[Blaze] A woman survived a lengthy but unknown amount of time in the back of a garbage truck when she was flung into the vehicle after falling into a dumpster while allegedly throwing out her garbage.
The Manchester, New Hampshire, woman "fell into a dumpster while she was throwing away her garbage and was scooped up and driven away during trash pick-up," reported WMUR-9's Arielle Mitropoulos.
The driver of the garbage truck said that he only saw the woman in the back of the truck because of a camera located inside the vehicle.
Local witnesses also said they could hear the victim screaming.
#2
^ Sneaky scofflaws attempting to slip verboten items into trash and "recycling" streams. I've been semi-reliably told that customers can be "fined" for that.
[Washington Examiner] Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) nominated former President Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize for his foreign policy efforts in the Middle East, marking the fourth time the former president has been nominated for the honor.
Tenney praised Trump for his "historic" Abraham Accords treaty, a deal brokered between Israel and four of its Arab neighbors aimed at improving economic and diplomatic relations between the nations. Her nomination comes days after three U.S. service members were killed in a drone strike in Jordan.
"Donald Trump was instrumental in facilitating the first new peace agreements in the Middle East in almost 30 years," Tenney said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "For decades, bureaucrats, foreign policy ’professionals’, and international organizations insisted that additional Middle East peace agreements were impossible without a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Trump proved that to be false."
Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded over the peace accord between Egypt and Israel in 1978, as well as the Oslo Accords in 1994. Trump was nominated for the Peace Prize for the Abraham Accords several times during his presidency but has never won.
[GEO.TV] At least 130 highly poisonous Harlequin frogs were recovered from the luggage of a Brazilian woman in Bogota airport, Colombia who was trying to illegally transport them, according to the airport officials.
Colombia police said that she was charged with wildlife trafficking as a video statement by officials noted that the poisonous frogs were stressed and dehydrated. Special health and safety tip: When in Colombia, don't eat the frogs!
The woman going to Sao Paulo via Panama and in her luggage, authorities found the less than five centimeters frogs in a small film canister.
Bogota Environment Secretary Adriana Soto said that Harlequin frogs were a gift to the woman in southern Colombia.
Local police said the amphibians can be valued at nearly $1,000 each.
Bogotá Environment Secretary said the fine for possessing these frogs — less than five centimeters could reach 56 million pesos — $14,300.
These frogs are also called poison-dart frogs (Oophaga histrionica) as their glands present on the skin can produce toxic poison. In the past, the toxic poison has been used to coat the tips of the darts for hunting as they are effective in killing small animals.
These frogs measuring nearly the size of a human thumb Harlequin are considered endangered species. They are found in humid forests along the Pacific coast between Ecuador and Colombia, and in other countries in Central and South America.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2024 00:00 ||
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[46 views]
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#1
In case you want to know. These frogs are a PITA to breed successfully in captivity since the tadpoles need to be fed infertile eggs laid by the mama frog to feed them. Hence the high price. BTW Harlequin frogs are totally different from dart frogs but also are high value to collector frogs.
From NOAA
Heavy snowfall and intense snowfall rates of 2-4"/hr are likely in the highest elevations of the Shasta/Siskiyou/Trinity ranges
Wednesday then down the length of the Sierra Nevada Wednesday
night into Thursday, where multiple feet of snow is likely above
8000ft or so.
As the moisture and lift press inland late Thursday, a broad area locally heavy mountain snow (snow levels generally 5000-7000ft) spreads over central ID, the Basin and Range of NV, all UT ranges, northern AZ along the Mogollon Rim, and the San Juans in southwestern CO where Day 3 snow probs for over 6" are at least moderate. 40 to 60 percent probs for over 12" are noted for the San Juans on Day 3 (00Z Fri- 00Z Sat).
----- Lots of rain at lower elevations and much of CA is in a flood watch. The snow level will be fluctuating between 4k' and 9k' which is bad because drivers may begin a trip thinking all is good but get caught in heavy snow. To add to the problem, another major storm is forecast for Sunday to Tuesday next week.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/31/2024 00:00 ||
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[23 views]
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#1
Powerful climate change, powerful...
