We maintain and continue this committee of correspondence in memory of our founder and mentor, Colonel W. Patrick Lang. The image to the right is Marcus, a character from William S. Burroughs’s “The Coming of the Purple Better One.” Colonel Lang would refer to Marcus sometimes in clever jest, sometimes in biting social commentary and sometimes simply because he liked Marcus. May everyone who corresponds here do so in a similar spirit.
Essential Writings on History, War, Religion and Strategy
From the Introduction:
“In the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Col. Lang created his own blog which to this day still serves as a committee of correspondence for a large network of former military and intelligence officers, diplomats, and scholars of international affairs.
Since its launch in 2005, the Turcopolier website has had over 40 million unique visits.
Since leaving the government, he has also authored five books, including a Civil War espionage trilogy, a memoir of his years in government service, and a primer on human intelligence.
This present volume—his sixth book—is an anthology of some of his most important writings. The content speaks for itself. So have at it.”
President Trump has threatened to impose additional sanctions and tariffs on Russia unless President Putin agrees to end the war in Ukraine.
Trump said last year that he would resolve the war within 24 hours of being sworn in as president but has since backtracked and said that he hopes to end the fighting within six months. This is the first time he has revealed how he plans to achieve that goal. “I’m not looking to hurt Russia,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website. “I love the Russian people, and always had a very good relationship with President Putin.”
He continued: “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries. Let’s get this war, which never would have started if I were President, over with! We can do it the easy way, or the hard way — and the easy way is always better. It’s time to ‘MAKE A DEAL.’ NO MORE LIVES SHOULD BE LOST!!!”
The Kremlin has not commented. Russian exports to the United States have plummeted since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022 and were worth less than $3 billion last year, according to US data. However, one option Trump may be considering, analysts say, is secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian oil such as India and China. Both countries have increased their purchases of Russian energy since Putin ordered tanks into Ukraine. Washington stopped buying Russian oil in response to the invasion.
Trump could also impose additional sanctions on Russian oil companies. Sanctions placed this month by the outgoing Biden administration on Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegas, which together produce about half of Russia’s oil, triggered a surge in the cost of tanker shipping for Moscow. India’s refiners stopped doing business with the Russian tankers and companies affected by US sanctions, a source in the Indian government told Reuters. Other measures could include restricting the passage of vessels insured by sanctioned companies through the Bosphorus or Denmark’s territorial waters in the Baltic Sea, wrote The Bell, an independent Russian website that has been designated a “foreign agent” by Moscow. Both are major export routes for Russian crude oil.
Russia is already the world’s most sanctioned country, yet its economy has proven far more resilient than many western analysts expected. Despite soaring inflation that reached almost 10 per cent last year, almost one third of Russians say the war has had no effect on their lives, according to a poll by the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, Dmitry Patrushev, a deputy prime minister, warned on Wednesday that Russia would have to introduce some export restrictions if food prices did not come down. Russia is a major exporter of pork and dry milk and is the world’s top wheat exporter. “The priority for the state is absolutely clear: ensuring that our citizens have their own food supply,” Patrushev said.
Putin has said there can be no peace in Ukraine unless Kyiv surrenders four regions, as well as Crimea, and drops its ambitions to join Nato. He has also demanded that the West end all sanctions against Moscow.
Comment: Damn! I didn’t think he’d address the Russo-Ukraine War for a couple of weeks, at least. There’s been a lot of noise from Zelenskiy, the EU and the Trump camp about Europe turning exclusively to the US for its supply of gas and oil. That fits in with Trump’s plan of “drill, baby drill” and making the US the number one energy power in the world. I think he smells that he has Putin over a barrel. Being transactional, I doubt he has any real loyalty to his old buddy Putin.
In my opinion, this is Ukraine’s best hope. Continued, even expanded, NATO military support would allow Ukraine to hold what she has, but it will not allow Ukraine to expel Russia from her territory. A negotiated settlement, even based on Trump’s economic threats, will not guarantee that either, but it would stop the death and destruction on both sides. Besides, I think Putin needs the war to be over and the sanctions lifted before he dies. His legacy and Russia’s future depends on it.
TTG
For a day of ceremony, a lot happened today. Not unexpectedly, I might add. What struck me most was all the pardons and commutations. First Biden gave preemptive pardons to members of his family, Fauci and the entire J6 investigative committee. He doesn’t trust the Trump administration. He also commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier. I’m all for that one.
And late tonight Trump finally revealed the full extent of his pardons and commutations of the J6 defendants. He commuted the sentences of those charged with seditious conspiracy and pardoned all others charged with crimes associated with J6 including those convicted of assaulting police officers. Given the time he spent talking about J6 in his second speech of the day. That one wasn’t scripted and it was full of grievance.
