Kim Jong-il will die is one of them. As North Korea's moment of truth approaches, Kim's three sons and others will fight for their place at the helm of Pyongyang, evident by the string of shuffles, dismissals and deaths that are expected to intensify in the coming months. Fasten your seatbelts. - Aidan Foster-Carter

Energy Bulletin:
A special gathering along the lake (original)

Christopher J. Ryan, AICP, The Localizer Blog

The Slow Money Alliance, an organization that seeks to build networks and develop new financial products and services to invest in small food enterprises and local food systems, connecting investors to their local economies, and building the "nurture capital" industry, held its national gathering at beautiful Shelburne Farms, Vermont on Thursday and Friday of last week.

Vision of the future : Dune (original)
Damien Perrotin, The View from Brittany

Science-fiction tells us more about the dreams, hopes, and fears of a time than about any actual form the future could take. It may, however, sometimes offer us a glimpse through a glass, darkly, of how this future might come to be. That is why Kunstler's The World Made by Hand and Greer’s Star's Reach are so interesting to read. They are not the only novels on this subject, however. Other science-fiction classics, not necessarily of the post-apocalyptic sub-genre, may help us to grasp what the fundamentals of a post-peak society could be. Frank Herbert's Dune is one of those.

Counterpunch:
Gareth Porter, McChrystal's War Plan Fails
Kevin Zeese, The Holes in the Finance Bill

Fred Reed, Why Mexicans Dont Like Gringos

Some immigrants, for example Europeans, quietly adapt to local habits, learn the language, exhibit the reticence that constitutes international good manners, and integrate themselves into the new country. We don’t. Americans, in which category I include Canadians, simply don’t belong in Mexico, at least most of those who come. Degrees and exceptions, yes. But…the hesitant walk, the anxious body language, the clumping together like clotting corpuscles in gringo venues—the gringos just look funny, alien, isolated. They aren’t bad people, or anyway no worse than the dismally low baseline for a race that amounts to a collection of technologized chimpanzees. They want to be liked, set up charities, try to do good works and usually succeed. It doesn’t help.

Read the rest.

I don't have a double standard -- if [Anglo- or Euro-]Americans living in Mexico think they are merely guests in the country, they should nonetheless not give offense to the natives by living ostentatiously. But if they are permanent residents, they should make an effort to assimilate into that society, or at least learn Spanish.

I just read this piece by Fred Reed on Mexico and its US-imposed drug war: Meddling Where We Oughtn't Yet Again.

Fred Reed, Damn the Torpedoes, Fools’ Greed Ahead (via the Western Confucian)

Bear in mind that a great many countries fear attack by the United States, among them such trivial nations as Russia, China, and Iran. None of these has the money to build carrier groups to oppose those of the Navy.

All of these have thought about cheap ways to overcome the U.S. behemoth. Four solutions soon came to hand:

1. Very fast sea-skimming cruise missiles, such as the Brahmos and Brahmos II (Mach 5+).
2. Supercavitating torpedoes, reaching speeds of over 200 miles an hour.
3. Very quiet submarines, diesel-electrics in the case of poor countries.
4. Anti-ship ballistic missiles, such as the one attributed to the Chinese.

Any military buff knows that the Navy cannot defend itself against these. It says it can. It has to say it can. In fleet exercises against submarines, the subs always win – easily. The Pentagon has been trying to invent defenses against ballistic missiles since the days of Reagan (remember Star Wars?) with miserable results. If you have close friends in the Navy, ask them over a few beers what scares the bejesus out of them. Easy: Swarms of fast, stealthy, sea-skimming cruise missiles with multi-mode terminal guidance.

Add to the brew that today’s ships are fragile, based on the assumption that they will never be hit. Go aboard a WWII battleship like the Iowa, BB-61 (I have) and you will find 16-inch belt armor and turrets designed to withstand an asteroid strike. Now go aboard a Ticonderoga-class Aegis boat (I have). You will find an electronic marvel with big screens in a darkened CIC and an amazing SPY-1 phased-array radar that one burst of shrapnel would take out of commission for many months.