[insert Yoda graphic]
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/31/2024 2:14 Comments ||
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#2
Much of SoCal is already saturated by last Monday's storm
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/31/2024 6:50 Comments ||
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#3
The snow level will be fluctuating between 4k' and 9k'
Man, that's a lot of snow! Last time we had that much snow was Glacial Maximum about 20,000 years ago. Thankfully, most of it has melted since then. All praise Global Warming!
[FoxNews] One of the alleged atttackers reportedly has 2 pending cases for assault and robbery
A pair of New York City police officers were allegedly attacked by several migrants near Times Square over the weekend, with the suspects later being released without bail following their arrest.
Surveillance footage released by the New York Police Department shows an NYPD officer and lieutenant telling the migrants to move along around 8:30 p.m. Saturday on West 42nd Street in Manhattan, the New York Post reported. A scuffle ensues as the officers are seen apparently trying to subdue someone on the ground.
The suspects are then seen kicking the officers before running off before being arrested a short time later. The NYPD identified the suspects to Fox News Digital as Darwin Andres Gomez Izquiel, 19, Kelvin Servat Arocha, 19, Wilson Juarez, 21, Jhoan Boada, 22, and Yorman Reveron, 24.
They were all charged with assault and released without bail, sources said. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office told Fox News Digital that an investigation into the incident is ongoing.
"We now have additional video surveillance that was not available at the time of arraignment and are continuing to speak to witnesses in order to determine the specific role of each defendant," the DA's office said in a statement.
The unidentified officers sustained minor injuries and were treated at the scene. One officer sustained cuts to the face while the other had bruising to the body, according to sources.
"Attacks on police officers are becoming an epidemic, and the reason is a revolving door we’re seeing in cases like this one," said Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry in a statement posted to social media. "It is impossible for police officers to deal effectively with crime and disorder if the justice system can’t or won’t protect us while we do that work."
Reveron has two pending cases in Manhattan for assault and robbery, the newspaper reported. He allegedly attacked a loss prevention officer at a Macy's department store during an alleged robbery and allegedly punched and bit a Nordstrom Rack employee in November.
[GEO.TV] North Korea ...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche... n media reported Wednesday that a missile drill was conducted on January 30 by the country's army to evaluate and improve the forces' striking capability, as the rising regional tensions are forcing the US and its regional allies to prepare for any aggression from Pyongyang.
The KCNA reported that "the drill made a contribution to checking the KPA's (Korean People's Army)rapid counterattack posture and improving its strategic striking capability."
It also added that the cruise missile was strategic, referring to nuclear-capable weapons.
The report confirmed the launches of Tuesday involving multiple cruise missiles into the sea off its west coast as noted by the South Korean military.
The latest test for the missile called "Hwasal-2" marks the third time Pyongyang has tested cruise missiles in less than a week.
Earlier, KCNA also reported that North Korea's Kim Jong-Un supervised the launch of the crucial strategic missiles Pulhwasal-3-31 Monday, adding that the launches of the two missiles were conducted via submarine above the East Sea and hit their target, without providing additional details.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/31/2024 00:00 ||
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[21 views]
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[FoxBusinessNews] Public pension funds have invested more than $68B in China since 2020
Billions in American public pension funds have flowed into China over the last few years, a concerning trend for some experts who have noted the growing tensions between the U.S. and Beijing.
A report by Future Union, a bipartisan nonprofit, found that U.S. public pension funds have invested over $68 billion in China since 2020, despite worsening relations between the two countries during the same period.
The report, which was obtained by the New York Post, found that 56 of the 74 largest American pension funds have put money into the Chinese market during the span, with the report noting that the money has contributed to the "technological advancement of China."
"In the past 12 months, 24 investments alone have been made [into venture capital and private equity funds in China,] which should be acknowledged as support for the technological advancement of China," the report said. "Our research indicates four of the largest US public pensions have invested in China in the last few months."