TTG
By Robert Willmann
A technique used in Congress will cause a proposed law to be filed at the last minute and scheduled to be voted on right away. This prevents many — or most — members from reading it and the public has no idea what is in it or that it will be voted on. That method was used on 19 December 2024, with a bill that was to fund the federal government and prevent a government shutdown. However, its last section — 5106 — extended the “suspension” of the federal debt limit from 2 January 2025 until 2027! Here is the language that was slipped in at the end of the bill, which was called House Resolution 10515—
“Sec. 5106. Temporary extension of public debt limit.
“Section 401 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023
(Public Law 118–5) is amended—
“(1) by striking ‘January 1, 2025’ in subsection
(a) and inserting ‘January 29, 2027’, and
“(2) by striking ‘January 2, 2025’ each place
it appears in subsections (b) and (c) and inserting
‘January 30, 2027’.”
See how that slick little trick was set up? It referred back to the law passed in June 2023 that we have discussed and which suspended the debt limit until 2 January 2025. An older existing law would be amended that would then allow the federal government to take on an unlimited and unrestricted amount of debt for two more years.
Fortunately, the bill did not even get a majority vote in the House of Representatives, much less the two-thirds vote it needed under a “suspension of the rules”. It was 174 for, 235 against, 1 voting present, and 20 not voting.
The public can only find out about these shenanigans the next day, at the earliest, when the Congressional Record is published. This document is an excellent source, because it is supposed to be like a court reporter’s transcript of what happens in a court hearing, with a record of what everybody said and what is considered, and the text of each bill or amendment or resolution that is voted on, and the result of the vote, and if a recorded vote is taken, how each member of the House or Senate voted.
I have pulled an excerpt of seven pages from the Congressional Record containing the discussion of that proposed bill before the vote on 19 December. They are pages H7379 to H7385. The entire bill was shown before the remarks begin, and you can see in the left column at the end of the text the section 5106 that would have done the dirty deed. There are statements by members for and against suspending the debt limit. The vote and its result are at the end of the discussion. You can also see how members are allowed to change their vote after the initial vote and before voting is closed [1]—
After H.R.10515 failed on 19 December, the next day a new bill was presented with the same name, but with a different number, H.R.10545. The graphic at the top of this article shows the two bills in the website of Congress. The last day to appropriate money to avoid the beginning of a government shutdown was 20 December, and the second bill passed the House that day, and the Senate then passed it and Biden signed it on 21 December 2024. I did not try to grind through a word-for-word comparison of the two bills, but the second one did not include the suspension of the debt limit.
The June 2023 law that suspended the debt limit said that a new limit would come into existence on 2 January 2025, and would be whatever the amount of the total debt “subject to the limit” happened to be on that day. On New Year’s Eve, the situation was discussed here, including a letter Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent to Congress on 27 December 2024 about the problem. At that time Congress had not created a new debt limit [2].
Nothing has been done since then. The Daily Treasury Statement for 31 December 2024 showed the total public debt to be $36,218,605,000,000. The debt subject to a limit (if there was one) would be $36,103,971,000,000. The numbers are different because there can be other debt, including unamortized discount and the Federal Financing Bank, that is excluded from the total public debt amount [3]. The Daily Treasury Statement for 2 January 2025 included the new debt limit, as $36,103,996,000,000 [4]. Congress, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and JD Vance have remained silent since then. As Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen fiddled with the books, the debt has been creeping higher after the start of the year. She sent a followup letter to Congress on Friday, 17 January 2025, saying that “extraordinary measures” were going to start since new debt is not authorized. Money will not be invested in certain Civil Service and Postal Service employee and retirement funds, and that money will obviously be burned up elsewhere. Yellen says that the funds will be replenished later, “once the debt limit has been increased or suspended”. This admission lays bare for all to see that the federal government is stuck in the mud and cannot move without borrowing more and more and more. Here is her letter—
Since Janet Yellen is heading out the door, Scott Bessent, Trump’s nominee to be the new Treasury Secretary, can start writing letters to Congress, and put on some tap dancing shoes.
The inauguration of president-elect Donald Trump is on Monday, 20 January 2025, and will be held inside the Capitol building. Also in attendance will be Mr. Federal Debt. Like a Mafia loan shark, he will be smiling to himself, because he knows that the self-important people in and around the pomp and circumstance will be coming to him begging. Real soon.
[1] Congressional Record, December 19, 2024.
https://www.congress.gov/118/crec/2024/12/19/170/189/CREC-2024-12-19.pdf
[3] Daily Treasury Statement, December 31, 2024.
[4] Daily Treasury Statement, January 2, 2025.
I was in the Middle East years ago after I quit my show. I was trying to find out what I wanted to do with my life. And while I was there, Jimmy Carter flew to Israel. So everybody in the region was talking about a former American president it being in the Middle East? And while he was in Israel, a book of his was released, and his title was very controversial in Israel. And the title of the book was Palestine Peace, Not Apartheid. And people were very mad. In Israel there was a lot of mean stories that came out in the paper, but some people were supportive.
