Can the US defend Taiwan from invasion by Mainland China?

 Just in the last week, Fox’s military commentator, retired Army general Jack Keane, said that a recent war game on this subject lead to a decisive victory for China and a defeat for us. 

I have to wonder about this.  The Taiwan Strait is 120 miles wide and blue water, deep enough to float aircraft carriers (or any other kind of ship).  China has to get a sizable army across the strait, land the troops on the island of Taiwan, and keep them supplied during the fighting.  Taiwan has an army with a decent supply of up to date American equipment.  China will have to fight hard to gain control of the island. 

   Our best bet to defend Taiwan is to sink the Chinese invasion force as it crosses the strait.  This will start off as an Air Force battle.  China has a lot of airbases on their side of the straight.  We have a dozen aircraft carriers, of which maybe 9 are operationally ready.  The other three are likely in US shipyards for one sort or another of heavy duty work and thus unavailable.  Each carrier has maybe 90 aircraft on board.  The carriers could be stationed on the far side of Taiwan to make it harder for China to strike them. The carrier aircraft can fly right across Taiwan in a matter of minutes.  The Air Force could fly in a lot of planes to Taiwan to fight from Taiwan’s air fields. That ought to give us 800 Navy aircraft and 500-800 Air Force aircraft. 

   China has maybe 1700 combat aircraft.  Maybe half of them are as hot as USAF fighters and the other half is old, slow, and easy meat for USAF F-22s and F35s.  This info comes from pontification at various Internet sites.  These sites tend to denigrate the Chinese Air Force and say nice things about USAF. I don’t know who would win, before a head to head air battle between them.

   The object of such an air battle is for one side or the other to obtain air superiority,  By which I mean to ability to fly low performance (at least by fighter standards) bombers out into the Taiwan strait to sink Chinese ships carrying troops to invade Taiwan.   Other angles, before the air war settles out, US submarines, lurking underwater in the strait of Taiwan torpedoing any surface vessel that needs it.  Chinese aircraft probably cannot sink subs that stay submerged.  No problem for nuclear subs, not impossible for conventional diesel subs.

   So, I can see American air and sea power keeping the Chinese ships under control and off Taiwan landing beaches.  I think this will defeat a Chinese attempt to take over Taiwan.  I don’t know how General Deane’s war game worked and why it showed a Chinese victory.

Codify Roe v Wade.

Biden says he will do it.  Right after the election as opposed to right now when his party controls Congress.  That might change after the election.

I wonder what “codify” means.  Passing a new law that makes some things illegal and other things legal?  What things?  Are these things measurable or can any Democrat office holder say what they are?

Whither the mid terms?

 Waves, will we have one in the oncoming midterm election? You could not tell from the TV news coverage. They talk about Senate contests in a single state, or head to head poll results over a single election. No stories indicating where a lot of voters are heading, just onsey twosey stuff. If there are any poll results over a broad area I have not seen them. I hope everyone gets out and votes in the upcoming election.

Farewell Robbie Coltrane

 Robbie's Hagrid was a big part of the Harry Potter movies.  I will miss Robbie.

Environmental, Social, and Governance. (ESG)

 Environmental, Social, and Governance. (ESG)

 The acronym stands for a company management plan to do nice things for the environment, social something or other, and governance, a scheme were company management abandons traditional company goals, and aims for environmental and social goals.

 The American corporation has been fantastically successful over many years.  Corporations produce goods and services, at very good prices and in vast quantities.  Earnings are solid, and are shared between share holders and workers.  Most Americans work for corporations and get their health insurance from the corporation that employs them.  American corporations are an important part of American economy and well being. 

   We should not mess things up with ill considered changes that might throw us out of work and cancel our health care.

 Right now successful corporate managers concentrate on improving the corporate production (automobiles, aircraft, tools, house wares and other stuff) (producing services such as communication (cell phone, TV, newspaper, more economically) or providing transportation (railroads and airlines) more economically.  

 Do we want corporate management to stop this beneficial activity and start tending the environment, the social feelings of just about anybody, and setting up governance that locks the corporation into activities that do not improve the company bottom line?   And instead of divvying up corporate profits between share holders and worker, ESG would grab off a good chunk of corporate revenue to support the Green Nude Eel and deny the money to workers and stock holders. 

 I think we should stick with the corporate governance that has paid us such solid dividends over many years.  Work on getting costs down and quality up. 

Goobledegook for a verdict in Parkland School shooter case

The TV is reading the verdict in the case of Nicolas Cruze, the Parkland School shooter. It is all legal goobledegook. Never is the word "guilty" used. They must have had a lawyer write the lengthy complicated verdict (it took the judge 10 minutes to read the whole thing).

Could this be the problem with the American justice system? That they cannot call an atrocious murderer guilty?

Sports fans versus voters

 I am a casual sports fan.  Living in one of the “Boston States” I root for the Patriots (fall) and the Red Sox (spring and summer).  Should either team make the Super Bowl or the World Series I will watch the games.  There is no way that I will ever root for the New York Yankees. 

   We also have a lot of voters who vote the same way.  They will vote for their party no matter what.  And they would never vote for that other party, no matter what.   

   For sports fans, it doesn’t matter much.  Rooting for one team or the other doesn’t affect anything important.

For voters, this attitude is destructive of our democracy.  We vote in crooks and dimwits, and fail to vote for decent intelligent public spirited candidates. 

   To be a patriotic voter you have to do a little homework, such as who is running and what have they done in the past that is honorable, or dishonorable.  You want to vote for the good guys and vote against the bad guys.  In this day and age of the Internet the home work is easy to do.   Google will tell you who is running, nationally and for state office, and give you the candidate’s history and voting record. 

   There is a crucial midterm election coming up in about three weeks.  The current Democrat administration is a bunch of weak and elderly men and is driving America into the ground.  We need to vote them out.  Vote in some decent people who might be able to pull the country up before all that is left is a smoking crater.