One of the largest funds investing in China is the New York State Common Retirement Fund, the report found, which has invested more than $8.3 million in the Chinese market. Other top public pension funds have also invested billions, including the California Public Employees Retirement System, the California State Teachers System, the Washington State Investment Board, San Francisco Employees Retirement System and the Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System, which have all invested between $3.2 billion and $7.86 billion in China.
All told, U.S. public pension funds have invested more than $73.28 billion in China.
Future Union Executive Director Andrew King told the New York Post the trend of pouring money into China is concerning, most notably as a result of the national security threat posed by China.
"The threat posed by China to America’s national security is clear, yet the managers of our retirees’ pensions and university endowments continue to feign ignorance and rue accountability, undermining America’s national interests," King said. "That must end now."
#1
California's CalPers tops the list! SEIU through and through, so my only hope is the commies will try and shield their commie brethren in Sacramento from the worst of it
UPS announced that they will cute 12,000 jobs on Tuesday The company's income has declines by $1.87billion in the past year
A spokesperson for UPS said that 75 percent of the cuts are set to take place in the first half of the year
The layoffs come just five months after UPS and Teamsters reached a $30billion deal with its 340,000 person- union, avoiding a potentially crippling strike
The deal pushed the company's full-time worker's hourly pay to $49 and $21 an hour for part-time employees
#1
The layoffs come just five months after UPS and Teamsters reached a $30billion deal with its 340,000 person- union, avoiding a potentially crippling strike
Amazon cuts jobs, UPS cuts jobs.
The Pandemic is over and people are going to stores in mass, and/or are too BROKE due to sprinkflation buy.
UPS & Amazon are both feeling the Biden Economy.
Even the Bins (loss or unwanted returns) places are seeing the decline in shipping, vendors tossing it and etc.. mistakes
#5
Walmart's package delivery system is still expanding. Probably took a bite out of UPS and maybe also Amazon.
Posted by: lord garth ||
01/31/2024 8:07 Comments ||
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#6
I've had multiple times a UPS driver said he couldn't find my house. No notice from UPS about this. I found out because I didn't receive the pharmaceuticals sent so I contacted the pharmaceutical company. I then contacted the UPS center that services my area. Each time my package was there. I had to drive 60 miles round trip to get them. The nice lady handling this told me they were having trouble with the younger drivers not wanting to do the work. I am one of 2 houses on a dead-end road.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/31/2024 10:40 Comments ||
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#7
Contracting down to what a no-Covid level would have looked like? People not getting their credit cards paid off?
#8
Won't be long before there's a "carbon tax" on all deliveries.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/31/2024 12:35 Comments ||
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#9
My example of UPS:
Package shipped UPS on 3-10-22, and lost the same day.
Package value over at $1,500 and insured it for $500.
(NBC Full body suits and Protective Vests with insert plates, various C-19 related supplies and etc...)
Based on Tracking data, UPS lost the package at the Warehouse.
Months later the UPS driver told me UPS Mgt. fired something like 23 of the 40 warehouse workers due to "Handling errors".
It was handled all internally and no Police or FBI was ever involved.
[Breitbart] The Czech Republic´s government signed an agreement with the United States on Monday to acquire 24 U.S. F-35 fighter jets as part of a deal worth about 150 billion Czech koruna ($6.6 billion), the biggest single purchase for the Czech military.
Czech Defense Minister Jana Cernochová and U.S. Ambassador Bijan Sabet signed a memorandum of understanding for the deal. The Czechs also signed a letter of offer and acceptance, the final step in completing a contract between the governments, the Czech Defense Ministry said.
“By signing this intergovernmental agreement, our country and also our army enter a new era,” Cernochová said.
The Czech government approved the deal in September.
The first of the 24 fighter jets should be delivered in 2031, with the rest by 2035. The American aircraft will replace the 14 JAS-39 Gripen fighter jets from Sweden that are currently used by the Czech army.