And while he was there, Jimmy Carter said, I want to go to the Palestinian territory. And the Israeli government said it’s too dangerous. And if you go, we cannot protect you. And man, Jimmy Carter went anyway. I will never forget the images of a former American president walking with little to no security while thousands of Palestinians were cheering him on. And when I saw that picture, it brought tears to my eyes. I said, I don’t know if that’s a good president, but that right there, I am sure is a great man. It made me feel very Every time.
The presidency is no place for petty people. So Donald Trump, I know you watched the show. Man, remember whether people voted for you or not. They’re all counting on you, whether they like you or not. They’re all counting on you. The whole world is counting on you. And I mean this when I say this. Good luck. Please do better next time. Please. All of us do better next time. Do not forget your humanity. And please have empathy for displaced people, whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.
Thank you very much. And good night.
Comment: There is a reason people listen to Dave Chappelle. He says what he thinks and what a lot of other people think. He reminds me of a stand up comedian from my younger days, George Carlin. I saw him in the early 1970s with my now SWMBO in the auditorium of Siena College, a pretty small venue for someone of his stature.
The video is his entire 17 minute monologue. The quote is a transcript of the last two and a half minutes. I think it one of the finest commentaries on the past and future of America I have recently heard. Dave Chappelle is a brilliant comedian and a class act. And like George Carlin, he is an insightful observer of American life.
TTG
The Lithuanian faces up to eight months of cyclones, adverse winds and extreme loneliness as he rows in solidarity with Ukraine. In his first three days at sea, Aurimas Mockus says, he got only five hours of sleep. His body ached and his hands were covered with wounds and blisters. But alone in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, facing up to eight months of rowing, pain quickly turned to “nothing”, the Lithuanian said in a media release. “When you’re in survival mode in a stressful situation, when you realise that you must paddle with all your might and that there’s no other way to do it, you just paddle, forgetting everything else.”
Just a few months ago, Mockus, 44, had never rowed. Now he has been at sea for more than a month, having set off on 15 October to undertake a 12,000km journey from San Diego to Brisbane in a single-seater ocean rowing boat.
This week Mockus is about a quarter of the way into the journey – 4,000km in, still well to the south-east of Hawaii. He has five to seven months of rowing to go, “depending on how well I manage to keep up the pace as I paddle across the ocean and how many storms, cyclones, adverse winds and other adversities I must overcome,” he said in an email last this month using limited satellite internet. If Mockus arrives in Australia, he will become the first person in the world to row across the Pacific on this route, he says. He will join a small group who have crossed the Pacific single-handed, including the Britons Peter Bird in 1983 and John Beeden in 2015, and the Australian Michelle Lee in 2023.
Last year 24-year-old Tom Robinson attempted the feat but was rescued by a P&O Cruise after his boat capsized. In 2020 the Paralympic rowing star Angela Madsen died while attempting a solo journey from California to Hawaii.
Mockus said he had to row continuously for 22 hours to avoid being blown back to shore in his first three days at sea. “I had a hell of a week,” he said in an email. “[I] felt like a zombie.” Wary that it would only take one strong wind to carry his boat off course, “there wasn’t much time to rest”, he said. The effort continued in the two weeks that followed. “Unfavourable winds can cause surprises and sleepless nights and require a lot of strength to get out of them,” Mockus said.
He has been living off porridge, soup, dried fruit, nuts, vacuum-sealed meats, preserves and bars. The boat’s hold is carrying enough food to last eight months, plus vitamin drinks and mineral water. If his water supply runs out, he plans to use a seawater desalination unit.
Mockus says he has encountered few health problems so far. “Maybe my hands are a bit numb at night from the exertion, my shoulder joints are sore, but there are no major health problems, no inflammations,” he said in a media release. He rows naked most of the time – “so I don’t have any problems with my buttocks, and the good news is that I’ll be back with a nice tan”.
And, in case of emergencies, Mockus has a beacon, a life raft and a survival pack – all of which he hopes he won’t need. But feeling homesick has not evaded him.“ I have noticed that this strong homesickness and loneliness comes at sunset when I finish paddling and start to tidy up, which is when it is the hardest,” the release said. “Of course, I knew before the trip that one of my biggest challenges would be enduring that loneliness, which is depressing. When I have an hour of internet, I try to listen to the voice messages of my family and friends through it.”
Mockus noticed small signs of potential equipment failure even in the first few weeks. “I already had a problem with one of the lithium-ion batteries, which was almost completely dead, but suddenly recovered,” he said in a media release. “I’m limiting the use of satellite internet and autopilot to save them because it’s a long way to go. “I can’t afford to be without the life-giving batteries that keep the equipment running.”
