Innocent Bystanders

Big Picture, Interrupted September 28, 2026

Been busy lately workin’, so the continuation of the Big Picture series has been delayed. This meme has some of the points I’m going to make.

H/T: Ninety Miles from Tyranny

No Election Integrity For You! September 22, 2026

A brief interlude between posts about Trump’s Big Picture…

I’m not sure how much of this is true, but if it is, it would certainly explain something that’s been troubling me for years:

Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne sat down with Pete Santilli for the first installment of a Gateway Pundit exclusive election 2026 series and laid out what he calls years of fieldwork into foreign election-manipulation technology.

…

Byrne said sources demonstrated equipment that could spit out any result, leave no audit trail, and defeat verification. At Byrne’s prompting, one source told Flynn the network had manipulated elections for twenty years across seventy-two countries — a moment Byrne called among the most dramatic of his life.

Patrick Byrne also estimated that around 25% of Democrat votes today may actually be fraudulent.

It was that last line that got me. I’ve long wondered why the Dems were so rabid about protecting the flaws in election integrity. I mean, it’s obvious that they want to gain an advantage, but they take it to such ridiculous lengths . . .

But if that last line is true, then they’re not fighting for an advantage – they’re fighting for survival. They’d be extinct without the ability to manipulate elections.

And, of course, being out of power increases their chances of getting caught and punished for their iniquities. That would explain their unhinged opposition to election integrity measures quite handily.

Final note: apparently China is involved (read the article). Again, I don’t know how reliable any of this is, but at least that keeps this post more in line with the Big Picture theme.

Trump’s Big Picture, Part II September 22, 2026

The Chinese Threat

Ten years ago the War on the Rocks site posted an article entitled “A New Generation of Unrestricted Warfare.”* In it, the authors discuss a 1999 treatise by two senior Chinese military members. That book, Unrestricted Warfare, talked about expanding the conflict with adversaries (specifically the United States) beyond traditional war, into the realms of culture, economics/finance, terrorism, media, etc. And by “etc.” I mean that they didn’t exclude any aspect of life where advantage might be gained.

To give you a more comprehensive look at what they’re thinking, here’s a table taken directly from their work:

The one area I don’t see, an area that they have used with great frequency and success, is Bribery Warfare. It is my belief that a large number of academicians, media personalities, and politicians, have been bought by China (either with money or women ==> I’m looking at you, Mitch McConnell). I suppose you could consider it (bribery) a tool rather than a class of warfare, but its prevalence makes me want to see it explicitly listed.

So what’s the point of all these non-military warfare options? I’m not going to talk about everything – some of them are obvious and many of them are covered elsewhere. I’m going start with the least warlike of their activities before getting into the nastier stuff.

Promoting China

The most benign warfare activity is to promote the popularity of China and its culture in our country. It’s hard to fight a country once you’ve developed an affection for it. Hence the large number of Chinese Culture Centers and Confucious Institutes we enjoy. [My children’s elementary/middle school had Chinese language lessons from one of these places. Didn’t think about how inscrutably nefarious it was at the time, but now I can see how we were unwitting victims of their schemes.]

Amazingly, the danger was recognized, to an extent, and some of these inroads have been rolled back. From a 2022 report by the National Association of Scholars:

In the last four years, Confucius Institutes have rapidly closed down across the United States. Amid pressure from the FBI, the Department of State, Congress, and state legislatures, colleges and universities have terminated their agreements for these Chinese language and culture centers sponsored by the Chinese government. Of 118 Confucius Institutes that once existed in the United States, 104 have closed or are in the process of doing so. …

Why did Confucius Institutes close? Chronologically, most closures followed a nationwide reckoning with the sheer scale of the Chinese Communist Party’s overseas influence campaign. Confucius Institutes, the Thousand Talents Program, the Chinese Students and Scholars Association—these and many other Chinese government-backed programs grew to such size that the United States started paying attention, and quickly realized that the Chinese government’s largesse came with strings attached.

I’ll just note that four years before 2022 would be 2018 – who was president then? Oh yeah . . . And it’s great that they responded to the incursion, but unfortunately:

The demise of Confucius Institutes (CIs), one of China’s most strategic beachheads in American higher education, has not deterred the Chinese government from seeking alternative means of influencing American colleges and universities. It has used an all-of-the-above approach to protecting its spheres of influence on American higher education, ranging from full-throated defenses of Confucius Institutes to threats. Among its most successful tactics, however, has been the effort to rebrand Confucius Institute-like programs under other names.

Education isn’t the only area, of course. From a post last month from the National Committee on US China Relations (the existence of which shows the continuing problem):

A Cool, Cute China: Chinese Cultural Influence in the United States. Over the past year, China-related products, aesthetics, and digital content have gained traction in the United States, from Chinese New Year marketing campaigns and consumer brands to memes, shopping apps, tourism videos, and C-dramas. This growing visibility marks a notable shift from the intense Sinophobia that peaked during the COVID-19 pandemic and amid heightened geopolitical tensions. 

Again, this was the least objectionable activity of the Chinese government, which wouldn’t have been objectionable (though they did propagandize for China pretty heavily) at all had it not been part of their overarching strategy.