The Czechs will pay almost $5 billion to the U.S. for the aircraft, training of pilots, ammunition and other costs, Cernochová previously said. The remaining money will be used to finance an upgrade of the Caslav air force base in central Czech Republic, fuel and training of staff, she said.
“The F-35 is the only system that can help us succeed in the future´s battlegrounds, and that in the case of need, we´ll manage to effectively defend ourselves against aggression, together with our allies,” chief of the general staff Lt. Gen. Karel Rehka said.
The Czech ministry has been negotiating the deal with the U.S. for more than a year during Russia´s invasion of Ukraine.
[Washington Examiner] The Biden administration is spending tens of thousands of dollars on a new Space Camp program bringing teenagers in Libya to the United States so they can "experience being an astronaut," the State Department told the Washington Examiner.
The program, which will see up to 20 students from the North African country attend Space Camp in August for one week in Huntsville, Alabama, is being run through the U.S. Embassy to Libya, which was evacuated and closed in 2014 due to violence in Tripoli just two years after attacks on U.S. government facilities in Benghazi. For its implementation, the State Department awarded $135,267 to Amideast, a charity in Washington, D.C., focused on creating "life-changing opportunities for education and cultural exchanges" between foreign countries and the United States, the agency said.
"You’ve got to question the rationale behind it," said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN), who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "Liberals see this and think it’s a great idea. They think it’s going to change what Libya thinks of America, and it won’t. It just doesn’t work because they hate our country, and as long as they’re burning the American flag, I just don’t think we ought to have anything to do with them."
The forthcoming August Space Camp is a window into how the federal government routinely partners with foreign nations and obscure organizations on initiatives that Republicans say are a classic waste of taxpayer dollars, often leading to lawmakers demanding grant records from Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Federal spending documents show the program is being administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The budget deficit and rising national debt could lead the United States to a “death spiral,” said economist and trader, author of the best-selling book “Black Swan” Nassim Taleb, quoted by Bloomberg.
In his opinion, the shortage of money in the federal treasury is growing at such a rate that it will take a miracle to reverse the damage.
“As long as Congress continues to expand the debt limit because it is afraid of the consequences of doing the right thing—that is the structure of the political system—eventually a debt spiral will form. And a debt spiral is like a death spiral,” Taleb explained.
President Trump offered a budget to start fixing that in 2017. But Congressional Republicans were not interested, so he gave up. Hopefully the next lot will be more enthusiastic.
He also noted that the current situation forces a “somewhat gloomy” attitude towards the political system of the Western world. Due to globalization, the economist added, the world has become much more interdependent and problems in the economy of one region can ricochet around the world.
As Regnum reported, earlier the head of the American bank JPMorgan James Dimon said that the impressive national debt had pushed the US economy to the “cliff edge.” The banker agreed with the opinion of former Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan, who called the national debt an increasing snowball with the most predictable crisis in US history.
In January, the US Treasury reported that the national debt exceeded $34 trillion, increasing by $4 trillion during 2023. The White House has repeatedly called on Congress in 2023 to increase the debt limit.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen noted that such an increase in public debt is frightening. At the same time, she noted that the country’s economy is huge in scale, and the US foreign debt is supposedly quite manageable.
#1
...We are going to literally wake up one morning and have hit the wall, with the President coming on a few hours later to tell us that 'difficult choices must be made."
Social Security and 401ks - gone. Defense spending - cut by at least half. That will be just the start, and the inevitable inquiry afterwards will be full of people swearing that they had no idea what was coming.
Pretty much all of them are, I imagine, or one of the other faiths in that part of the world.
[Breitbart] The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has reportedly discovered the ruins of an ancient Hindu temple beneath a mosque that was built in the city of Varanasi in the 17th Century.
The discovery could be an explosive development in a bitter dispute between Indian Hindus and Muslims, who are already fighting over the site in court.
The structure at the heart of the controversy is the Gyanvapi Mosque, which was built in the Uttar Pradesh city of India in 1669 by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir.