But the most significant loss has been an oar, which broke on Mockus’s 35th day of rowing from the impact of a wave. “You can’t joke with the ocean when the wind blows over 27 knots overboard, and the waves are more than six meters tall,” he said in a media release. “The weather conditions were not very kind, but I dared to paddle because sitting and waiting is difficult. “This had consequences,” he said, “One unexpected side wave caught me off guard and broke my paddle. Now, there are five paddles left.”
Mockus describes the world’s largest ocean as “unpredictable and mighty”. “You must respect this element and try to survive it and not make mistakes that could cost you dearly,” he said in an email. “One careless step in a swell could break an arm, a leg, or twist your neck,” he says. “Reefs, where underwater islands have formed, are hazardous because of breaking waves and other dangers.”
Mockus tries to stay a safe distance from islands and islets, “but you never know how it will end if the wind blows harder for a longer period”. Despite the ever present danger, there have also been pleasant surprises. “I was accompanied by large groups of dolphins and seals all week off the coast of San Diego,” he said in a media release earlier this month. “I heard whales diving nearby, but you can’t see much more than a few tens of meters from the boat at night, so I didn’t see them with my own eyes. I hope there will be another chance.”
Mockus set up his boat almost from scratch – buying only the hull and instruments. He also had to learn proper rowing techniques.
Part of his motivation was to draw attention to the conflict in Ukraine, having previously raised funds to support Ukrainian soldiers and civilians, and transported humanitarian aid to the war zone, according to his website. “I know it won’t be easy, but it’s not easy for the people who defend their country either, so I wanted to dedicate my rowing to Ukrainians,” he said in an email. “I decided to remind the world that the war is not over … We must remember the first day of the war, how we felt, and how afraid we were. We cannot get tired because people in Ukraine fight every day and die defending their Motherland.” He says: “I had nothing to do with rowing before … I aim to show that a simple, determined person can cross the ocean. “The most important thing is the desire to overcome and to force yourself to do what you want.”
Comment: This article is from last November. Mockus crossed the halfway point at Christmas. On 13 January he crossed 180 degrees west, the international date Line. Judging by how he looks and how he writes in the updates on his Facebook page, he’s one tough Lithuanian… harder than woodpecker lips… harder than superman’s kneecap. Being a Lithuanian, he seems to revel in being immersed in the enormity of nature in spite of the evening loneliness. He recently related that he got to swim with dolphins and has befriended a bird, even claiming that he baptized his bird friend. Baring some freak accident, Aurimas Mockus will be rowing into Brisbane in good order.
Why do I share this? It’s a damned fine adventure and a riveting nautical yarn in my opinion. And it helps that he is a crazy-assed Lithuanian. I love this stuff. Enjoy.
TTG
https://www.facebook.com/aurimas.mockus
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — U.S. defense contractor Anduril Industries is preparing to build a massive advanced manufacturing facility in central Ohio, adding a planned 4,000 jobs to the area’s burgeoning high-tech sector, state officials announced Thursday. The Cosa Mesa, California-based defense technology company plans to begin construction of what it’s calling “Arsenal 1” as soon as state and local approvals are secured. The 5 million-square-foot (464,515-square-meter) facility will be located on a 500-acre (202-hectare) site near Rickenbacker International Airport in rural Pickaway County, about 16 miles (26 kilometers) southeast of Columbus. Production of military drones and autonomous air vehicles would begin in July 2026 under the plan, said Christian Brose, Anduril’s chief strategy officer.
Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said it is the largest single job creation and payroll project that Ohio has announced. The governor said winning Anduril’s manufacturing plant marks a continuation of Ohio’s history of advanced aviation, which began with the Ohio-born Wright brothers and continues to grow surrounding the Dayton-area Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. “We are an aerospace state,” DeWine said. He called Ohio “the brains of the Air Force.”
DeWine, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and JobsOhio CEO J.P. Nauseef said that, through targeted economic development efforts, the state boasts a strong and diverse aerospace workforce. They said it also has a network of job training centers, colleges and universities prepared to educate new advanced manufacturing workers. Those helped attract the nationally-competitive deal, they said. “Ohio has literally built a strategy around this kind of project, and so we are perfect for them,” Husted said.
The aerospace sector in Ohio includes the global headquarters of GE Aerospace and a new Joby Aviation manufacturing facility near Dayton that’s preparing to manufacture electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, aircraft beginning this year.
Anduril casts the Ohio facility as integral to its goal to “Rebuild the Arsenal” of U.S. military weapons and platforms by “hyperscaling” manufacturing with advanced software and production technologies.
The latest development adds to what is becoming known as a “silicon corridor” based in Ohio. It includes Intel, which is building a $20 billion chip factory just east of the Columbus, and Honda and LG Energy Solution of South Korea, which are building a $3.5 billion battery plant in nearby Fayette County that the automaker envisions as its North American electric vehicle hub. Ohio State University also announced plans in 2023 to build a $110 million software innovation center to dovetail with those efforts.