*I had previously mentioned that there were a couple of good articles that inspired this series of posts. The first was “The Long Con: How America Was Trapped by the ‘Free Trial’ Grift” by Jack Gleason. That article had the link to the War on the Rocks piece.

Another Messed-Up Meme September 8, 2026

[lauraw got me digging into this more deeply, and it turns out that I’m misreading the author’s intent, and his numbers are correct. See the comments for more.]

Once again acting as the meme police. Here’s a well-intentioned but sadly errant meme:

Obviously one should add $146 million to $594 million to get $740 million, rather than subtracting $146M from $594M as they did.

The point would have been even stronger if they had done it correctly.

Comparing Carbon Emissions August 21, 2026

Just thought I’d remind people of this bit of reality:

China currently emits a third of the world’s carbon. I’m not convinced that’s the catastrophe that the climate change mafia thinks it is, but if you do believe it, rather than yelling at the US, you should probably focus your attention on the biggest emitter.

…who also happens to be increasing its emissions at a prodigious rate, despite having signed and ratified the Paris Agreement.

It’s Not All About Iran August 16, 2026

There’s a lot of speculation about the president’s reduced tempo strategy against Iran, with most of the focus being on how long Iran’s economy can survive strangulation by the blockade and freezing of assets. I think people need to broaden their vision a bit and consider how the situation is affecting our biggest concern – China.

One of the reasons that oil prices haven’t increased more than they have is that China, which had ~1.4 billion barrels of oil tucked away at the beginning of the year, is using its strategic reserve to reduce imports. But that means that it’s burning through its reserve to the tune of ~7 million barrels a day to make up the difference.

The article linked above suggests that sometime in the 3rd or 4th quarter, China will start feeling the pinch and will have to increase imports and/or cut consumption. The corollary to that is, if China can’t make up the difference somehow, its ability to conduct an extended military campaign is hampered.

I personally believe that Trump’s Iran strategy is a global strategy, and that he’s thinking that while we suffer a bit from the disruption of oil transport, other countries are feeling far more pain. And that strengthens our relative position.

As well as maybe slowing China’s territorial expansion roll.

That Moment . . . July 31, 2026

I don’t do social media (other than this antiquated blogging format), so I miss out on the latest trends. Fortunately Hot Air alerted me to a very recent one:

That moment as a kid when you realize that you’re definitely straight.

For me, it was Barbara Feldon, aka Agent 99 from Get Smart:

And my backup:

Yup – Karen Carpenter, who had the looks and the most amazing voice. If she was still around I think she would turn all the XY types straight. Might have the opposite effect on women, though.

Religion, Fauci Style July 27, 2026

Reading all the damning excerpts from the Fauci diary reminds one of how the media, celebrity, and political figures were fawning over him as he proceeded to trash the country’s economy, education, and health. While those on the right were unhappy with policies unsupported by data, and obvious illogicalities in many of the governments’ (federal, state, county & city) responses, those on the left (and some on the right) had no hesitation in embracing every suggestion Fauci (and Birx) made.

They had found religion.

COVID was the hand of fate that terrified them, and Fauci was the high priest of their religion: worshipping him wholly and sincerely might grant you immunity from COVID, so worship him they did. And the immunity they were granted due to their rightthink allowed them to flout the restrictions that non-believers were required to follow.

As for those non-worshippers? Well, they were vile apostates who deserved to be rounded up and put in camps.

Fauci, of course, accepted his priestly robes as if he was born to them, reveling in the attention and milking it as long as he could.

There is something in humanity that resorts to religious behaviors when confronted by unknown and/or unmanageable threats. It’s been true throughout recorded history, just as it’s true that there have always been those who took advantage of it. Fauci (and Birx) are just the latest incarnations of shamans who magnify the population’s terror to promote their own power.

Sad, because they could have been genuine heroes.

Fearing CO2 No More July 23, 2026

Back in 2023 I speculated that the reduction of air pollution might contribute significantly to global warming. I played with some data, concluding that based on a cursory look, reduction of sulphur dioxide (which turns into aerosols) might be responsible for half of the observed temperature increases.

In 2025 I noted that two articles were supportive of the idea, one claiming that 2/3 of the temperature increases could be attributed to sulphur dioxide reduction, and the other claiming that it might be as much as 5/6. That left me feeling pretty good.

But now I’m in danger of spraining my shoulder in my attempts to pat my back, ‘cuz:

Accelerated European Summer Warming Driven by Atmospheric Circulation Changes in Response to Aerosol Forcing

Abstract: …The analysis of a large ensemble of historical simulations shows that forcing factors generate changes in QSW and European summer temperatures consistent with those from observations but with a lower magnitude, making most of the observed changes predictable by the models through a signal adjustment. The analysis of single forcing experiments shows a major contribution of aerosols starting from 1980, when the reduction of sulfate aerosol emissions over Europe is associated with a longitudinal temperature asymmetry, which alters the atmospheric circulation.

So there you have it. My afternoon’s work almost 3 years ago turns out to have been roughly correct. Much of our concern with CO2 emissions is based on the effect of reducing sulphur dioxide emissions. It’s OK to breathe again.

Need to get me some shoulder liniment.