TangEng

Traveler, Engineer, Free Thinker, Making Connections

[Stephaney @Stephan6320]

@Timcast Every other good review I see of the Odyssey says “*paid ad”

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

You don’t understand. I’ve watched a ton of congressional defense hearings. In EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. the Admirals and Generals say “we are only strong because of our allies.”

At first I believed it.

Then I started attending defense conferences overseas. I watched U.S. GOFOs get treated like royalty. Five-star hotels. Wined and dined. Told how great they are for “being such great allies.”

The pattern became obvious. Europeans spend lavishly on ego-boosting, awards dinners, and fine wine… and in exchange, every GOFO goes home and tells Congress how indispensable our allies are.
And our “allies” save a fortune on defense.

Then a buddy got a job at European Command and confirmed everything—except it wasn’t just GOFOs. There are entire departments of people working in “intelligence” who are basically travel agents for generals and members of Congress.

Then I started digging into the UN. Guess what? They hold a massive number of “security” conferences too—except most of theirs are in straight-up resort towns.

Then I got inside a few think tanks. You want to see posh surroundings and excellent wine and food? Buddy up with them.

I started posting about all this a few years ago and got MASSIVE pushback—which I knew meant I was on the right track.

But I still wasn’t 100% sure. Most of it was grift, but maybe some parts were essential… until Midnight Hammer. Then Maduro. Now this.

My European friends were totally blindsided by all of it. And guess what? We performed better without these great “allies.”

Why?

Going all the way back to Korea, one thing has remained true: Europeans don’t fully trust us—and they like having a little power over us. So they are absolute sticklers for Rules of Engagement.

They wine and dine our JAGs. They hold endless conferences about “the rule of law” to reinforce the “importance of ROEs.”

And ROEs are what kills our military.
Nobody is suggesting soldiers should do anything immoral. Nobody is saying there shouldn’t be consequences for atrocities. What I am saying is that having a battalion of JAGs and a dozen allied nations—each with their own ROEs—breathing down every commander’s neck is why we lose wars.

That includes Vietnam, where most “allies” refused to fight but every one of them put serious diplomatic pressure on DC to tighten ROEs.

All of this “allies are our strength” dogma gets reinforced at these conferences, at war colleges, by European-influenced media, and through think tanks.

The reason we’re suddenly so effective is because @PeteHegseth has cut all this out.

Our allies are flying blind. They can’t throw up a million legal objections because they don’t know the details behind these missions any sooner than we do.

Just look at Starmer’s body language. He’s clueless.

And it’s not just our allies that no longer get to micromanage everything but media and UN diplomats and think tanks and bureaucrats and more.

Now if we could just cut Congress off from this “allies are great” grift, we could probably start passing legislation too.

P.S. I see no signs of Hegseth or DoW weakening our allies or alliances. They genuinely seem to want Europe to be stronger. They just aren’t asking permission anymore or giving allies veto power over everything like before.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@BaldingsWorld I don't consider these other people evil. Some cultures simply operate on a different set of ethos.
When might establishes credibility first and foremost - not adherence to rule - we need to operate on that level, as well.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@BaldingsWorld Wow. You got Andy Boreham on you.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@BaldingsWorld Chinese firms moved operations to countries with less subsidies but lower tariffs. US still imported solar panels albeit at higher prices. US solar industry which is limited to installation of imported panels lost some jobs. If part of that supply chain is still in China...

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@BaldingsWorld Are 7th graders learning about Marko chains? What is happening?

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@BaldingsWorld There was nothing said about Sudan as well. A lot of selective outrage.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@michaelxpettis This seems to be justifying new builds and new purchases, but does it also mean condemning the low-quality builds and taking huge write-offs and NPLs?
And how are the new builds inspected to meet high quality standards?