At separate upcoming state meetings, the Anduril project will pursue a job creation tax credit from the Ohio Department of Development and a $70 million infusion from the All Ohio Future Fund, which the DeWine administration and lawmakers established to help local governments prepare sites for economic development projects. JobsOhio also plans to provide the project a sizeable grant, whose exact amount will be announced once agreements are signed, as well as talent acquisition services.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-defense-contractor-build-4-135833829.html
I was wondering how our MIC was going to handle drone warfare. Was it going to be the old dinosaurs or myriad small startups. If this Anduril is any indication, it will be startups, just not that small. On their website (very informative) they advertise some large autonomous wingman-type aircraft and several smaller drones with reconnaissance and strike capabilities. They even produce a small autonomous submersible. If Anduril produces them in the tens of thousands and the government buys them, I’m less worried about our future war fighting capabilities. We’ll see how it shakes out.
TTG
It’s a headline no one would want to see: Fire hydrants being used to fight the Palisades Fire were running dry. The fast-moving fire tested the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s municipal system: The final tank used to maintain water pressure in the area ran dry by 3 a.m. Wednesday, according to officials. The news drew ire both on social media and from prominent figures like Rick Caruso. The former mayoral candidate and Pacific Palisades landowner went on local TV news stations to complain about the situation, telling Fox 11 it was an “absolute mismanagement by the city.”
The news triggered Governor Gavin Newsom to announce an investigation into the issue, saying that the lack of functioning hydrants “likely impaired the effort to protect some homes and evacuation corridors. We need answers to ensure this does not happen again and we have every resource available to fight these catastrophic fires,” Newsom wrote on X Friday.
Officials say they were and are operating in extreme conditions. We looked into how exactly the shortage happened, and what, if anything, could have been done to prevent it. LADWP’s explanation for the shortage comes down to three nearby water tanks, each with a storage capacity of about a million gallons. These tanks help maintain enough pressure for water to flow from fire hydrants in uphill areas — but the pressure had decreased due to heavy water use, and officials knew the tanks couldn’t keep up the drain forever. “We pushed the system to the extreme,” LADWP CEO Janisse Quiñones said in a news conference. “Four times the normal demand was seen for 15 hours straight, which lowered our water pressure.”
According to LADWP, the tanks’ water supply needed to be replenished in order to provide enough pressure for the water to flow through fire hydrants uphill. But officials said as firefighters drew more and more water from the trunk line, or main supply, they used water that would have refilled the tanks, eventually depleting them. “I want to make sure that you understand there’s water on the trunk line, it just cannot get up the hill because we cannot fill the tanks fast enough,” Quiñones said. That decreased the water pressure, which is needed for fire hydrants to work in higher elevations.
The first LADWP water tank ran out at about 4:45 p.m. Tuesday, while the second ran out at approximately 8:30 p.m. that day and the third and final tank ran out at about 3 a.m. Wednesday. Officials said this was to be expected due to the constraints of the municipal water system, which L.A. County Public Works Director Mark Pestrella said is “not designed to fight wildfires.”
“A firefight with multiple fire hydrants drawing water from the system for several hours is unsustainable,” Pestrella said in a news conference Wednesday. “This is a known fact.” Indeed, fire hydrants have also run dry in the case of other wildfires that spread to urban areas, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire, 2024’s Mountain Fire and 2023’s Maui wildfires. In these cases, firefighters have to rely on other water sources. For the Palisades Fire, LADWP brought in 19 water trucks, each with capacities of 4,000 gallons. “There is no lack of water flowing through our pipes and flowing to the Palisades area,” LADWP spokesperson Mia Rose Wong said in a statement to LAist. “Water remains available in Palisades, but is limited in areas at elevation impacting fire hydrants.” Tanks are commonly used across the LADWP system for both daily and emergency purposes. For reference, the million-gallon tanks are much smaller than LADWP’s major reservoirs, which can hold hundreds of millions, or even billions, of gallons of water (and are miles away from the Pacific Palisades).
Officials said that normally, emergency teams would rely more on air support like firefighting helicopters, which would lessen the strain on water tanks by using more water from other sources like above-ground reservoirs. However, high winds and a lack of air visibility have meant those firefighting operations were grounded Tuesday and Wednesday, Pestrella said. “County and city water reservoirs — open reservoirs — are available and on standby once [aerial firefighting] support becomes available,” he said.
https://laist.com/news/climate-environment/why-did-pacific-palisades-water-hydrants-run-dry
Comment: When news of hydrants running dry in LA came out, the conspiracy theories began flying as thick as the Santa Ana driven embers. Somebody had to be at fault. At the same time, others were expressing views like this.
