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Discussions of war with China over Taiwan often assume a short, regional war won by superior American technology, after which things go on approximately as before. A few observations: First, overconfidence is an occupational disease of militaries and militarists. Wars very often fail to proceed according to the expectations of the aggressors and not infrequently... Read More
Oh God, oh God. Can we humans not contract out our governance to, say, cephalopods and stop trying to manage our own affairs? I mean, really. Girl octopodes are both smart and leggy. They aren’t crazy. What more do we want? Recently we have had the verdicts in the Rittenhouse and Arbery trials, with which... Read More
“A country deserves what it tolerates, and will assuredly get more of it,” said my favorite political commentator (me). He has also asked, “And this is supposed to help blacks?” Across the country the rabble rampage—Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and mobs sacking stores. They are by no means all black. Whites participate in the vandalism,... Read More
My name’s Bond…Fred Bond. I’m a freelance news weasel in Washington DC, the heart of a darkness that would have made Conrad slit his wrists. Before, I worked as the gas-warfare editor for Soldier of Fortune magazine, but the demand for down-market extinction porn dried up and DC looked to be the best available gig.... Read More
In my decades as galley slave in Washington’s journalistic sludge fleets, I occasionally encountered conspiracy theories, such as the Second Shooter who got JFK, and that FDR intentionally let the Japs blow up Pearl Harbor, and of many sightings of alien space ships. Various psychic oddities dwelling in the crevices of the Potomac Rome worried... Read More
In pondering Washington’s new toy, a cold war against China, one sees a pattern. China’s approach to influence and prosperity is commercial and longsighted. This does not mean that the Chinese are warm and fuzzy, only intelligent. They advance their interests while turning a profit, which wars don’t. China invests heavily in the infrastructure, both... Read More
A few weeks back I wrote a column suggesting that Jews have become successful because they are smart. I confess that I did it in the spirit of a small boy poking a wasps’ nest and running like hell. I am a bad person, but it is more interesting than accountancy. The Devil makes me... Read More
Forty-six years ago in a previous comedy I was in Saigon, recently having been evacuated from Phnom Penh in an Air America—CIA—Caribou carrying, in addition to me, several ARVN junior officers and perhaps a dozen BUFEs (Big Ugly Fucking Elephants, the ceramic pachyderms much beloved of GIs). America had already embarked on its currently standard... Read More
A staple of the columnist’s life is mail embodying a weird obsession with Jews. It is a versatile obsession, suitable for any occasion. If I were to write a column on the economics of watermelon farming in rural Kansas for a conservative site, a high proportion of the comments would consist of angry denunciations of... Read More
I will now explain war, or some of it. If you wonder how some mutt in Mexico with a computer thinks he knows about strategy, well, look at what we have in Washington. How could I be worse? In geopolitical circles, blather swirls over whether the United States can defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion... Read More
Listening to the pronouncements on Cuba by our cardboard President I wonder what the hell the United States is trying to do in Latin America? Biden, a lifelong hack of little mind and that going south, runs on, or his ventriloquist does, about his support for the Cuban people. He cares deeply about the Cuban... Read More
Technological advance in China is rapid, broad in scope and, one might suppose (apparently) incorrectly, of interest to Americans. It is also easily discovered. Subscriptions are not all that expensive to Asia Times, NikkeiAsia, the South China Morning Post, and Aviation Week. The web is awash in tech sites covering everything from operating systems for... Read More
Controversy has raged for decades in academia as to whether the Maya of ancient Mesoamerica independently invented writing and a sophisticated number system, with many arguing that European influence must have been involved. The recent discovery of carvings, such as the one above, in the hitherto unexplored recesses of the Chac Mool Cenote (a water-filled... Read More
Methinks the US may very well be heading toward a social explosion. The phrase “race war “is overwrought if it implies organized units and chains of command. However, in a country awash in firearms, a bloody, disorganized, continent-wide eruption is possible. To think “it can’t happen here” is complacently inattentive. We have already seen it... Read More
The systematic study of intelligence if fraught, dangerous, since everyone instantly thinks, “Race. Blacks. I will lose my job and live in a tent on the sidewalk if I think about this.” The concern is that study might reveal differences between groups. Oh God. So: Should we study it or not? The panic arises only... Read More
I have long been a partisan of insects in general, and hornets in particular, as exemplars of the most varied, imaginative and sometimes, in a correct use of an overused word, weird design and engineering in the live world. There is more of the unlikely, preposterous, and inexplicable in our six-footed cocitizens than in all... Read More
Among the more nauseating elements of what has become the American national character is the moral preening, the lecturing of others on the virtuousness of the Exceptional Nation, on America’s incontinent goodness and sense of superiority. The world isn’t buying it. The internet makes fraud impossible. Start with the domestic. The whole world can see,... Read More