The Mughal Empire, which lasted from 1526 to 1761, was an expansionist power founded by distant descendants of Genghis Khan. Its rulers were Muslim, but tolerant of other faiths, which helped them manage their conquests more efficiently.
The Mughals were blessed with capable leaders, including Aurangzeb, who was by all accounts a genius – but he was not especially tolerant of other faiths. Some modern scholars argue that his reputation for bigotry is exaggerated, and his real mistake was trying to expand his territory too aggressively, but the empire was unquestionably less harmonious by the time he was finished.
Aurangzeb was an autocratic ruler who discarded many of the sectarian reforms of his predecessors, restored odious customs like the jizya tax on unbelievers, barred other faiths from building temples, and then decided the Hindus and other religions had a few too many temples for his taste. Some of his nobles refused to carry out his orders, and rebellion began brewing in the formerly well-managed Mughal Empire.
Future emperors tried to turn things around and restore the harmony of the old empire, but it was never quite the same again, in part because none of Aurangzeb’s more conciliatory successors were as gifted as the great rulers of old.
The once-mighty empire dissolved into provincial squabbles and its remnants were swept away by a Persian invasion in 1739. The last Mughal emperor was still puttering around in 1858 when the British took control of India.
This rich and tragic history offers something to annoy just about everyone in modern India. Many contemporary Muslims regard Aurangzeb as a legendary hero, while others think he ruined what could have been one of the greatest Muslim states. To modern Hindu nationalists, he is one of the worst despots and oppressors in India’s history. Aurangzeb’s name comes up very frequently in Hindu nationalist speeches, and they are not fond of the Mughal emperors who preceded him, either.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for example, denounced Aurangzeb’s “atrocities” and “terror” in a December speech at the disputed mosque in Varanasi.
“He tried to change civilization by the sword. He tried to crush culture with fanaticism,” said Modi. “Even though Aurangzeb severed many heads, he could not share our (Hindu) faith.”
The exact details of the Gyanvapi Mosque’s construction centuries ago has been a subject of great dispute in recent years.
Hindus and Muslims have both made use of the site for prayers, with a single wall separating temple and mosque – but in April 2022, a group of Hindus who worship at the site filed a court petition to gain access to the mosque for prayers, claiming it was built on top of a venerable temple that was razed by Aurangzeb, and sacred Hindu relics were still buried beneath the ground used by Muslims – directly underneath a bathing pool that is essential to Muslim religious practices.
Muslims denounced the claim as one of several attempts by Hindu nationalists to seize control of land by claiming a Hindu temple once existed there. The court decided to order a survey of Gyanvapi by archaeologists to settle the issue.
Prior to the beginning of the survey, the major piece of physical evidence introduced by the Hindu petitioners was a shivling, a piece of stonework said to represent the god Shiva, or at least part of him. The shivling and its symbolism became a topic of heated debate on a June 2022 televised panel discussion of the Gyanvapi controversy, which resulted in several people losing their jobs after saying unkind things about each others’ religions.
The survey by ASI has evidently been completed and, while the final report is under wraps for the moment, leaks suggest further evidence of a Hindu temple beneath the mosque has been discovered. The court has ordered the full report to be made public soon.
“Remnants of the statues of Hindu gods have been found in the basements during the court-ordered survey,” declared plaintiffs’ lawyer Vishnu Shankar Jain on Thursday. “It can be said that there existed a large Hindu temple prior to the construction of the existing structure.”
According to Jain, the ASI found evidence that some of the Hindu temple structure was repurposed for the mosque built during Aurangzeb’s reign.
“Whatever the Hindu side is saying is false reporting,” retorted Akhlaq Ahmad, a lawyer for the Muslim petitioners in the case.
The situation is even more fraught because Modi just finished dedicating a massive new Hindu temple in the city of Ayodhya that was built on the ruins of a 16th-century mosque. The mosque was leveled by an angry Hindu mob in 1992. Dismayed Muslims said Modi’s consecration ceremony was intended as a declaration of absolute Hindu religious supremacy in India.