“Mother Nature owned us,” says Orange County Fire Chief Brian Fennessy. “These fires were unstoppable,” this fire chief said. The dry conditions, the 100 mph winds that grounded ALL air support the first 27 hours, made these fires “unstoppable.” EVERY firefighter has said the same. You can choose to accept that hard truth or you can choose the easier path and be like Trump and Musk and too many others and just get political and blame someone.
So the fire chief says that the catastrophe was inevitable. Maybe it was. The Santa Ana winds predate the founding of Los Angeles. The weather patterns have been erratic for at least the last year. Heavy rains early last year brought greater vegetation growth and then the ensuing drought dried out all that vegetation. All that was known before the fires started. What was done to prepare for this inevitable catastrophe? What wasn’t done? What could have been done?
The hydrants running dry doesn’t surprise me. I doubt there are many, if any, municipal water systems that can maintain pressure when all hydrants are in continuous use. Last week my younger son experienced several days without water in Richmond. Actually he lives in east Henrico, but the Richmond system failure cascaded into a failure of all surrounding systems. The majority of the down time was spent recharging the systems to a level capable of maintaining water pressure. That took days. The Richmond system will need a lot of work, but I doubt they will rebuild the system to a level that will recharge a depleted system that quickly. No one in Richmond wants to pay the water rates or taxes to build a system that resilient. I doubt people in LA are willing to pay for a truly resilient system, either.
California has actually done a lot to prepare for such wildfires. I’m sure the investigations will discover plenty that they didn’t do and places where state, county and city officials dropped the ball. But I bet the bottom line is just how much government regulations, restrictions and spending for the good of the community are the people of California or any state willing to endure to be safe from such calamities. Or how much people are willing to take the risks, roll the dice and suck it up when they come up craps.
TTG
SpaceX completed a wet dress rehearsal of its fully stacked Starship rocket Friday, clearing the way for launch this Monday. This mission will set the new record for the largest rocket ever launched, thanks to the slightly taller Block 2 Ship 33 second stage. Thursday and Friday were full days of work for SpaceX’s employees down in Starbase, Texas. The teams rolled Ship 33 from the manufacturing facility down to the launch site and then stacked it on Booster 14, which was already on the launch mount.
Then SpaceX conducted a wet dress rehearsal for Starship Flight 7, filling both the ship and booster with 11 million pounds of propellant. This is always the final test before SpaceX gives the go-ahead to finish launch preparations. Saturday morning, SpaceX had already destacked Ship 33 to finish any work needed on it before Monday afternoon’s launch.
For Friday, Flight 7’s Starship was briefly the largest rocket ever assembled, beating its own record by a few meters. This is thanks to the added height of the Block 2 ship, which has larger propellant tanks and redesigned forward flaps. SpaceX is actually testing a lot on Starship Flight 7; find the ten coolest aspects here.
Monday’s launch [since delayed] will be another big moment for SpaceX as it hopes to incrementally build its Starship program over the year. Flight 7 will feature not just the debut of its Block 2 hardware but also a flight-proven Raptor engine on the booster and ten Starlink satellite simulators in the payload bay. Starship Flight 7 is currently set for Monday at 4:00 P.M. CT, and you’ll find live coverage on SpaceX’s X account starting approximately 35 minutes before liftoff. There is always a good chance SpaceX will delay the mission deeper into its launch window, which lasts several hours.
https://spaceexplored.com/2025/01/11/starship-flight-7-spacex-completes-pre-launch-rehearsal/
COCOA BEACH, Fla.—As it so often does in the final days before the debut of a new rocket, it all comes down to weather. Accordingly, Blue Origin is only awaiting clear skies and fair seas for its massive New Glenn vehicle to lift off from Florida. After the company completed integration of the rocket this week, and rolled the super heavy lift rocket to its launch site at Cape Canaveral, the focus turned toward the weather. Conditions at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base have been favorable during the early morning launch windows available to the rocket, but there have been complications offshore. That’s because Blue Origin aims to recover the first stage of the New Glenn rocket, and sea states in the Atlantic Ocean have been unsuitable for an initial attempt to catch the first stage booster on a drone ship. The company has already waived one launch attempt set for 1 am ET (06:00 UTC) on Friday, January 10.
Conditions have improved a bit since then, but on Saturday evening the company’s launch officials canceled a second attempt planned for 1 am ET on Sunday. The new launch time is now 1 am ET on Monday, January 13, when better sea states are expected. There is a three-hour launch window. The company will provide a webcast of proceedings at this link beginning one hour before liftoff.
Comment: For a while, it looked like both Starship 7 and New Glenn 1 would both launch on Monday. But Musk has since announce that the Starship launch has been pushed back to at least 15 January. The New Glenn launch is still scheduled for tomorrow.
