Althouse: Sunrise — 6:49, 7:00, 7:09, 7:13.

October 14, 2025

Sunrise — 6:49, 7:00, 7:09, 7:13.

Write about whatever you like in the comments.

90 comments:

Mason G said...: A student who self-identified as a Democrat at the University of North Carolina-Asheville joined Turning Point USA this past spring semester of 2025, as well as the College Democrats.

Guess how that went for him.; 10/14/25, 6:48 PM
narciso said...: Nice views

https://youtu.be/89Oc1UE7SS4?si=GYO7EhJ_gtlDq_j0; 10/14/25, 6:48 PM
Big Mike said...: @Althouse, I’d like to commission a poll. We should vote on how long it will take Hamas to deliberately kill as many Gazan civilians as the IDF killed accidentally while chasing Hamas.; 10/14/25, 6:49 PM
john mosby said...: I was in a Zoom for Ivy etc alums trying to organize against Trump’s academic counteroffensive (I don’t agree with them - was basically spying). They keep saying “academic freedom!” but what they mean is “freedom to do what we want with tax money!”

I had the news on with the sound off, and one of the stories is Hegseth’s new agreement that press have to sign in order to be allowed in the Pentagon. They similarly cried “press freedom!” but really mean “special privileges for established press outfits in a building that the general public - heck the general military population - doesn’t even get to enter.”

I would feel better if they were just saying these things as cover for what they really mean. But it’s worse than that: they really think freedom means special privileges.

In other words, they’re not trying to protect their phoney baloney jobs - they think their jobs are neither phony nor baloney! CC, JSM; 10/14/25, 6:52 PM
narciso said...: https://twitchy.com/justmindy/2025/10/14/hostage-was-held-by-first-grade-teacher-tal-shoham-n2420364; 10/14/25, 6:55 PM
narciso said...: She seems nice; 10/14/25, 6:56 PM
narciso said...: Yes its just freedom to lie, which fox and the washington times seem entitled to do; 10/14/25, 6:57 PM
narciso said...: https://x.com/profontheright/status/1949904197295755365; 10/14/25, 7:05 PM
bagoh20 said...: "Report: Trans identification in free-fall among young people"

The next in a long list of things the Left never saw coming, because they are dumb.

https://notthebee.com/article/trans-identification-was-surging-at-the-beginning-of-the-decade-and-now-its-in-free-fall; 10/14/25, 7:05 PM
Derve said...: Congrats ann.
You and meade have made a fine home for the angry old men who cheer the killing of children. Your man exposes his chest like Superman... all the dead kids. Win-ning. This winter is likey going to be brutal in America. You boomers just don't value life anymore. Your children have learned well what you've taught. You'll be safe in Madison, I am sure...; 10/14/25, 7:11 PM
Derve said...: Oh, Go Brewers. *giggle*
I want meade to get some tonight! lol; 10/14/25, 7:12 PM
Mason G said...: "Report: Trans identification in free-fall among young people"

You shouldn't have a problem finding any number of leftists who think this would be a bad thing.; 10/14/25, 7:12 PM
bagoh20 said...: I've hated them all my life, but as my parents would say: "all we are saying is give peas a chance".; 10/14/25, 7:14 PM
narciso said...: Its a fad like hula hoops but less reversable; 10/14/25, 7:15 PM
Original Mike said...: The cranes, boss, the cranes!

