Prehistoric Stealth

 

You've seen it a thousand times in a movie or a television show.  It is such a standard gambit that some days it seems mandatory.  An object is thrown to make noise in a spot where the pursued is not in an effort to make the pursuer look in a different direction than the pursued's hiding spot.

There are variations on that theme.  A predatory animal is described as hunting motion.  If you stand very still the animal will ignore you as a stationary object which are not made of meat.

Either way, the foundational intent is the same.  If you can make the entity looking for you have no reason to look in your direction, you will not be found (or noticed or whatever). 

The corollary is that you are more likely to be found or seen or attacked if you call attention to yourself.  Hold on to this for a bit.  You're going to need it later.

One of the joys of modern existence is the ability to record and playback sights and/or sounds.  Still photography, video photography and audio recording affect everyone living a reasonably modern life.  Creating movies, television shows and music is the primary employment for an awful lot of folks.  The rest of us consume what they create in one way or another.  But our ability to record and playback does not stop there.

RADAR, SONAR and other sensing technologies can also have their outputs recorded and played back. For most of us, it would be difficult to find something we were less likely to watch or listen to.  However, since long-term storage memory is (relatively) inexpensive, entities like the NSA, or their foreign analogues, tend to hang on to such recordings just in case some later development makes them useful.  Therein (potentially) lies the problem.

In an example of what might be possible, an intelligence organization could acquire a cryptographic key in some method and apply it to recorded transmissions to read the contents.

Now instead of communications intercepts, let's cycle back to the sensing technologies.  If we "knew" for a fact the exact time and date an adversary's submarine was within range of our acoustic sensors, we might be able to play back the recording and use advances in computerized analysis to see if it could pick out a sound signature that a human or older computer tech might have missed.  If we can, voila!  We can now identify that sub whenever it gets within range of a sensor whether it is fixed or mobile.

In their rush to get publicity Felon47 and his DUI hire, Hegseth, have ensured friend and foe alike who might have appropriately positioned land-based or space-based or mobile radars have reason to replay those recordings to look for an anomaly that could be the signature of a B2 Stealth bomber.  They violated the precepts of prehistoric stealth in that they are calling attention to those planes.  Various entities have reason to look exactly in our direction.  

I cannot recall ever having seen reporting on the exact route a modern American submarine took.  Why? Because this ain't the Stone Age. Technological analysis can be applied post event - possibly months or years after the event or whenever a technological advancement makes revisiting such recordings potentially fruitful.  But we just did it with Stealth aircraft.

I personally consider this criminal malfeasance.  (Not that that will impress anyone)  I will likely never know if the stealth was compromised.  That is the sort of thing national entities like to keep in their metaphorical backpockets. However, I consider it very likely the misadministration was advised about it and decided publicity was more important than national secrets.

Those people are not patriots.

Linguistic Contortions

 

I swear there are days when I am convinced that language is absolutely wasted on humanity.

Perhaps if we could actually remember a time of pointing and grunting we might value actual specific words more highly.  We don't.  Now, I have written multiple essays on the meanings of words and sometimes on their misuse.  I have taken considerable ribbing over my attitude about word usage and/or linguistic evolution. (I'm agin' it)  I seem to be fighting an uphill battle.

The epiphany that has my knickers in a bunch today occurred because I do not consider myself aligned with either of the two predominant political parties in the USA.  I fully and willingly admit that the last 30-40 years have convinced me that I will never vote for a Republican for anything in the future.  A more complete version of that would note that while I will not be voting GOP I will likely stay largely pissed off at the Democratic Party.  Not pissed off enough to vote Republican but any other apparently viable, socially progressive, fiscally sane party could easily get my attention.