The New Glenn is not meant to challenge the place of Starship in the future of space exploration and development. But it will challenge the place of the Falcon Heavy. It’s designed to carry larger and heavier payloads to both LEO and geosynchronous orbit cheaper than the Falcon Heavy. We’ll see how that develops. Being that Musk is fully focused on the Starship, he may not mind the competition from the New Glenn.
TTG
While lauding a new partnership among Florida universities and Kennedy Space Center, Gov. Ron DeSantis shoehorned in a pitch to have NASA headquarters leave the nation’s capital in favor of the Sunshine State. “There is an interest in moving the headquarters of NASA right here to Kennedy Space Center and I’m supportive of that,” DeSantis said noting he had discussed it with KSC Director Janet Petro ahead of a ceremony held at the space center Wednesday. “They have this massive building in Washington, D.C., and like nobody goes to it, so why not just shutter it and move everybody down here? I think they’re planning on spending like a half a billion to build a new building up in D.C. that no one will ever go to either,” he said. “So hopefully, with the new administration coming in, they’ll see a great opportunity to just headquarter NASA here on the Space Coast of Florida. I think that’d be very, very fitting.”
DeSantis spoke during an event that saw Petro sign a memorandum of understanding with the Florida University Space Research Consortium, a group created last fall with the help of Space Florida, the state’s aerospace finance and development authority. Founding partners in the consortium include the University of Florida, University of Central Florida and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. It now officially acts as the state’s space research entity to help with awarding NASA research grants in partnership with KSC. DeSantis touted that partnership as fitting for the Space Coast. “If you look at the first American satellite in 1958, John Glenn becoming the first American to orbit the Earth in 1962 and, of course, the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, which put a man on the moon, every single one of those missions were launched from right here in Cape Canaveral in Florida. This is really special ground when it comes to space,” he said.
He highlighted other facets of Florida’s space footprint noting Space Florida’s efforts, such as attracting new aerospace manufacturing and launch facilities, are projected to add $1.1 billion annually now for the next several years. He said the state had more than 2,700 aerospace and aviation establishments, 21 commercial airports and three spaceports: Cape Canaveral, Jacksonville and Titusville. “They’ve allowed Florida to lead the nation as space exploration has flourished in recent years, of course, now with private sector investment,” he said.
Comment: Not a bad idea at all. The Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral already has 10,000 plus NASA people working there. The NASA headquarters in DC has less than 2,500. Most of NASA is already spread throughout the country. Even our Wallops Island Flight Facility has over 1,100 NASA people working there. In my opinion, this move would be a no brainer. The DC office could still function much as the SOCOM Washington Office (SOCOMWO) functions. SOCOM’s vice commander sits there with a sizable staff and serves a vital purpose for SOCOM. In the same way, the NASA deputy administrator and a staff would remain in DC. Besides, trading DC real estate prices and DC traffic for the Florida space coast doesn’t sound like a bad deal to me.
TTG
Ukrainian forces resumed offensive operations in at least three areas within the Ukrainian salient in Kursk Oblast and made tactical advances on January 5. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted multiple roughly company-sized mechanized assaults in the Berdin-Novosotnitsky direction (northeast of Sudzha) in three waves of attack using roughly a battalion’s worth of armored vehicles. Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian forces also intensified offensive operations in the direction of Leonidovo (southeast of Korenevo) and conducted a reinforced platoon-sized mechanized assault near Pushkarnoye (east of Sudzha). Geolocated footage published on January 5 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced in fields southwest and south of Berdin and entered the southern part of the settlement. Russian milbloggers published updated maps of the Kursk area of operations that indicate that Ukrainian forces also occupy Cherkasskoye Porechnoye, Martynovka, and Mikhaylovka (all northeast of Sudzha and southwest of Berdin) as of January 5 and reported that Ukrainian forces recently entered Novosotnitsky (just east of Berdin); and advanced in fields west of Yamskaya Step (immediately northwest of Berdin) and west of Novaya Sorochina (north of Sudzha and northwest of Berdin). Russian milbloggers reported that Ukrainian forces also conducted offensive operations near Nikolskiy and Alexandriya (east and southeast of Leonidovo, respectively) and north of Russkaya Konopelka (east of Sudzha) towards Pushkarnoye in small infantry groups but did not provide details about the extent of any possible Ukrainian advances in these areas. Russian milbloggers largely expressed concern that the renewed Ukrainian effort in Kursk Oblast may be a diversionary effort and claimed that it is too early to determine whether these operations in Kursk could be part of a future main effort.