I'll have to see if I can figure out where they all are when we get back.; 10/14/25, 7:18 PM
TwoAndAHalfCents said...: Like we need another TDS story, but here is one anyway. The CEO of my very large company posted an open letter on the intranet celebrating the truce on Monday. Pretty standard stuff - peace good, death bad, etc. with no mention of the president. Within 30 minutes they had to shut down the comments because all the outraged lefties were flooding the board with comments about Portland and immigration and PBS and generic Orange Man Bad.
Can someone explain to me how a grownup would think it’s ok to post this kind of stuff at work? It’s not an appropriate venue for that kind of ‘discussion’ or maybe I’m just old fashioned. My hypothesis is there are a large number of people who got used to saying whatever popped into their heads over the past few years with zero pushback/repercussions and simply don’t know how/when to stop.; 10/14/25, 7:18 PM
Original Mike said...: I've acquired a fondness for mushy peas.; 10/14/25, 7:20 PM
narciso said...: Because demons must profess their hatred there is no other way to understand this; 10/14/25, 7:20 PM
n.n said...: It's not the trans (e.g. homosexual) spectrum, but simulants, specifically, that are not politically congruent ("=").; 10/14/25, 7:37 PM
Disparity of Cult said...: Visualize whirled peas.; 10/14/25, 7:37 PM
Aggie said...: Not to be awkward, but am I the only one that thinks that giving Charlie Kirk a Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously is a little too far over the top? Not taking anything away from his accomplishments, but are they at this kind of level - would he be getting the award if it wasn't politically helpful, as a result of his untimely death? There's only a couple hundred of these out there.; 10/14/25, 7:39 PM
n.n said...: Homosexuals, including bisexuals, are a stable orientation that is not prone to entertain abortive ideation, and does not pose a disparate risk to others of the same sex. Dysfunctional, but tolerable.; 10/14/25, 7:43 PM
hanuman_prodigious_leaper said...: how long it will take Hamas to deliberately kill as many Gazan civilians as the IDF killed
=========
will the Gazans hold still for Hamas to slaughter them?; 10/14/25, 7:46 PM
Big Mike said...: will the Gazans hold still for Hamas to slaughter them?

@hanuman, so far yes.; 10/14/25, 7:50 PM
john mosby said...: Aggie, ref the PMF for Charlie (hyd): I would argue that it's not prestigious enough. So many recipients have been artists, entertainers, political buds of the POTUS (Pelosi Galore! Soros!), people whose stars have since tarnished (LBJ, Bill Cosby). It seems like we use it as an all-purpose award that in other countries is parceled out into chivalric orders, peerages, or single-purpose commemorative medals.

Kirk (z''l), in full disregard of his personal safety, repeatedly exposed himself to known violent opposition in order to accomplish his mission of providing young adult Americans with an alternative to their schools' indoctrination, until he eventually fell to enemy fire. His actions reflect great credit on himself, Turning Point USA, the MAGA Movement, and the free American People.

If he had a civilian/non-war valor medal similar to the George Cross, that would be appropriate for him. CC, JSM; 10/14/25, 7:53 PM
hanuman_prodigious_leaper said...: @narciso
is on-its-side library building for real?; 10/14/25, 7:54 PM
NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...: TwoAndAHalfCents said...

My hypothesis is there are a large number of people who got used to saying whatever popped into their heads over the past few years with zero pushback/repercussions and simply don’t know how/when to stop.

"Social media made y'all way to[o] comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it." -- Mike Tyson, 2022; 10/14/25, 7:54 PM
Beasts of England said...: ’Not to be awkward, but am I the only one that thinks that giving Charlie Kirk a Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously is a little too far over the top?’

He was unique in re-introducing rational debate to college campuses (as absurd and paradoxical as that is). And, sadly, it may be the first exposure that many of these young people experienced. Free speech is being trampled around the world, largely fomented by universities, and there can be no liberty without it. I think it’s warranted.; 10/14/25, 7:57 PM
Eva Marie said...: José Andrés received the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded by President Joe Biden on January 4, 2025. He’s the founder of World Central Kitchen, recognized for his disaster relief efforts (e.g., feeding communities after hurricanes and in conflict zones like Ukraine).
There’s a photo Andrés posing with Ryan Wesley Routh (the would-be assailant arrested in September 2024 near Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course, close to Mar-a-Lago) in Kyiv, Ukraine, around 2022.; 10/14/25, 7:59 PM
Inga said...: Looks like these young Republicans didn’t buy into Charlie Kirk’s style of conservatism.

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat
Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape

“NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.

Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.

“Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued.”; 10/14/25, 8:00 PM
Eva Marie said...: Other medal honorees were Bono, Denzel Washington and Hillary Clinton.; 10/14/25, 8:01 PM
Eva Marie said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/14/25, 8:01 PM
Eva Marie said...: George Soros, Ralph Lauren, Michael J Fox, Magic Johnson and Anna Wintour were also recipients.; 10/14/25, 8:03 PM
john mosby said...: Eva Marie: Yeah, good example. In his native Spain, Andres would get some lower-level knighthood. In France, maybe the entry-level grade of the Legion d'Honneur. Here, he gets crammed into the same order as Cosby and Neil Armstrong. Maybe Trump can establish a whole spectrum of civilian medals, parallelling the military system. CC, JSM; 10/14/25, 8:03 PM
Big Mike said...: @TwoAndAHalfCents, corporations have changed a great deal in the decade plus since I retired if the people pushing back on the CEO don’t at least receive a letter of reprimand in their permanent personnel file, and more likely, a termination notice.

Was the CEO perhaps facing a need to “rightsize” the organization and looking for the dead wood to self-identify? Recall that after he bought X-formerly-Twitter an employee chewed on Elon Musk to his face, claiming to have been misgendered by the new boss. Musk claimed to have responded bu saying that his own pronouns are “you’re” and “fired.”; 10/14/25, 8:04 PM
Eva Marie said...: So no the PMofF is not prestigious enough for Charlie Kirk.; 10/14/25, 8:04 PM
Original Mike said...: Sure, Inga, sure.; 10/14/25, 8:16 PM
Kakistocracy said...: Whether it's young Democrats expressing their support for DEI or young Republicans saying "I love Hitler,' both sides have expressed controversial opinions.; 10/14/25, 8:30 PM
john mosby said...: Joy Reid's blatantly homophobic writings were found and had no impact on her career. Same with Trudeau's and Kimmel's blackface. The left always make excuses or just ignore their people's faux pas. So screw it: the RIght had better start doing the same thing.

Plus, you figure there was some sheep/lamb calculus going on: these kids were already endangering their futures by being Young Republicans, so any other transgression was just icing on the cake. CC/JSM; 10/14/25, 8:36 PM
Beasts of England said...: I’m glad Kak and Inga could enjoy a little endorphin rush this evening! I know it’s been a rough couple of months for the left…; 10/14/25, 8:36 PM
Michael Fitzgerald said...: Someone mentioned this morning, in comic aside, that AI will be using half the power generated in the world soon. But it got me thinking about an article I had just read on China's 3 Gorges Dam, which may or may not have been factual, and may or may not be correctly reported by me, but anyway... It said that the dam is so huge that it has slowed (or sped up...see, I can't remember the small stuff or even be bothered to look it up again) the rotation of the Earth by several microseconds. But what really got me thinking was the claim that 31 million homes had been displaced for the project, and it brings energy to 5 million homes. That seems like a trade-off that only government could rationalize. Also, couldn't a decent size nuclear plant power 5 million homes? Seabrook in New Hampshire was an old plant from the 70's that was the sole source of power in the state for decades, I think...
Anyway, if the information I just relayed is correct, 3 Gorges seems like the kind of dangerous, destructive, and retrograde project that only a colossal Communist Party government could create.; 10/14/25, 8:39 PM
Iman said...: Kak ‘n’ Igna wiggin’…

Suhweeeet!; 10/14/25, 8:50 PM
Mark said...: Eva Marie, I thought your side thought the many photos of Trump and Epstein proved nothing.

Now you insist that a single photo tarnishes someone's reputation lolololol?; 10/14/25, 8:50 PM
Iman said...: English Peas off the vine are a treat.; 10/14/25, 8:51 PM
Mason G said...: "It said that the dam is so huge that it has slowed (or sped up...see, I can't remember the small stuff or even be bothered to look it up again) the rotation of the Earth by several microseconds."

From wearewater.org:

"According to NASA experts, the Three Gorges Dam has caused the Earth to alter its rotation, increasing daylight hours by 0.06 milliseconds.

