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Friday’s Forum
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29 responses to “Friday’s Forum”
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Earlier this week there was a BTS concert, or actually, two of them on consecutive nights at Ravens Stadium here in Baltimore. I live on one of the main thoroughfares for people walking to it, so thousands and thousands streamed past my house. I also met a whole bunch at the local coffee shop and on my way to my local brew pub one night. And of course got stuck in traffic coming back into my neighborhood, idling behind various minivans and cars with BTS messages on them – pleas for tickets or “trades”. All ages, apparel, body shapes, etc. Uniformly happy and enthusiastic and excited to be in a crowd of like minded individuals. My wife walked over to the stadium just before they were letting people in and people offered her stickers and a bracelet (she took the stickers, some kind of east asian terminally cute critters). Oddly enough, given the very, very different music, I got a real Grateful Dead vibe from it all.
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Fatso is a complete moron.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is ordering the U.S. Navy to remove the advanced system used to launch fighter jets from its newest type of aircraft carrier and return to using older steam catapults that he has long said he prefers, according to a directive issued Thursday.
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Sounds very familiar.
Oh, it’s fine. Just take the carrier out of service for several years to make the necessary modifications, write off all the R&D and implementation money spent to date on the new system, and junk all the navy learned about deployment, use, and maintenance of same.
Or is that more important than an elderly toddler’s whim?
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The one ship the memo applies to — the Doris Miller — has not been laid down yet, and is scheduled for delivery in 2034. My bet would be the Navy drags its feet over this until the end of Trump’s term and quietly goes back to the current design. Shouldn’t be hard — six months for an initial feasibility study, another year to do the nuts-and-bolts design work. difficulty finding a vendor for a one-off steam catapult, contract renegotiation with whoever’s building the EMALS for the Miller…
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It’s because Trump lives in the past, when someone he talked to badmouthed the electromagnetic launchers.
https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2026/08/is-trump-nostalgic-for-everything-about.html
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The actual source document ” President’s Memorandum on Rebuilding the United States Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base” (not him rambling) has “60 Day study on plan to replace EMALS and Advanced Weapons Elevators on CVN-81.” I agree this would be a step backward and would take years in the shipyard to retrofit (and years off the reactor core, EMALS are significantly more energy efficient). Meanwhile the shipyards (both private and public) are at capacity (to include not enough qualified workers). The document does address some of that but where are you going to add another public shipyard for maintenance (in the document) as the “Peace Divided” shipyards Clinton shuttered (4 of 8) have been repurposed and coastal real estate is expensive (Mare Island, Philadelphia, Long Beach and Charleston). And where are the workers (see the “Build Submarines” advertisements from EB during baseball games)? American shipbuilding and maintenance is a problem decades in the making (infrastructure, supply chain, policy, Jones Act, NIMBY, etc).
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If the AI bubble is going to pop catastrophically and crash the world economy, perhaps worse than the 2008 Great Recession did, then it should have the courtesy to do so in October of this year.
I keep thinking back to the mid to late 1980s. PCs were becoming more common in small businesses, and there were inroads into home PC use. Computer manufacturers, and in this I include Commodores, Atari, and even Tandy (Radio Shack), as well as Apple and IBM, were making money. Microsoft was on the rise (and writing code for the Apple ][e). Eventually came the IBM PC clones and the Mac, and the others lost out. Some went out of business entirely.
But there was no bubble.
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There are still massive AI investments in the pipeline, so if the bubble is to pop, maybe it’ll take a couple more years — like during the ’28 election season.
With the benefit if hindsight, it’s hard to imagine that the overall PC industry could’ve been a bubble. Even back then, it didn’t seem to be a consideration. By 1985, I’d helped put together a group project on a classmate’s Mac, and friends had home PCs, which by then included ones positioned on end on a base for that purpose, clearing up desk space (although CRTs would still be with us for well over a decade) and previewing the tower format to come.
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Trump and nostalgia:
https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2026/08/is-trump-nostalgic-for-everything-about.html
Also steam catapults on carriers.