First, America increasingly relies on strong-arm tactics instead of competence. For example, in the de facto 5G competition, Washington cannot offer Europe a better product at a better price, so it forbids European countries to buy from China. The US cannot compete with China in manufacturing, so it resorts to a trade war. The US... Read More
(This is an ancient column I just found, but represents a great service to humanity, so I republish it.) I'm trying to figure out sex, and why people get in an uproar about it, and run around waving their arms and hollering, and everybody's mad at everybody else. It's because men can't tell sex from... Read More
As perhaps most now know, China is preparing a digital currency with which it intends to replace cash entirely, and other countries, including the US, are considering the idea. Conservatives and libertarians will shriek, pull their hair, and turn blue at the idea, perhaps with good reason—which doesn’t matter since it is going to happen... Read More
There is no limit to misjudgement. If the psychic curiosities in the Federal bunker start a war with China, or push Beijing into starting one, it will be blamed on a proximate cause, such as a collision of warships after which some lieutenant who joined on waivers lost it and opened fire. After all, historians... Read More
Today’s characteristically luminous insights will be disordered and structurally horrifying, the sort of essay that would have sent my high-school English teacher into anaphylactic shock. In exculpation I plead laziness. Recently I wrote a column on China’s digital yuan, now in late-stage testing. Bare-bones explanation: You download a digital-wallet app with which you can then... Read More
The other day a friend and I were partaking of the mortal remains of quite a number of defenseless grapes, and the subject of law enforce arose. Having spent a number of years as a police reporter, I began thinking of curious and often erroneous ideas that people have of what we regard as a... Read More
China is now vigorously testing a digital yuan and threatens to have it ready for prime time for the 2022 Winter Olympics. This seems, to me anyway, important. It will be a real, workaday yuan, not a speculative cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. It will use a digital wallet via a cellphone app, and will not require... Read More
In newspapering, in which your scribe slaved for many years, great weight was placed on factuality. The rule was verify, verify, verify. (“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”) The reasons were several, such as integrity, avoiding embarrassment, and fear of libel suits, which can result in judgements of millions of dollars.... Read More
As part of wokedom’s fantasy-ridden fascination with indigenes, sports teams, such as the Redskins and Braves, race to change names. (For Washington’s team, the Federal Folders has been suggested.) Outraged conservatives see the changes as nauseating prissiness by historically illiterate ninnies. It is every bit of this. Still, the teams should be renamed. What civilized... Read More
The Correlation of Armed Forces: U.S. goods and services trade with China totaled an estimated $634.8 billion in 2019. Exports were $163.0 billion; imports were $471.8 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China was $308.8 billion in 2019. Trade in services with China (exports and imports) totaled an estimated $76.7 billion in... Read More
In a sort of distributed Ouija board enterprise, intellectuals these days predict the likely evolution of relations between China and America. These authorities do not wallow in consistency. China will take over the world. Alternatively, China will collapse because of a surfeit of men, because the different linguistic regions will become independent, because their debt... Read More
Headline “Fairfax school board eliminates admissions test at Thomas Jefferson High School” probably America’s most demanding school for science and technology. Oh god, Oh god. Who is on the school board? Predictably education majors, the dimmest, lowest SAT-scoring dregs of the professional classes, the horror of smart students subjected to their grade-school mentalities. But not... Read More
That wretched virus has spawned great gushing waves of confusion regarding what is really happening. This column, a reliable journalistic source of a high order, has therefore gathered from other reliable sources what we genuinely know about the epidemic. Henceforth you will need to read nothing more on the matter. It is all here. Every... Read More
Everybody and his goat has weighed in on the election, so I will too. This will make no difference to Trump’s core followers, for whom he is a cult figure, or to those who detest him. The undecided may be interested. Note how insubstantial Trump has been, pretending to be what he isn’t and claiming... Read More
This is a much-updated version of a previous column on evolution, is atrociously long, criminally even, by internet standards but I post it anyway because I get occasional requests. Few will read it, which is understandable. Apologies. The Devil made me do it. I will get transcendently stupid email saying that I am a snake-handling... Read More
Saturday morning was sunny and bugs screaming and buzzing, at least in my part of West Virginia, and it was nice and cool. Bugs is pretty much like folk. The boy bugs holler or buzz or I don’t know what all so the girl bugs will love them and they can get laid, and then... Read More
As the presidential debates approach, and our grotesque candidates prepare to compete for Best Actor, with their supporting casts of pollsters, advance men, media shills, gestures coaches, focus groups, and allied technicians of mendacity, Americans of broad historical illiteracy, which is most of them, hear endlessly of the evils of China. Whether the evils exist... Read More