While the effect is real, it is trivial compared to other factors affecting Earth's rotation, such as tidal forces from the Moon, movements in the Earth's core, and large-scale seismic activity."; 10/14/25, 8:55 PM
Eva Marie said...: Trump has been up front about his dealings with Epstein.; 10/14/25, 8:59 PM
Iman said...: Dodgers appear to be screwin’ the Crew, no?; 10/14/25, 9:01 PM
Iman said...: “I know it’s been a rough couple of months for the left…”

Couple of months?!?! They’ve been getting the ever loving shit kicked out of ‘em for nigh on a year, lol.; 10/14/25, 9:04 PM
Eva Marie said...: “Eva Marie, I thought your side thought the many photos of Trump and Epstein proved nothing.”
Exactly. So photos of Trump with Epstein mean as little as the photo of the chef with the would be assassin.
Thank you.; 10/14/25, 9:06 PM
Andrew said...: Not the most important news, but I was saddened to see they’re remaking Amadeus. Are you kidding me? Of all the movies that absolutely does not need a remake, Amadeus is up there. Does Hollywood have a single creative idea left? How can they possibly improve upon Milos Forman’s version?

Oh wait, there is a way to improve Amadeus. Use a half-Japanese actor for the role of Mozart.

Anyway, here’s the trailer. Looks like it will be a TV miniseries. It ends with, “Believe in original stories.” Just shoot me.

https://youtu.be/tCooUh3plsI; 10/14/25, 9:06 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I'm going to start watching 'The Substance' (2024). It's a horror, but is has a very good Rotten Tomatoes rating. At almost 2 and a half hours, I probably wont finish it.; 10/14/25, 9:10 PM
Beasts of England said...: ’ They’ve been getting the ever loving shit kicked out of ‘em for nigh on a year, lol.

That is true, but I’m trying not to incite them to any further violence. And there’s another ‘No Kings’ protest in my small town this Saturday, so I have to err on the side of caution. lol; 10/14/25, 9:14 PM
Original Mike said...: ""According to NASA experts, the Three Gorges Dam has caused the Earth to alter its rotation, increasing daylight hours by 0.06 milliseconds."

That doesn't seem right. Daylight where? Increased daylight but not nighttime?; 10/14/25, 9:18 PM
Kakistocracy said...: US Treasury intervenes in Argentina’s currency market ~ FT

'Scott Bessent announces $20bn ‘currency swap framework’ with the South American country’s central bank'

Walking away with $20 billion of US taxpayer money so Bessent’s Wall Street cronies don’t lose their investments in Argentina.; 10/14/25, 9:28 PM
James K said...: Kaki has no idea what a 'swap' facility is.; 10/14/25, 9:31 PM
Hassayamper said...: am I the only one that thinks that giving Charlie Kirk a Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously is a little too far over the top?

Certainly not, but having seen the human dross and sewage that has received the award in prior years, due to their usefulness to the forces of statism and globalism, I'm quite willing to allow it.; 10/14/25, 9:40 PM
Kakistocracy said...: Hilarious — the Trump administration is gambling in FX markets with taxpayer money!

I thought they were conservatives. This will end the way every long peso trade ends.

US investors hold 71% of Argentina bonds. Some large holdings with hedge funds that have connections with Bessent. This is the only reason this happened. Rob Citrone (Discovery Capital) an old hedge fund friend of Bessent will have a chance to get out before the peso falls again.

In the same 24 hr news cycle, Bessent warns that the Fed over-reacted with QE2, if not also QE1, AND promises that Treasury will do whatever is necessary to defend the Argentine peso. Huh? Is this a jurisdictional thing--the Fed vs Treasury--or is this another example of Trump playing favorites--Qatar last week and Argentina this week, but never the US debt and equity markets?

If Soros were 25 yrs younger, he might short the Argentine peso like he did the British pound in 1992 when he and an associate made a killing--at the expense of the Bank of England. The associate's name? Scott Bessent.; 10/14/25, 9:42 PM
Big Mike said...: @Hassayamper, +1; 10/14/25, 9:42 PM
Jim at said...: Not to be awkward, but am I the only one that thinks that giving Charlie Kirk a Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously is a little too far over the top?