[Federalist] The U.S. Department of Defense plans to revamp its assisted reproductive technologies (ART) policies to ensure service members’ taxpayer-funded benefits cover the creation of motherless and fatherless children via in vitro fertilization for single and same-sex soldiers.
The policy change stems from a lawsuit brought by an abortion and transgender activist group against both the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs over their requirements for ART like in vitro fertilization, egg and sperm retrieval, and egg and sperm cryopreservation.
DOD and VA rules previously limited morally and ethically prohibited the reproductive procedures funded by hardworking Americans’ dollars to service members and veterans who were married to someone of the opposite sex, could use their own gametes for any ART procedures, and had received an infertility diagnosis linked to injury, illness, or a service-connected disability.
When the National Organization for Women’s New York City Chapter (NOW-NYC), represented by Yale law students, filed a federal complaint over the "exclusionary coverage limitations" in August 2023, however, the Pentagon pivoted. NOW-NYC initially alleged the DOD and VA’s policies are "arbitrary," unconstitutional, and violate the Affordable Care Act because they don’t force taxpayers to pay for overcoming natural biological limits for soldiers who are LGBT, unmarried, or want to buy sperm or eggs.
#5
You can make the nature/nurture argument for fancy lads and ladies, at least those which are not hedonists. But Trany’s are made. I can think of few things more fanatical than body disfigurement as a social marker for membership.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Gregor Spitzen
[REGNUM] The 100 billion euro special budget adopted back in April 2022 was intended to make the German Armed Forces “fit for war,” bringing the Bundeswehr out of a state of permanent degradation. However, the method of extinguishing a fire with banknotes, which had worked for many years in prosperous Germany, failed this time.
€100 billion is already running out, and the German army is still a pale shadow of its Cold War self.
SHORTAGE OF CLERKS, WELDERS AND IT SPECIALISTS
“More than €60 billion from the special fund has already been allocated to contracts, in other words, we have placed an order and are waiting for industry to fulfill it,” says Annette Lechnigk-Emden, head of the Bundeswehr procurement department, without specifying how much money is from the special fund fell specifically to German military-industrial complex enterprises.
The Bundeswehr managed to use a special fund to finance purchases that had been delayed for years. For example, to purchase new fighters, infantry fighting vehicles and ammunition. However, several representatives of the military industry warn that this is not enough to sustainably strengthen the armed forces and create an effective defense industry.
President of the Society for Security Policy (GSP) and former Defense Commissioner Hans-Peter Bartels acknowledges progress in equipping the Bundeswehr: “But we still see staff shortages in the procurement office, with the number of orders increasing many times over.”
That is, the German Ministry of Defense is currently not only unable to effectively rearm the army and recruit new recruits, but even to staff its own commissariat department with clerks.
In addition, the industry “still has supply bottlenecks” and the capacity of the German military-industrial complex has not yet been sufficiently increased in accordance with the international situation and the associated economic situation.
According to experts, the reason for this is that the federal budget “does not provide sufficient planned security.” Translated from bureaucratic German into colloquial Russian, this means that the market economy of the Federal Republic of Germany in a crisis could clearly benefit from such a relic of the times of the socialist GDR, which has died in the Bose, as a planned national economy.
It is precisely this planning that the companies of the German military-industrial complex lack.
“70–80% of German defense suppliers are medium-sized companies that require a planning horizon of 8–10 years,” says Martin Kroell managing director of Hamburg-based Bundeswehr supplier Autoflug.
Defense manufacturers need a signal that additional funds will be allocated to permanently increase capacity, and will not be a one-time event that does not justify investment in expansion of production: “Lots of personnel and capital are needed to return the industry to the productivity levels of the 1980s, when companies supplied the largest volumes of products. Today we lack armor steel welders, as well as software specialists for the digitalization of data transmission.”
WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO?
For a long time, the Bundeswehr had to cope with a shortage of funds. The government only changed its position after Scholz's "change of eras" speech in February 2022.
