[ZERO] During an appearance on a podcast, comedian Trevor Noah
…the mixed race, South African comedian who integrates the room just by standing next to anyone else, no matter their race. His jokes would be funnier if he didn’t hate America…
suggested that the "integration" of black and white people in America was a mistake.
Noah said he had found himself "wondering" whether or not "integration was the right move," particularly in the context of schooling, referring to the 1960’s civil rights era and the end of segregation.
The comedian made it clear that he thought the "racism" brought about by segregation was a bad thing and that people shouldn’t have been punished for their skin color in terms of being discriminated against in society.
However, he then pointed out that Finland was a stable, prosperous and high trust society largely because it is overwhelmingly homogenous.
[HotAir] The fight over DOGE is both entertaining and instructive.
Entertaining because we get to see Democrats go crazy doing backflips to explain why USAID funding underwater basket weaving in Algeria is vital to the projection of American power and saving the lives of starving children, and instructive because we get to see what really motivates politicians who have hidden behind platitudes for decades.
This video put together by Newsbusters captures the reality of what Democrats are doing perfectly.
When you use AI to replace every mention of "our democracy" with "our bureaucracy," everything starts making a lot more sense. pic.twitter.com/XZ65HXfN9H
Democrats have been "weaponizing" the term "democracy" against Republicans for a long time now. It is a word that sounds good to most Americans because they (not quite rightly) think that is our proper form of government. Defending "democracy" definitely sounds good, so Democrats say it.
But of course they don't like Democracy; they like money and power, and the money and power they mostly control is through the government bureaucracy. The video works because with one simple trick you can decode the Democrat spin.
Fun, useful, and informative. A taste — go read the whole thing.
[MonsterHunterInternational] Watching everybody I know on the left pontificating about the proper way to conduct audits, after getting their accounting degrees from the University of Internet this week, is absolute cringe for me.
Guys, listen, I say this with love… You don’t know dick about shit and it’s fucking embarrassing. Just stop. You sound like idiots.
So now, as a guy who used to be an auditor, who has defended companies from dozens of audits from different government agencies, I’ll try to correct some of your incredibly stupid NPC talking points you keep endlessly barfing up.
First off, you need to know there’s a difference between an outside audit and an internal audit. An outside audit is when somebody who isn’t part of your company comes in and checks your stuff. This could be one of the fifty something government agencies that audit people/businesses, or this could be an outside CPA firm making sure you are in compliance for some reason (like the company is publicly traded). I’ll talk more about what CPAs are in a minute.
Then there are internal audits, where the person in charge has his own people audit his company, looking for problems, hoping to have everything in order before those 3rd party outsiders show up to check, or searching for fraud, waste, and abuse… You know, those annoying things that tend to screw you over and put you out of business. That’s the kind of auditing I mostly did.
An internal audit is what Donald Trump (the man in charge) is doing now, by having his people (DOGE) audit the executive branch he runs. CEOs and owners do this all the time.
You do not need to be a Certified PUBLIC Accountant to be part of an internal audit team.
In fact, even most CPA firms, auditing the biggest corporations in the world, the majority of the auditors doing the grunt work are NOT CPAs. Most government auditors are not CPAs.
CPA is a particular certification required for a few particular types of accounting, and that isn’t even close to what DOGE is doing.
Also most of the auditors for those big firms are YOUNG. They are usually around 24, because those are the dudes that the big firms can work 80 hours a week and they won’t just keel over and die. They do this kind of work BEFORE taking the CPA exam if they want to go that route, and most of them don’t, because they end up going from auditing into some other form of specialty.
These young auditors make up a team which is usually supervised by an NCO type who has got 5-7 years of experience (and may or may not be a CPA depending on the industry) and they all answer to somebody higher up, who has got the 10-20 years of experience. This will of course vary on the size of the company.
You do NOT need to be an accountant to be an auditor. Anybody who says this is a total dumb ass with zero grasp of how any of this shit works in real life. The people who make up your audit team are recruited from whatever skill sets are necessary to audit that particular system. I (the accountant) have been on audit teams with IT guys, programmers, lawyers, and even machinists. (why machinists, because I was auditing a factory, and I could count the parts, but I couldn’t tell you if the parts were bullshit or not)
So if you are auditing a computer system, then your auditors would obviously require computer people. Fucking duh, morons. Holy shit. The reason most auditors come from an accounting background is because most fraud, waste, and abuse comes from fuckery on the books. But if the fuckery is taking place in the particular systems before they get to the financials, that’s where we bring in systems experts.