A (very) black man walks up to a white five-year-old and shoots him in the head with no apparent provocation except, maybe, that the child rode his bicycle over the killer’s lawn. A (very) black man, Emanuel Deshaun Aranda, throws a white child of five from a rooftop café for no reason other, perhaps, that... Read More
This admirable column gets a modest trickle of mail from European readers, for some reason chiefly in France and Italy but some from the Nordic realms. While these correspondents are intelligent and thoughtful, and sometimes translate my maunderings into their languages, they do not give a comprehensive view of what Europe thinks of the United... Read More
I’m gonna do it anyway. Being as I’m just a West Virginia boy, and mostly barefoot, and don’t have much sense, a lot of folk say, maybe I shouldn’t be explaining the world. But the world don’t make even as much sense as I do, so guess I’ll stick my fork in. Sometimes I go... Read More
Today, God save the Queen, the country is in the hands of pathologically aggressive Cold War leftovers, in particular Mr. Genghis Pompeo. In light of his desire to get America into a war with Iran, plus the acrid whiff of desperation wafting from the White House, plus increased provocations against Iran, one may wonder about... Read More
The following, except for the two cop novels, are chiefly collections of his Fred on Everything columns with some magazine pieces thrown in for ballast. In them he savages the pretensions of the pretentious, lambasts poltroons right and left, and makes suggestions for improving the world, such as by buying a codpiece for Hillary. He... Read More
Black militia at Stone Mountain. Cocky, heavily armed, outgunning the police. White militias have similar firepower. A fight is entirely possible. In downtown America. Hoo-boy. She’s ready to explode, go high order. Smoking ruins, dead bodies, seething hatreds, and a country that can’t be put back together. It may not happen, but she looks ready.... Read More
In the predawn coolness of five a.m., we made coffee, put the dogs in the CRV, and set out along the deserted carretera to Chapala, a few miles away, where we walk the beasts. The night was dark and empty as an anchorman's mind and a drizzle splattered across the windshield. Fulu Miziki poured from... Read More
A common topic around the web is whether automation will drastically increase unemployment. The usual scholarly answer is only a bit, and conservatives often insist that new jobs will always be found. Actually, automation has already created much joblessness. It continues to do so. We don’t notice because we have disguised the unemployment. Consider. In... Read More
Oh sigh. Recently we heard much huffing and blowing over the Supreme Court’s decision not to illegalize the DACAns. These, you may remember, are Mexicans’ brought illegally into the country while children. Obama gave them a sort of amnesty and allowed them to work. Anti-immigration activists say these interlopers are criminals and should be deported... Read More
What fun, what entertainment. And rare: One seldom sees the collapse of a landmark society in a rush of wondrous idiocy. Would I could sell tickets. Don’t look at it as a loss, but as a show, an unwanted but grand amusement. The coup de grace in our ripening decadence is the current uprising purportedly,... Read More
This will be a disoriented essay. These are disorienting times. Perhaps the reader should prepare himself with a double shot of Wild Turkey throat sanitizer, or a doob. I am still getting mail saying that Floyd’s death was due to underlying conditions. I see. By purest coincidence, he died of natural causes while hand-cuffed, face... Read More
It was murder, plain and simple. There are no contradictory witnesses, no he-said-she-said. It is on the video, with no lapses. The man on the ground is clearly heard imploring mercy, begging to be allowed to breathe. Onlookers also implore. The officer knows the man is choking, yet keeps choking him. No police protocol calls... Read More
OK, every self-respecting columnist is writing about that wretched virus, so I suppose I have to. (Actually any self-respecting columnist is probably delusional. but never mind.) Columnists do what they are programmed to do, like bugs. I think I’m supposed to say that the coronavirus is most perilous, and like the Black Death that is... Read More
The genius of America’s totalitarian system of government is that it is not totally total, and sometimes not very totalitarian at all. It is just total enough. Truly total government--"Your papers, citizen," stop-and-frisk, permission needed to travel from city to city--might spark revolt. By contrast, a sufficiency of totalitarianism, but not an excess, keeps the... Read More
The most portentous events in American history were the enforced importation of African blacks by the New England slavers, and the opening of the southern border to Latin America. Both have proved disastrous. Compulsory mixing of disparate peoples has not worked. In response to the Latino influx, Nativist groups arose to oppose immigration and (not... Read More
We will start this magisterial explanation of everything with the time-honored approach of the philosoñher, beginning with the things we know beyond doubt and then reasoning from them to suitably astonishing truths. As we know, Descartes began by saying, “Cogito ergo sum,” I think therefore I am.” (Ambrose Bierce, a more profound thinker, said, “Cogito... Read More
Fred, a keyboard mercenary with a disorganized past, has worked on staff for Army Times, The Washingtonian, Soldier of Fortune, Federal Computer Week, and The Washington Times.
He has been published in Playboy, Soldier of Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Harper's, National Review, Signal, Air&Space, and suchlike. He has worked as a police writer, technology editor, military specialist, and authority on mercenary soldiers.
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