Now note that cruise missiles have ranges in the hundreds of miles. Think: Persian Gulf. A cruise missile can be boxed and mounted on a truck, a fast launch, or a tramp steamer. The Chinese ballistic missile has a range of 1,200 miles, enough to keep carriers out of aircraft range of Taiwan. I wonder whether the Chinese have thought of that?

In short, the day of surface navies seems to be coming to a close, at least as strategically decisive forces. So does the day of the manned fighter as Predator-style "drones" improve.

What happens now? Nothing – for the moment.

To understand the problem, assume for the moment that the Navy knew beyond doubt, and openly admitted in internal discussion, that it could not protect its surface ships from modern anti-ship missiles. What would it do? What could it do?

Nothing. Why? Because, apart from the missile submarines, which have no role in combat, the Navy is the surface fleet. Many, many billions of dollars are invested in carriers and careers, in escorts for carriers, in countless men trained to run them. Mothball the carriers, and the Navy becomes a few troop ships useful for unopposed landings. Maintaining a large fleet only to support the Pentagon’s preferred role of massacring half-armed peasants would just be too costly.

So, does the Navy say to Congress, "We really aren’t of much use any longer. We suggest that you scrap the ships and put the money into something else"? Mankind doesn’t work that way. The appeals of tradition, ego, and just plain fun run high. (Never underestimate the importance of ego and fun in military policy.) A CVBG is a magnificent thing, just not very useful. The glamor of night flight ops, planes trapping ker-whang!, engines howling at full mil, 30 knots of wind over the flight deck, cat shots throwing fighters into the air – this stuff appeals powerfully to something deep in the male head. The Navy isn’t going to give this up.

Thus it can’t admit that its day comes to a close, whether it knows it, suspects it, or refuses to think about it. The carrier is forever. Unless one gets sunk.

Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, second right, listens to Rear Adm. Richard B. Wren, second left, the USS George Washington strike group commander, as Okada inspects the nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, Saturday, April 10, 2010. (AP/Daylife)

Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, center, led by Rear Adm. Richard B. Wren, second right, the USS George Washington strike group commander, as Okada inspects the nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, Saturday, April 10, 2010. (AP/Daylife)

Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, left, listens to Rear Adm. Richard B. Wren, right, the USS George Washington strike group commander, as Okada inspects the nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, Saturday, April 10, 2010. (AP/Daylife)

Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, third right, visits the flight deck control room, led by Rear Adm. Richard B. Wren, right, the USS George Washington strike group commander, as Okada inspects the nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, Saturday, April 10, 2010. (AP/Daylife)



Some photos of the F-18 Hornet.

An F-18 jet flies during a performance from aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in Rio de Janeiro, Wednesday, March 3, 2010. The aircraft carrier arrived Friday to take part in sporting activities with Brazil's naval forces. (AP/Daylife)

An F-18 jet lands on aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson during a military exhibition in Rio de Janeiro, Wednesday, March 3, 2010. The aircraft carrier arrived Friday to take part in sporting activities with Brazilian naval forces. (AP/Daylife)

An E-2 Hawkeye, top, and five F-18 jets fly in formation during a military exhibition from aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in Rio de Janeiro, Wednesday, March 3, 2010. The aircraft carrier arrived Friday to take part in sporting activities with Brazil's naval forces. (AP/Daylife)

I haven't been attracted to the US Navy for quite some time, not since high school. My interest was not in naval aviation, despite my enjoyment of Top Gun, or being on a submarine, but in surface ships. And there's the dress uniform, both the winter and summer versions. When I was at Christendom Sarge talked about the SEALs, and at the time I had a high opinion of them, but that wasn't enough to induce me to go into the Navy.

Also via the Western Confucian: Memoirs of an Exorcist.