#1
I love Larry Correia. A real no bullshit guy. He is 100% on target regarding needing to be an accountant. I was an E-6 11B4P; by definition 'not an accountant'. I was on an IG team auditing some prestigious colleges' ROTC units. We found that one such college had hundreds of ROTC students that had never signed their contracts. So the result was most ROTC students got the Army to pay for their tuition and they then blew off the Army upon graduation. Worse, the officers tried their utmost to pressure the IG team to NOT report this. Waste, fraud and abuse much? I was a straight arrow on this shit. Mutchly hated. As if anyone cares I suppose. I did my little bit.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/19/2025 3:41 Comments ||
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#2
Sorry about the typo(s). Three AM here.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
02/19/2025 3:42 Comments ||
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#3
For all that you have done, dear Whiskey Mike, and do now, we are thoroughly thankful.
There are plenty here who will know what that particular combination of letters and numbers means, but I shall have to be impressed on general principle. ;-)
#6
I wish Larry would do something similar for the profoundly and malevolently stupid on how personal financial information is (or is not) confidential/secret. I've known for decades that the feds know almost to the penny how much I'm worth, where my savings are, and how to destroy all that in a few keystrokes. I'm pretty sure none knows how my change I have in my pockets at the moment...
#7
I was a quality manager (and auditor) for transit and highway projects - internal audits of my employer (contractor) and external audits of suppliers. The Transit owner insisted I pass a 40 hour auditors course. There was no financial component.
Always tedious, hard work, but often fun. I think...
I asked, in writing, did you do what you said you would do? (compared to your approved quality plan.) Show me. Write a report.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/19/2025 11:18 Comments ||
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#8
Thinking back to my training (20 years ago), I recall hearing if you were going to do a really deep dive, on a big outfit (like GM), relevant experience is useful. But the auditor could bring (one of more) subject-matter experts. Such audits might be weeks long. Mine were all 4-6 hours.
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/19/2025 11:45 Comments ||
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[Townhall] Republican Senator Mike Lee is raising a key question about how the swamp became so swampy and why the Grand Old Party went along with it for years.
"The next time you hear House or Senate Republicans complaining about federal funds being used to fund studies on how cocaine-using, gender-non-conforming crayfish perform on a treadmill, ask them how many times they’ve joined nearly all Democrats to pass spending bills that (1) they never had the chance to read, much less debate or amend, and (2) were opposed by most Republicans," Lee posted on X.
"The easy, routine passage of such bills—without any meaningful opportunity for debate or modification, and supported by just enough Republican votes to ensure passage—all but ensures the perpetuation of excessive, wasteful spending," Lee continued. "This is a habit that must come to an end if we’re ever going to get federal spending under control. It’s a habit that can’t be blamed entirely on Democrats."
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/19/2025 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11130 views]
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#1
He makes great points..."The easy, routine passage of such bills—without any meaningful opportunity for debate or modification, and supported by just enough Republican votes to ensure passage—all but ensures the perpetuation of excessive, wasteful spending," Lee continued. "This is a habit that must come to an end if we’re ever going to get federal spending under control. It’s a habit that can’t be blamed entirely on Democrats."
[Yahoo] China’s new nuclear-battery attack submarine – a unique hybrid boat running on batteries like a conventional sub but which recharges them using a tiny nuclear reactor – could be the ultimate near-shore defence sub, and a big problem for US and allied forces in the western Pacific.
The submarine first appeared in commercial satellite imagery of the Wuchang shipyard in Wuhan, China back in April. Five months later, the Type 041 boat reportedly suffered an accident at its moorings – and apparently sank.
While observers wait for signs Wuchang is repairing that first Type 041 or building new examples of the class, analysts are scrutinising its potential capabilities. Most notably the type seems to have a unique propulsion system – one that sidesteps longstanding engineering challenges in order to deliver a quiet attack submarine for near-shore operations, one that can stay submerged for long periods of time in order to preserve its stealth. The Type 041 is reportedly the first submarine with a tiny nuclear reactor that, while too small to power the entire boat, is big enough to charge the batteries for submerged operations.
This is a novel approach to the problem of powering a mostly or entirely non-nuclear submarine while it’s underwater. Conventional diesel-electric submarines recharge their batteries using old-fashioned diesel engines. For that, they have to surface or at the least put up a “snort” air intake mast at periscope depth – potentially exposing them to detection and attack. The main alternative is to use nuclear power for propulsion, which produces a very capable boat but is very expensive.