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@BaldingsWorld Oh great. Chinese citizens can borrow even more and become more enslaved by loans.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@BaldingsWorld How many ships are there in the world that qualify? It looks like retaliation, but I looks more like saving face in terms of being able to say they retaliated. IMO, the rare earth policy is much more substantive.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@LibertyCappy It's because of speaking English.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@michaelxpettis When coffee is a commodity, any US demand displaced from Brazil to other countries will in turn displace non-US demand back to Brazil. But if Brazilian coffee is not sold as a commodity, then Brazil would need to develop new markets for taste.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@BaldingsWorld Was this for the rare earth products?

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

Don't know this was but a van on the highway with a mattress as an air brake got me and my driver a bit concerned. 🤣 I certainly hope nothing interesting happened, but we didn't stick around to find out.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@TopherKern Yes. Because a company like Ubisoft would have layers of management rejecting new ideas and hundreds of consultants making sure their expertise is "required" to the point that innovation collapses.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@DataRepublican @elonmusk From the monetarist perspective, the national debt can always be monetized by the Fed; US is borrowing in its own fiat currency.
The flaw with MMT is with high volume unproductive spending, monetization becomes highly inflationary for goods that people actually want.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@RebeccaArcesati How would the "turn to China" be different from what Europe has repeatedly done in the last decade? The "historical shift" is away from USG paying for the security while Europe regularly undermines it for some economic benefit.

[Delta @Delta]

Delta Connection flight 4819, operated by Endeavor Air using a CRJ-900 aircraft, was involved in a single-aircraft accident at Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ) at around 2:15 p.m. ET* on Monday. The flight originated from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP).

Initial reports indicate there are no fatalities and 18 customers with injuries have been transported to area hospitals. Our primary focus is taking care of those impacted.

Delta has activated its Passenger Inquiry Center for family and loved ones of customers involved in today’s accident so they can connect with Delta for more information. In Canada, these individuals may reach out via 1-866-629-4775. In the United States, they may connect using 1-800-997-5454.

“The hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today’s incident at Toronto-Pearson International Airport,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian. “I want to express my thanks to the many Delta and Endeavor team members and the first responders on site. We are working to confirm the details and will share the most current information on https://t.co/aQn3V6YNIc as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, please take care and stay safe.”

The flight was carrying a total of 80 people – 76 passengers and four crew.

Delta has cancelled its flights to and from YYZ for the remainder of the evening and has issued a travel waiver. Details of the waiver can be found on https://t.co/TvVAdMkhBv. Delta is working to connect with customers whose flights have been impacted. Customers should also monitor the status of their flight via the Fly Delta app.

Endeavor Air is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Delta Air Lines headquartered in Minneapolis.

Delta will provide updates at https://t.co/aQn3V6YNIc.

*Editor’s note: The time of the incident was updated from previous statements.

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

I have a feeling all of these grants are psyops aimed at getting more favorable political outcomes in the various countries. It's all American "soft power" but it's not innocent nor charitable. It's subversive.

[Department of Government Efficiency @DOGE]

US taxpayer dollars were going to be spent on the following items, all which have been cancelled:
- $10M for "Mozambique voluntary medical male circumcision"
- $9.7M for UC Berkeley to develop "a cohort of Cambodian youth with enterprise driven skills"
- $2.3M for "strengthening independent voices in Cambodia"
- $32M to the Prague Civil Society Centre
- $40M for "gender equality and women empowerment hub"
- $14M for "improving public procurement" in Serbia
- $486M to the “Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening,” including $22M for "inclusive and participatory political process" in Moldova and $21M for voter turnout in India
- $29M to "strenghening political landscape in Bangladesh"
- $20M for "fiscal federalism" in Nepal
- $19M for "biodiversity conversation" in Nepal
- $1.5M for "voter confidence" in Liberia
- $14M for "social cohesion" in Mali
- $2.5M for "inclusive democracies in Southern Africa"
- $47M for "improving learning outcomes in Asia"
- $2M to develop "sustainable recycling models" to "increase socio-economic cohesion among marginalized communities of Kosovo Roma, Ashkali, and Egypt"

[TangEng @TwitchyTangEng]

@SwiftShotTV @DanG88_ I'm thinking about getting an update to my Gen1 Steam Deck if available and probably will consider that over an update to the switch. Only a must-get title with significant performance difference would drive a switch purchase.