The story of the catapults goes like this:
Nearly a decade ago, he claims he spoke to a sailor who had positive things to say about steam catapults, and soon after, he told Time magazine that he directed the Navy to re-embrace “goddamn steam.”
From the transcript of that 2017 interview:
You know the catapult is quite important. So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He said well, we’re going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I said you don’t use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. I said, “Ah, how is it working?” “Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn’t have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam’s going all over the place, there’s planes thrown in the air.”
It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said–and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be–”Sir, we’re staying with digital.” I said no you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.
Trump is very stupid, so he liked the idea that the current catapults are needlessly complex: I’m not a moron. I’m smart! This technology is too damn complex! But the newer technology is actually better, in many ways:
Replacing the electromagnetic catapults with steam will be a complex endeavor that will likely cost billions of dollars, according to Bryan Clark, a naval expert with the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank….
“Electric is more reliable,” Clark said. “If I can turn these components to be electric instead of steam, it eliminates all the steam related mechanical parts.”
The maintenance on the electrical systems is cheaper, he added. There are 500 fewer sailors on the Ford, in part because fewer technicians are needed to work on the ship’s existing steam equipment.
Do even the Trump followers who take the phrase “Make America great again” very literally want our military to go backwards technologically? I doubt it. But Trump is compulsively nostalgic. -
I just discovered LGM is discussing the steam catapult situation:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/08/wtfing-the-carrier-fleet
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El Taco doesn’t think the USS Lincoln has been at sea nearly enough.
Enough for what, I wonder.
The figures commonly cited are 250 days at sea, and 200 since its was last in port. That’s over 8 months and one week at sea, and 6 months and two weeks since it was in port. Consider it’s been engaged in combat ops for a while. And it has also been near Iran during that time, meaning likely daily air operations like combat air patrol. I don’t think the crew gets weekends off, either.
So over 6 moths straight with a high work load and probably stressful at times, if not all the time, with limited time off and no relief in sight until now.
Sure, “not nearly enough.”
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Meanwhile in the UK, Nigel Farage wins his rather farcical “resign and re-elect” effort in Clacton.
It’s all about a rather desperate attempt to foreclose an investigation into his finances by the Parliamentary Standards authority, which will just shrug and proceed.
If found culpable he can’t be booted it (even if criminally convicted). But if the House of Commons suspends him by vote, the Clacton constituents can have a recall petition, which if signed by 10% of the constituency electorate, automatically triggers a by-election.
If that happens, all the other main parties will almost certainly stand p candidates. And then the tactical voting gets really interesting.
imho, Farage would still win, Clacton being Clacton, but it could be a squeaker.
Nationally his leadership approval polling is way down at -26.7; now lower than Conservative leader Badenoch at -0.9.
Greens Polanski is at -24.4; Lib Dems Davy -3.6; Burnham is at +14.8.
Burnham is probably still benefiting from a “new boy bounce”, but it’s clearly pissing Farage off.With the petulance that typifies him whenever he gets checked, he refused to attend the results announcement, claiming “threats”.
Which plays into his claim that the £5 million donation was for “personal security and expenses, while not an active politician”
guffawIncidentally, the local police deny any advisement of potential “disruption”.
Most likely Farage just had a fit of petulance about being on an announcement platform where his closest contender was a comedian with a bin on his head.
At least the Count was at the count, lol. -
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Trump and Hegseth seek propaganda support from NATO allies. Threaten to cut funding for the ones that are not vocally supportive enough.
Some snips:
US now testing NATO allies on ideological alignment with Trump
The United States has sent NATO member countries a detailed questionnaire to assess their loyalty to Donald Trump’s policies before making decisions about military deployments in Europe. The document asks whether allies have “been publicly supportive” of US foreign policy and what “restrictions” they have placed on American military use of their bases.
Bloomberg obtained the questionnaire, which also probes whether countries are spending money with US defense contractors and have “publicly opposed regulations” that “inhibit” contracts with American firms. The document asks: “Has the country shown alignment with the US approach to ‘strong, clear, and quiet’?” — a reference to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s directive.