#1
Like a Kilo class with a nuc instead of a diesel, with the problem that the reactor can't completely power the boat for extended periods.
What do you do when the batteries are flat but you need to keep moving?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/19/2025 12:25 Comments ||
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#2
What do you do when the batteries are flat but you need to keep moving?
You sink or surface. Submarines maintain a slight negative buoyancy, that requires making headway to maintain a stable depth. No headway and you start to sink.
Text is taken from a TASS interview with Kalashnikov CEO Alan Valerievich Lushnikov.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] - Alan Valerievich, at this exhibition, as we see, the concern is presenting many new products, especially in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles and guided loitering munitions. What would you highlight in particular?
- If you are asking about fundamentally new products, then these are, first of all, the latest systems with guided loitering munitions (UBB) "Kub-2E" of small and medium classes. These UBBs are maneuverable and equipped with optical-electronic systems, thanks to which operators can guide ammunition to targets even when the latter change their location. They perform very well in the SVO zone.
However, I would like to draw your attention not to specific products. It seems to me much more important that Kalashnikov has developed and launched into production a fairly wide range of UAVs and UBBs in a short time, which offers customers not just individual, albeit very effective products, but comprehensive solutions.
Actually, I, as a developer and manufacturer, believe that offering such a solution is much more important than simply delivering different products: the customer should not have to figure it out, he should receive a ready-made effective and precisely comprehensive solution!
- Which one exactly?
- For example, we have a very effective, I emphasize - civilian - multifunctional complex with an unmanned aerial vehicle "Skat-350M". It is designed for reconnaissance of the area and support of ground search and rescue operations. That is, in essence, it is a reconnaissance aircraft. And this civilian product has been effectively used by our units in the SVO zone for quite a long time.
"Skat" identifies a target and determines its coordinates. The operator enters the specified coordinates and directs one of our guided loitering munitions to hit the target. If the target is stationary, then "Kub-E" or "Kub-10E" can be used. If the target is moving or quasi-stationary, then the operator launches "Kub-2E" of small or medium class. "Skat-350M" not only performs target designation, but also carries out objective control of target destruction. Here is an example of a very good integrated solution.
- This is a solution with the "Skat" UAV. And the others?
— The same UBBs of the "Cube" family can work in tandem with our unmanned reconnaissance aircraft "Granat-4E": it, like the "Skat-350M", is capable of directing "Cubes" precisely to the target. However, if the "Skat-350M" is an electric UAV and can stay in the air for up to four hours, then the "Granat-4E" with an internal combustion engine can stay in the air for a longer period.
— And the "Goliath" and "Karakurt" copters?
— These are copter-type UAVs, but we also offer them in combination with the "Quasi-Mast" unmanned equipment lifting system. In our opinion, such a solution is ideal for reliable protection of stationary objects.
The "Quasi-Mast" rises to a height of 140 m at one point and can monitor the perimeter at a distance of up to 5 km around the clock, since it is powered by cable. Upon detection of an intrusion into the protected area, the Kvazimast records the violation, after which the operator transmits a command and the task force is sent to search for and neutralize the intruder.
The group moves out to search for the intruder with individual reconnaissance equipment — Goliath or Karakurt copters.
— The concern is presenting another product at the exhibition — the Kub-SM complex. How does it fit into this line?
— The Kub-SM is a fundamentally new product for us, a reconnaissance and strike complex with guided loitering munitions. In essence, the customer receives an all-inclusive service: reconnaissance, destruction, objective control, and adjustment. The complex has several features. It includes both guided munitions (UB) in transport and launch containers (TPC, 14 pieces in total), and a reconnaissance repeater based on an unmanned aerial vehicle in a TPC (2 pieces in total). Both types of aircraft are launched alternately from a launcher located in a combat armored vehicle. The takeoff of the drones is gas-dynamic from the TPK.
In fact, we are talking about a swarm use of UB. Therefore, this solution will be in demand by customers for use in large-scale operations, when we are talking not about single targets, but, for example, about a column of armored vehicles.
By the end of 2025, it is planned to manufacture prototypes of the product and conduct tests.
Actually, for several years now I have been writing that in the future, swarm-type UAVs launched in a package and capable of exchanging flight information with each other with subsequent automatic targeting will play a key role.
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.
[Townhall] Republican Senator 