As opposed to Anna Wintour, Bill Nye and Phil Donahue when they were alive? And not murdered by their political opponents?; 10/14/25, 10:04 PM
wildswan said...: mushy peas = English caviar; 10/14/25, 10:32 PM
Gospace said...: Three Gorges Dam also provides flood control and irrigation water. And holds back an ENORMOUS amount of water. 10 trillion gallons or so. So when it fails, and because it's made of nothing but the finest Chinesium it will fail, the destruction will be on a scale not seen before for human made disasters.; 10/14/25, 10:46 PM
Michael Fitzgerald said...: Thank you Mason G and Gospace. Irrigation and flood control aside, it seems like it doesn't generate much power for all those Trillions of gallons captured. Doesn't the Columbia River generate power for the entire state of Washington plus at least some of Oregon?; 10/14/25, 11:04 PM
Eva Marie said...: In 2020 the dam’s reservoir reached a peak water level of 175.1 meters on August 20, 2020, slightly above its normal maximum capacity of 175 meters, during record-breaking floods along the Yangtze River. There was footage on YouTube supposedly showing water flowing over the dam. Looked real to me but the dam didn’t fail. So maybe that footage was bogus. But there were several YouTubers saying the dam was about to fail. Obviously it didn’t. And Grok says it won’t happen. There are too many redundancies built into the project. There were also videos supposedly showing cracks in the concrete but maybe those were bogus as well. There were projections of how much damage a breach of the dam would cause because there are large populations downstream of the dam. But it held.; 10/14/25, 11:20 PM
Michael Fitzgerald said...: "And Grok says it won’t happen. There are too many redundancies built into the project."

Yikes! Famous last words. Certain ocean liners and Oil rigs attest to that hubris in the face of the force of water in motion.; 10/14/25, 11:59 PM
Saint Croix said...: will the Gazans hold still for Hamas to slaughter them?

Not at all. The BBC is doing good journalism on this. Not everybody in Gaza is Hamas. Hamas hates the Jews, obviously, but they also kill a lot of Muslims, for violating this rule or that rule. I've read that Islamic terrorists kill more Muslims than Christians or Jews.; 10/15/25, 12:10 AM
Saint Croix said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/15/25, 12:12 AM
Eva Marie said...: So now Grok said that the water reached 165 meters below the 165 meter capacity. *sigh* Anyway it was quite a sensation on YouTube and I followed it daily. Also Grok says the videos of the overflow was really footage from a dam in Argentina; 10/15/25, 12:22 AM
Saint Croix said...: Not to be awkward, but am I the only one that thinks that giving Charlie Kirk a Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously is a little too far over the top?

After his assassination, I was surprised at the outpouring of grief, and all the respect from around the world. So in my mind, I was like, wow. And I actually had a thought that maybe he had similarities to Martin Luther King Jr. Both Christian martyrs.

So I would say that giving him a federal holiday, that would be overboard. But giving him a Presidential Medal of Freedom sounds perfect to me. Particularly since he was such a force for free speech.; 10/15/25, 12:22 AM
Saint Croix said...: I have read that Winsome Sears has now caught up to her opponent in Virginia. And she is within the margin of error. That's just one poll. But she was down 10% before the Jay Jones incident came out. Jones, not surprisingly, is now underwater in VA.; 10/15/25, 12:49 AM
Saint Croix said...: Bizarre that she won't withdraw her endorsement. Party loyalty over all crimes and bad deeds.

Bill Clinton would go all Sister Souljah on his ass. Spanberger is bleeding out, and she's bleeding blue. She remains loyal to the blue mafia, regardless of how many children are threatened with death. Low information voters are now rejecting her endorsed candidate, big time. And still, she won't admit error.

"I want a man with murder fantasies as my AG. And I told him, his fantasies are bad."; 10/15/25, 1:06 AM
gadfly said...: SCOTUS To Alex Jones: Pay The $1.4 Billion Defamation Judgment, Loser.

Question: If Jones is bankrupt, how did he pay for this appeal and a separate appeal for an additional $49 million judgment in Texas? So now a Texas trustee is free to sell Jones' unprotected assets, including Infowars, lock, stock, and barrel.