The document touches on numerous points of friction between Washington and NATO allies. Questions about public support for US foreign policy specifically mention “initiatives” in the Middle East and the Western Hemisphere — areas where Trump has conducted strikes without NATO support.
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I’ve heard a lot about several NATO countries turning to European arms manufacturers. Canada, for instance, went with a Swedish airborne radar plane (which uses a Canadian Bombardier jet).
This is not exactly new. Europe does produce weapons systems, like Dassault fighters, Airbus cargo planes, German tanks, and varied missiles and other forms of ammunition.
Given how unreliable the US has been these past ten years, can you blame anyone for sourcing weapons suppliers based in countries that won’t subject them to trade war, and can keep agreements for longer than 4 years?
El Taco just wants to undo NATO for some reason. It may be to please Mad Vlad, or some deep, moronic misunderstanding of NATO funding, or because nothing in whatever it is he uses instead of a brain works right.
On related matters, El Taco wants to declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory.
I wonder if Ivanka or any of his other sons are shopping for straitjackets…
Among his golden rhetoric:
After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz strait a territory of the United States. Essentially, that’s what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to.
Remember when Mad Dog Gaddafi declared the Gulf of Sidra to be Libyan territory back in the 80s?
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My guess is Trump’s brain views the US as a business, or did when he began. To a businessman NATO was simply a financial burden to be shed. However, the comment you quoted indicates his brain has begun to function like that of a 4 year old with toy soldiers in a sand box. Always thinks he’s winning a war and is taking a liking to that feeling.
I suspect most of NATO is praying the habit of electing charismatic populist demagogues as POTUS is an anomaly which will be corrected in the next couple years. They can see the American public is beginning to despise Trump and are trying to not over-react. The Germans, anyway, certainly had to learn this lesson the hard way too.
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The problem is, as Benjamin Haddad stated: “We cannot leave the security of Europe in the hands of voters in Wisconsin every 4 years”
Vance could be even worse than Trump, as he is wholly aligned with a bunch of nutty accelerationist/oligarchic tech-bros who are convinced democratic Europe is a greater threat than Russia or China.
And, from their rather odd pov, they may well be right about that.Europe has to develop the capability to fight a major war without US support. And is fully capable of doing so.
The problem at the moment is that, while Germany and Poland, etc, are re-arming fast, the UK and France, and to a certain extent Italy, are having problem with the politics of budgets.
And Spain is still navel-gazing.
However, the north-central states ramp is still massive.
Germany alone now is producing more artillery shells than the US.
And the linkages of European defence industries to Ukraine are growing.The main problems at present are in Euro-NATO production of deep strike missiles, SAMP/T interceptor production, satellite intel, 5th/6th gen fighters, strike bombers.
All a relative, not absolute, problems.
eg Europe already has a intel sat fleet, and launch capability, which is scalable.Obviously the effort required is non-trivial; but given the general consensus on US unreliability, I suspect the head of steam required is now operative.
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Europe is certainly a non-trivial arms producer.
Germany alone now exceeds the US in 155mm shell production.
SAMP/T is widely thought to be about on a par with Patriot.
Europe has never purchased MBT or MICV from the US, or any naval ships or subs.
Even in fighters, the recent sales success of the F-35 is due to its current edge in its role and lack of a 5th gen Euro competitor. Europe is planning on going from 4th to 6th gen.
And arguably in European-type sensor intensive environments, 4th gen is good enough for defensive roles. -
The thing about Trump is, once he gets an idea lodged in his silly head, even if going quiet about it for a bit, he will always cycle back to it like a dog returning to its vomit.
See carrier catapults, wind turbines, tariffs, migrants, deals with Vlad, etc etc.
A lot of which seem to be based on paleo-con tropes from the 1980s to 2000’s, which MAGA has merrily recycled.
NATO being a con at the expense of the US being one of them.
It’s a minor miracle he’s not calling out Japan as the real exploiter of the US.
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