This year, Germany will spend about €20 billion from the special fund on top of the regular budget of €52 billion, thereby meeting NATO's target of 2% of GDP for defense spending for the first time.
Almost €35 billion has been earmarked for procurement, materiel maintenance and defense research, according to the government's 18th report published on Monday.
Planned projects include a new short-range air defense system, a heavy armored personnel carrier, a further development package for the Eurofighter, two F126 frigates and long-range artillery.
But the new pace of procurement cannot be sustained unless policymakers increase the defense budget in the long term, industry officials warn.
To keep military spending at 2% of GDP, the regular defense budget must be increased by at least €25 billion per year starting in 2028, when the special fund is spent.
The government is aware of the problems, but has not yet found a long-term funding model that goes beyond a special fund. The discussion about this is just beginning.
The creation of a second special fund would be one option to solve the problem, but this is likely to meet resistance from the Ministry of Finance, headed by the leader of the Free Democrats (FDP) Christian Lindner.
It all comes down to good old squabbles within the “traffic light coalition” again. Savings in the social budget planned by the FDP will never be spent on the SPD, which is strenuously building itself up as a progressive party of defenders of the working people, and many “greens,” even having turned from truly “green” pacifists into “olive-green” militarists, see even more the urgent need for priority investments in climate-neutral economic reorganization.
"RUSSIAN THREAT"
Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) is confident that Germany “now has about five to eight years to catch up – both in the armed forces and in industry and society.”
According to government military experts, it is during this time that Russia will compensate for its losses from the war in Ukraine. Although what the “expert” analytics are based on remains a mystery.
Former colonel and member of the Bundestag Roderich Kiesewetter (CDU) believes that the “Russian threat” is even more pronounced.
“I believe that we only have one to two years left to be able to credibly deter Russia,” he said at a recent conference of the German Defense Technology Union (DWT) in Bonn.
However, it does not appear that the industry will be able to change course and supply the materials needed to “contain Russia” in such a short time.
An example is the Leopard 2 main battle tank, which until 1990 was produced in series on an industrial scale.
Of the 3,000 Leopards that were once in service with the Bundeswehr, only 300 remain in service, and there are serious doubts that at least half of this number 100% meets the criteria for full combat capability.
Manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) now produces only 2 (two - sic!) tanks per month, partly because suppliers are forced to invest not in increasing productivity, but in expanding production volumes. There are not enough materials, specialists and personnel.
Another pressing issue is the future of the Eurofighter.
Martin Kroell, managing director of Autoflug, is currently waiting to hear whether the German government will order new Eurofighter combat aircraft from Airbus. If the order does not materialize, not only Airbus, but also suppliers such as Autoflug will reduce their capacity.
According to industry data, 25 thousand people are involved in the program in Germany. However, if the implementation of the defense order is up in the air, as has happened more than once, many of them may move to other industries. Chancellor Scholz, who made a pointed visit to the Eurofighter production complex in Bavaria in mid-January, also knows about this - but does not make any firm promises to the military-industrial complex.
SCHOLZ, WHERE ARE THE SHELLS!
The issue of purchasing ammunition is particularly acute at present.
Even before the start of the war in Ukraine, there was a shortage of shells for tanks and guns in Germany, so the fact that the Bundeswehr emptied its warehouses to help the Kyiv regime only worsened an already long-standing problem.
Through additional investment and fixed-purchase agreements, the EU Commission wants to give defense companies the impetus to build new factories or expand their capacity, but the target set last year of delivering one million artillery shells to Ukraine by March 2024 cannot be achieved as preparations for Ammunition production takes many months.
Rheinmetall is central to the modernization project.
This happened not only because the company from Düsseldorf has been the largest ammunition manufacturer in Europe for many years, but also because CEO Armin Papperger tried to increase the production capacity of the factories, even without firm guarantees from the government on defense orders.
