The Conservative Cave

For once the Old Coot is likely telling the truth. I'll be turning 78 next month and remember those days.

From a Gemini chat;

I don't remember the last time I saw a CD sign anywhere but I do remember seeing one at the post office and a local bank when I was a kid, When the government stopped supporting the CD plans I remember hearing just how bad some of those supplies that were kept in the shelter were and I am glad no one had to use them. It seems that after all those years they forgot to change out those supplies every so many months to a year.

NY Times: San Francisco's BART System Faces a Doom Loop

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2026/03/10/ny-times-san-franciscos-bart-faces-a-doom-loop-n3812712

Last month the San Francisco Chronicle published a story warning that the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) was in danger of major cuts unless voters passed a new tax to fund it this November. Today the NY Times has a story basically echoing those concerns. BART as it exists today will collapse unless a new source of funding arrives soon and that could eventually mean the collapse of the entire system. This is one part of the doom loop scenario which is still on the verge of happening even though no one talks about the doom loop anymore.

Quote

Seven years ago, BART trains would fill up quickly each weekday, with passengers taking every seat, jostling for space in the aisles and clutching every pole. Now, the trains often lumber into the city with a trickle of commuters rather than a crush.

BART’s future is dire. Its ridership cratered during the pandemic and remains less than half of what it once was. And the very future of the familiar white and blue trains, which have zipped around the Bay Area since 1972, is in doubt...

Fewer trains. Higher fares and parking fees. Ending service at 9 p.m. instead of midnight. Laying off a quarter of its work force. And shrinking the system almost back to its original footprint by shuttering 15 stations...

What the NYT did not mention, at least in what Hot Air quoted, is that during BART's peak a few years ago, it was operating at a deficit and had to be subsidized with taxes. Now, with work habits changing and companies moving part or all of their operations out of SF (not to mention BART police ignoring turnstile jumpers), the existing subsidies are not enough. And anyone who imagines that BART riders will not change what they do in the face of higher fares and parking fees must be a bureaucrat or Prog pol.

yeah, sounds like the mother was working with some guy from Ohio renting out properties at Hilton Head. The Ohio guy also had sex with both the mother and daughter. I think they were the ones that pimped out this girl:

. She told federal agents that her mother advertised in a flyer that she, then 13, could provide babysitting services. Epstein, the woman said, summoned her to the house where he began his pattern of abuse.

then she claims Epstein took nude photos of her and blackmailed her mother, so her mother stole from escrow accounts and went to jail for it.  Then, the girl tried to call Epstein to "help" and the person that answered told her to never call again. Then, some other  woman accused her mother of breaking and entering, and the girl dropped out of high school. Then, both the mother and daughter leave South Carolina, go to WA state and get evicted. The daughter gets married multiple times, does a load of drugs, gets a criminal record in her own right and the mother ends  up dying in a nursing home. The daughter moves to Georgia, steals funeral money from a dying man and goes back to jail for a year. Happens to us all.

There's a meme circulating on FB this AM that an unnamed newspaper has verified the then-13-YO's accusation against Trump. Next time I see it my response will be along the lines of: "The FBI interviewed her four times and she told four substantially different stories. Which version of her lie did the paper "verify"?

The left's favorite kind of source, anonymous.

https://www.postandcourier.com/news/epstein-victim-fbi-trump/article_21a2149f-f4a1-4351-9ac7-d12746f03a58.html The paper is the Post and Courier, a Charleston NC newspaper.  When I first read the article, the whole thing was available, appears I need to clear out some cookies or go incognito to see it again.  This one pretty much says everything the Charleston article does, with neither mentioning (to my notice) the different versions of the victims stories, just cherry picking Trump accusations. 

The Dragon's Sad Tale

https://cdrsalamander.substack.com/p/the-dragons-sad-tale

For over a century, there was one jewel in the special relationship between the United States of America and her mother country, Great Britain. That jewel was the Royal Navy.

From the convoys and battleship divisions of the Great War, to Five Inch Friday off the Al Faw almost 90 years later, we always knew that there was another highly capable navy out there we could rely on—the Royal Navy and her Commonwealth.

During the interbellum, when the U.S. Navy was on par with the Royal Navy, we knew our friend was strong. Even when we passed her strength as WWII bled her white, we still knew the power she brought to sea.

She knew her existence was only secured by a strong navy. She’d never abandon that, would she?
...
We need to stop pretending we have a Royal Navy we knew in our youth or even that of two decades ago. No, we have something altogether different. Something shrunken. Something weaker. Something that is, in the end, really sad. A symptom of a nation who has lost an enthusiasm for herself or even an understanding of her national interest and led by a ruling class that seems uninterested in stewardship.

The state of the Royal Navy—a condition that took decades of neglect to manifest into its form today and will take decades to repair if there is ever the will to do so—has become, as navies can often do, a symbol of the state of the nation it serves.

Looking at the charts in the article, it looks like the RN - the whole RN - has the equivalent of the 2 USN CBGs currently in the ME, maybe with a few DDGs from the 3rd CBG about to head there. Sadder still, the RN has two operational destroyers and two operational frigates. The carrier HMS Prince of Wales might be operational soon ... might.