The order by Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin on August 14 has the potential to shut Jones out of his studio. It also appeared to restart an effort by The Onion, a satirical publication, to buy Infowars and its assets, turning the platform into a parody site. “We’re working on it,” Ben Collins, chief executive of The Onion, said in a social media post. Last December, The Onion bid just $1.75 million for Infowars,

Perhaps the Demented One could have Truth Social bid $10 mil or so to continue the broadcasts there.; 10/15/25, 3:12 AM
rehajm said...: George Soros was awarded a medal of freedom- now that is ‘over the top’, the kind of perversion what happens in end days….; 10/15/25, 5:32 AM
rehajm said...: hopefully the positive trend continues…; 10/15/25, 5:34 AM
Humperdink said...: SCOTUS to Alex Jones: pay the $1.4 billion.

Why not $1.4 trillion? Or a gazillion? Makes me laugh.; 10/15/25, 5:47 AM
Humperdink said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/15/25, 5:56 AM
Kakistocracy said...: Donald Trump says US support for Argentina is ‘gone’ if Javier Milei suffers election losses ~ FT

'US president suggests $20bn swap line is contingent on libertarian’s victory in midterm elections'

Trump has clearly become far less subtle in his execution of election fraud. Trump is trying to do the CIA's job for them.
To be fair they've probably got their hands full in Venezuela.

What I like about Trump is that he’s exposing what used to happen only behind closed doors at the highest levels of power.

The threats and deals were always there, just hidden. Now, politics feels like a reality show where nothing stays secret.

Before Trump, the media buried this stuff and calling it out was “conspiracy.” Now it’s all out in the open.

Gold to 10K ?; 10/15/25, 6:10 AM
Humperdink said...: All Gaza ceasefires have an end date, some quicker than others.; 10/15/25, 6:14 AM
Michael McNeil said...: There was footage on YouTube supposedly showing water flowing over the dam. Looked real to me but the dam didn’t fail.

As you later note, that footage was of another dam entirely. But way beyond that—dams have spillways, allowing excess water entering from above to be “spilled” downstream. There's zero chance that the 3 Gorges dam does not.; 10/15/25, 6:36 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: “Report: Trans identification in free-fall among young people"

“The next in a long list of things the Left never saw coming, because they are dumb.”

It’s going to be quite humorous. Both sides, but Dems in particular, see their factions become embedded. Maybe because they give them a seat at the table, and when that faction’s power weakens, they fight hard to retain it, because of all of the advantages that accrue by having that seat at the table (e.g. money, admissions to elite schools, etc).

Trans was always a dead end position. They can’t reproduce, and that runs counter to our biological need to procreate. Contrast that with homosexuality, which is arguably innate. Reproduction is more difficult, but still feasible. It has been suggested that homosexuals form a reproductive reserve, unneeded most of the time, but available, if necessary, for species, race, etc, survival.

I think that We started to see the end of the trans and non-binary movement by the end of the last election cycle. The hot young guys were going MAGA, followed closely by the hot young women. Meanwhile the trans and nonbinary were looking more and more like losers. If you are young and looking at which team to join, with your life out ahead of you, should you join the winning one, exulting in their own promise, or the losers, already bitter about their state? The pendulum is swinging back towards heterosexual normality.

The Republicans are jumping on this. The Democrats aren’t. And I predict that will harm them long run.; 10/15/25, 6:50 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: How stable is Three Gorges? Probably decently, under normal circumstances. It does sit near some faults. And much of the technology is well known. But it was built by Red Chinese, with their infamous good-enough-for-now construction. Everyone was in on the grift and graft. Corners, were, no doubt, cut, in order to maximize the grift and graft. It’s not that Chinese cant do engineering. They very definitely can. It’s just that Communist engineering puts power and money well above doing a good job.

I think that it is likely that the US could take out Three Gorges. Definitely with nuclear weapons, and, indeed taking it out would be a very efficient usage of such. But that would call for a nuclear response. There is a possibility that we could take it out with MOABs, etc. but the ChiComs likely would treat that similarly.

But what about Taiwan? Could they take it out, if their situation becomes that dire? It’s got to be keeping ChiCom strategists up late at night worrying about that.; 10/15/25, 7:07 AM
Jersey Fled said...: “Dysfunctional, but tolerable.”