In addition, unsuccessful defense projects such as the G36 rifle, the NH 90 transport helicopter and the A400M military transport still have bitter consequences for both the German military budget and the reputation of German gunsmiths.
In particular, the giant transport planes built by Airbus have become a major irritant in the dispute between industry and politicians in the Bundestag. Airbus and its military transporter were unable to meet either the deadline or the cost, and the resulting product in the end did not fully meet the characteristics required by the Ministry of Defense. Only when Berlin promised an additional payment of a billion euros and delayed acceptance did former Airbus chief Tom Enders decide to resume deliveries.
DECLINE OF MILITARY SPIRIT
Financial, personnel and technical difficulties are by no means the only obstacle to the revival of the Bundeswehr.
The combat effectiveness of the army is also influenced by military traditions, continuity of generations, the system of military-patriotic education of youth and the level of public prestige of the military profession. Everything that defines such an important, albeit ephemeral concept as “fighting spirit”.
For many years, Germany has been unable to boast of any of the above.
The reason is that a man in military uniform was perceived in Germany through the prism of the eras of the Second and Third Reich, as an image of a potential putschist, just looking for the moment to plunge the country into the abyss of another fascist dictatorship, to join the Reichsburgers or become neo-Nazis.
School psychologists took seriously the responsibility of German children who dared to declare their desire to connect their fate with the army, the special forces of the Bundeswehr were purged of their best personnel on the basis of politically incorrect messages in general chats, and at the head of the army, as if in mockery of the few real officers who still remained in the ranks Bundeswehr, were appointed by women whose blatant incompetence is now beyond doubt even among the most orthodox feminist.
The above problems, which began to accumulate in the Bundeswehr under Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, multiplied under Ursula von der Leyen and reached their apogee under Christina Lambrecht, are unlikely to be solved over the next 20 years, even if a public consensus is reached on the army issue.
But optimists who pray for the new Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius, who, compared to his predecessor, really appears as a model of competence and common sense in matters of public administration, are pleased at least that money has finally been found for rearmament.
However, in order to once again become anything resembling a combat-ready army, the German armed forces need to run the marathon distance in an Olympic record. But there are simply no optimists in today’s Germany who believe that this is possible during the lifetime of the current generation of German politicians.
#4
I am told that the reason that the armored vehicles are slow walked is because the German government payments are slow walked.
AutoFlug and Rheinmetal have adopted a 'cash and carry' policy
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/31/2024 19:18 Comments ||
Top||
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Some foods that are unreasonably called “harmful” should not be excluded from your diet. Doctor Ekaterina Volkova announced thison her Telegram channel.
According to her, often nutritionists, nutritionists and other nutritionists do not recommend eating certain foods, including the most common ones. But don’t rush to switch exclusively to “arugula and farm cheese.” For example, you definitely shouldn’t forbid yourself from buckwheat, butter and fruits. Or Tacos!
“You can and should eat cereals, because they are complex carbohydrates that give us energy and the ability to keep our sugar levels even,” the doctor explained.
Buckwheat should be eaten with fiber, fruits should be eaten after the main meal, and 20-30 grams of butter will only bring benefits, she added.
Volkova also advised choosing whole grain cereals and reminded that the saturated fats found in oil are very necessary for the body.
As reported by IA Regnum, Natalya Silina, a nutritionist at the National Medical Research Center for Endocrinology of the Russian Ministry of Health, previously advised reducing the consumption of mayonnaise, sausage, ice cream and other foods with excess saturated fats and added sugars in order to prolong youth.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[GEO.TV] At least 130 highly poisonous Harlequin frogs were recovered from the luggage of a Brazilian woman in Bogota airport, Colombia who was trying to illegally transport them, according to the airport officials.
Bogota Environment Secretary Adriana Soto said that Harlequin frogs were a gift to the woman in southern Colombia.
...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
[Washington Examiner] The Biden administration is spending tens of thousands of dollars on a new Space Camp program bringing teenagers in Libya to the United States so they can "experience being an astronaut," the State Department told the Washington Examiner.