Today's burr under my saddle might seem subtle to some of you but I think it is meaningful.  On social media and even in person I have seen untold analysees on what the Dems can do to win elections.  I have seen it phrased as how Dems can beat the GOP or what messaging the Dems need.   ---  Do you see the problem yet?? ---

Let me help you out.  I will be the first to acknowledge that my social media footprint is not huge.  I am no longer on Facebook.  I do not and have not participated on Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Snapchat, TikTok, and a bunch of lesser platforms.  I am primarily active on Bluesky (and I really miss Google+) and Reddit.  Still, I see a lot of posts.  What I do not see is anyone trying to tell the Dems or Independents how they can make the current situation less bad for us.  --- You see it now, right? ---

Look, I am no Pollyanna by any stretch of the imagination.  However, at the end of the day I don't actually give a shit who is in charge.  I care what happens to me, those that I know and love, those that I know and like, and those that I don't know from Adam's housecat.  We have contorted our language and belief structure so as to render what is actually done severely subordinate to getting elected - and even more importantly, reelected.  

As a general rule, I would agree that Dems are more socially progressive and that is important.  OTOH, I also follow politics closely enough to know that some of your favorite Dem politicians had to be forcibly pulled to the left and for some of them, I wonder if their beliefs actually changed or if they were just saying what they thought would get them elected. Off the top of my head I could point out that minimum wage hasn't gone up, healthcare has not gotten less expensive, predatory lending has continued under multiple administrations of both parties.

I'm gonna take a wild guess that one of the reasons General George Washington was opposed to political parties is the same thing that is annoying me.  The party's priority becomes the elected party official's priority and the constituent's priority has to take a back seat IF allowed on the bus at all.  I don't have a comprehensive plan to fix this idiocy but the general outline is we should all focus on making life hell on any elected official that is not actively making our lives better.  I acknowledge that electing someone from a different party might be an element of that but that should be a part of the journey NOT the destination.  If your party happens to be the one in power, that changes nothing.  You still need to pay attention and make life hell for any elected official that is not making your life better.

I'm not sure this could be any more simple.

Behavioral Modification

 See, here is the problem.  At its core, a tariff is tool to modify specific aspects of a specific human or group of humans.  In theory, the tariff adds enough to the cost of a product that either the middlemen or the final customer has to actively decide if it is worth it.

If you want fewer EU citizens to purchase Fords, you increase the cost with a tariff and suddenly the Ford costs the same as a BMW.  In one fell swoop, you have removed whatever monetary advantage Ford had while not addressing or affecting any issues of quality or fun or utility etc etc.  Basically you have raised the cost without increasing the value.  If Ford has had a good year or ten and they have plenty of cash on hand, they could choose to keep the MSRP the same and just pay the cost of the tariff themselves.  In that way the EU citizens are not financially incentivized to purchase a vehicle of alternate manufacture. 

Your modification target can be either the manufacturer, the middlemen - importer, jobber, retailer, or the end user.  Any or all of them MAY be affected by additional costs but choices can be made that places the greater burden on one entity or the other.  Generally as a long-term reaction to the tariffs, the choice is to pass the costs on to the next entity in the line.  As the phrase indicates, the "end user" is the last entity.  With no one else to pass the costs on to, they must choose to either pay the cost or change their behavior and choose a different product.

If Walmart were to "eat the tariffs" as demanded by Felon47, neither the foreign manufacturers nor the end user are financially incentivized to alter their behavior.  So was the goal all along to decrease Walmart's profits?  To what end?  That has certainly not been articulated within range of my awareness.  

According to the day or the rant, the tariffs are either to punish the foreigners that stole our jobs OR they are to convince Americans to buy American and convince companies to move manufacturing back to our shores.  I fail to see how Walmart "eating the tariffs" accomplishes any of that.  Sam Walton's heirs are incredibly wealthy.  They enjoy a near unimaginable income from Walmart.  But regardless of how true that is, my behavior will not be changed by my socks costing Walmart $4.58 instead of $3.80 as long as I still see $5.00 at the register.  China, Vietnam, India, or Indonesia cashed the check and put the product on a ship.  They could not possibly give less of a shit what happens to it after that so their behavior is not likely to be modified.

So what are the goals?  How would you know?  Whether you listen to the misadministration's words or observe their actions, there are internal and external conflicts with both.  The only honest effort seems to be in the attempt to make it look like the misadministration is doing something and, more importantly, to make Felon47 feel like a big man because actual successful people are jumping when he says "jump".  Past that, he has no more of a clue than do his supporters.