Except to kids; 10/15/25, 8:36 AM
Rusty said...: Bruce.
In China it's called ,"Tofu Dreg" construction. Which means lasting just long enough for the builder/maker to cash the check.; 10/15/25, 10:28 AM
Jaq said...: War with China is in the plans. The battlespace preparations are underway. We know that here in the real world, we can't defend Taiwan, so the critical manufacturing there is being moved elsewhere. We are decoupling our economy from theirs, look at how the Netherlands just seized all of the stock of a Chinese owned semiconductor manufacturer with 14,000 employees in their country, and installed their own board and CEO. This might have been the straw that broke the camel's back on the trade war.

There was an interesting paper written in 2018, where the strategic problems with war with China were laid out, and one of them was that if we destroyed the Chinese economy, the US would be dragged down with it, therefore a decoupling of our economies is required, and that decoupling is underway. Loss of Bagram was also a setback, since that would have been a great platform to attack China from, or at least to force them to defend it.

Here is a question for you, if you are being strangled by somebody, but you have access to a weapon that could force them to back off and go home to lick their own wounds, and leave you alone, would you use it?

No North America based army is going to control China after a nuclear war. Or Russia for that matter. How did the English defeat the Romans? Well, the Roman Empire collapsed and the Romans left. To imagine that the Chinese are going to suffer blows like blowing up the Three Gorges Dam, killing millions, without making the US pay a heavy price, is crazy.

Oh, I forgot, it would be a cakewalk!; 10/15/25, 11:05 AM
Jaq said...: "So when it fails, and because it's made of nothing but the finest Chinesium it will fail, the destruction will be on a scale not seen before for human made disasters."

The nice thing about these huge dams is that you can destroy them with an underwater drone with a tactical nuke, and the evidence of it will be lost in the noise and diluted away. There are those who believe that the Brits provided Ukraine with a tactical nuke when the dam failed that provided Crimea with agricultural water. I figure that there is no point in speculating, the Ukrainians were already shelling the dam, and that could probably explain the failure, but the point is that it is true, that you might be able to covertly take out a dam with a tactical nuke and leave no trace.

Do you really think that places like Taiwan are lining up to be the next Ukraine? "Oooh! Oooh! Pick me! Pick me!"; 10/15/25, 11:30 AM
Jaq said...: China figures that they are slowly being approached by an anaconda and if they wait to respond until they are wrapped in its coils, they are goners.

This is how China and Russia see the US:

"Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are dead." - The Terminator.; 10/15/25, 11:34 AM
narciso said...: Chins killed a million of us so some perspective; 10/15/25, 11:35 AM
Rusty said...: "We know that here in the real world, we can't defend Taiwan,"

Based on what? I'd like to see the reasoning for this statement.; 10/15/25, 11:47 AM
Jaq said...: "I'd like to see the reasoning for this statement."

Well, our air defenses have proven full of holes in Ukraine, for one thing, and we have exposed them in battle to study, and the Russians have learned to defeat them pretty handily, and without air defenses, how is Taiwan going to stop incoming missiles?

Here is the pro-Ukrainian view of why so few interceptions:

https://missilematters.substack.com/p/what-happened-to-ukraines-ballistic

Remember that the intercept data comes from Kiev, and they also have the job of keeping up domestic morale and encouraging nations that they have a chance, and so will send them more weapons. Even so, Ukraine is getting hammered. Why would Taiwan do better, especially given that Russia is likely sharing lessons learned with the Chinese?; 10/15/25, 12:45 PM
Jaq said...: Also, in what universe can the US manufacture interceptors, two for one, for every missile that China can manufacture?

My guess is that you are assuming that the US will go to WW3 to support Taiwan's breakaway from the country that it has belonged to since the Middle Ages, when it was little more than a fishing outpost, that suddenly started getting harassed by European sailing vessels with armies on them.; 10/15/25, 12:48 PM
Jaq said...: China is the country that builds electric cars nearly entirely robotically, but I suppose that we don't have to worry that it would ever occur to them to use this skill to manufacture missiles. Ship killing missiles, too, ship killing drone swarms, drone submarines. This tech is no longer the sole province of the US, we sent all of this manufacturing to China because US labor was getting uppity and too expensive, remember?; 10/15/25, 12:52 PM