Russian forces also advanced southeast of Sudzha and counterattacked against intensified Ukrainian attacks southeast of Korenevo and north of Sudzha on January 5. Geolocated footage published on January 5 shows that Russian forces advanced in western and southern Makhnovka (just southeast of Sudzha). Russian milbloggers claimed that unspecified Russian airborne (VDV) elements pushed Ukrainian forces from Makhnovka and Dmitryukov (immediately northeast of Makhnovka). A Kremlin-affiliated milblogger claimed that Russian forces may have advanced into Makhnovka “some time ago, however. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated on January 4 that Russian and North Korean forces lost up to a battalion of infantry near Makhnovka on January 3 and 4. Another Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces also advanced southeast of Makhnovka and along a road into southeastern Kurilovka (immediately southwest of Makhnovka). ISW has not observed visual confirmation of these claims, however. Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces also advanced during counterattacks against Ukrainian assaults east of Leonidovo towards Nikolskiy and in the direction of Malaya Loknya (northeast of Sudzha) on January 5. Another Russian milblogger claimed that a Russian mechanized column unsuccessfully attempted to advance towards Malaya Loknya, however. The milblogger complained that Ukrainian forces destroy most Russian mechanized columns in Kursk Oblast. Elements of the Russian 155th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet, Eastern Military District [EMD]), Chechen Akhmat “Aida” Spetsnaz group, former Wagner Group personnel, and unspecified BARS (Russian Combat Army Reserve) units reportedly defended against the Ukrainian effort in Kursk Oblast.
Russian sources expressed concern about the Russian military’s ability to react to Ukraine’s ongoing combined arms efforts to integrate electronic warfare (EW) and long-range strike capabilities with ground operations. Several Russian milbloggers claimed on January 5 that Ukrainian EW interference during Ukrainian assaults in Kursk Oblast prevented Russian forces from operating drones in the area, degrading Russian forces’ ability to defend against Ukrainian mechanized attacks. Russian milbloggers claimed that drones with fiber optic cables are one of the few Russian drone variants that consistently resist Ukrainian EW countermeasures, although some Russian milbloggers claimed that Russian forces were able to use some first-person view (FPV) and Lancet drones. Russian officials claimed on January 5 that Russian forces downed three unspecified Ukrainian missiles over Kursk Oblast, suggesting that Ukrainian forces may be attempting to integrate longer-range strike capabilities with ground operations and tactical EW systems. A Russian milblogger claimed that Ukrainian forces conducted HIMARS strikes near Bolshoye Soldatskoye and other unspecified areas in Kursk Oblast to prevent Russian forces from deploying reinforcements, artillery systems, and drone operators. Widespread Russian concern over Russia’s ability to respond to improved Ukrainian EW technology and long-range strike capabilities indicates that Russian forces may be struggling to quickly adapt to Ukrainian battlefield innovations. Reports that Ukrainian forces are using long-range fires to interdict Russian rear areas and EW to degrade Russian drones in support of Ukrainian mechanized advances indicate that Ukrainian forces operating in Kursk are employing more effective combined arms tactics.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-january-5-2025
Comment: ISW based this initial assessment of the new Kursk offensive largely on the accounts of Russian mil bloggers. The so-called offensive is a series of tactical assaults involving company sized armored formations heavily supported by EW assets, drones and deep fires. At this level, Ukrainian Army leadership, company and maybe battalion, is pretty damned effective.
These advances are only tactical in nature. I think they’re only aimed at tying down Russian and North Korean units, inflict casualties and disrupt Russian logistical centers at Berdin and Bolshoe Soldatskoe with HIMARS and even tube artillery. At any rate, I waited a few days to see if these tactical advances fizzled out in a day or two. They haven’t. Fighting continues.
This also reemphasizes the fact that Putin still cannot expel Ukrainian troops from Russian territory. He promised they would gone by the New Year. He brought in tens of thousands of North Korean troops to fulfill that promise. Now he’s settling for eventually expelling the Ukrainians with no time table. That’s a more realistic declaration, but it’s politically embarrassing for him. Now he’s sent one of his toughest generals to organize the fight back against Ukraine’s surprise Sunday morning counter-offensive. General Yunus-Bek Yevkurov is the Kremlin’s current Deputy Minister of Defense in charge of border security and Russia’s operations in Africa. He was sent to Kursk not long after Ukrainian tanks started their tactical advance, probably shortly after Russia lost several hundred VDV and North Korean casualties in a day of futile attacks near Makhnovka.
This is also a good time to point out the serious problems plaguing the Kremlin and the Red Army. Sure all of Ukraine is continuously clobbered from the air, the Army is taking casualties at an unacceptable rate and public sentiment is no longer supportive of Zelenskiy’s every inch of Ukraine no matter what the cost strategy, but Russia is also tetering on the edge. A quick summary of Russia’s problems is covered in this Kyiv Post interview with Chuck Pharrer and Jason Jay Smart. Both are notorious cheerleaders for Ukraine, but what they say cannot be ignored. They also offer some good insights into how this Ukrainian mini-offensive is proceeding.
TTG
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