Tea at Trianon: Our Sea Ports

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, August 7, 2026

Our Sea Ports

From ColonelRETJohn:

Not since World War II did we seriously show concern over the security of our ports from enemy threats.
Now with drones being used regularly to attack ships in the Black Sea, Mediterranean ports of Egypt, and the U.S. conducting its first drone attack against the Iranian Bandar Abbas Naval Base, the realization is that our own ports may be vulnerable to attack.
What’s to keep a drone from coming into Puget Sound in Washington State, New York Harbor, or the Chesapeake in Virginia and striking one of our many naval installations or container terminals?
Right now, not much.
The U.S. Coast Guard is in overdrive to figure out ways to ensure our ports are protected.
“Faced with a growing threat from uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), the USCG is seeking technology not just to detect these weapons, but to defeat them. Ports and other maritime facilities are vulnerable to this kind of attack vector, and our adversaries surely know it. The effort is being led by the Coast Guard Futures Development and Integration (FD&I) Directorate, which oversees research, modeling and simulation, technology forecasting, and field experimentation. It is part of the service’s role to protect U.S. maritime assets and comes as adversary militaries and non-state actors alike, are developing a wide array of UUVs for surveillance, strike and sabotage.”
Threat actors like Iran and China watch everything we do and try to play it back at us, so it is important that the Coast Guard comes up with solutions fast to protect our ports. (Read more.)