Soviet-Era Centralized Heating Systems Were Ukraine’s Secret Weapon for Cutting Emissions. Now They’re a Vulnerability (TIME)

‘Dr. Doom’ predicts NYC destroyed by nukes, storms in next 20 years (N.Y. Post)

The secret history of America’s tactical nukes (Vox)

In bloody battle for Bakhmut, Russian mercenaries eye a symbolic prize (Washington Post)

Using Adoptions, Russia Turns Ukrainian Children Into Spoils of War

Lawmakers Seek To Pass $50BN In New Ukraine Aid Before Next Congress  Go out there and spend! Spend! Spend!

Military Think Tank: Russia Withdraws Officers From Kherson

Iran Is Conducting “Massive” Military Drills On The Azerbaijan Border

Read it.

Assuming you have a choice, of course.

I want to be a ‘workplace culture expert’. I’ll bet I could do a great job.

“There’s an expression: ’People join companies, but they quit bosses,” Gimbel tells CNBC Make It. “That isn’t too far removed from the truth.”

See? How hard could it be?

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

Greg Johnson and Mark Collett had a debate about the war in Ukraine, with each man taking a quite different view of the war. It was a reasonable and polite exchange, so if you like these things, it is worth a listen. I must admit I struggle to follow the logic of Greg’s argument, as it leads him to defend the people who would throw him in a cage if they had the chance, but perhaps the fault lies with me.

Regardless, the debate itself is a good jumping off point to talk about other issues related to the larger struggle. Like Covid, the war in Ukraine is a bit of a litmus test on this side of the great divide. Where you stand on the issue says a lot about where you stand on many other issues. Like Covid, it is becoming one of those reference points for other differences in the dissident sphere.

Steve Sailer peers behind the curtain.

One of the new problems of our age is that if you don’t high-five a black person who wants to high-five (or whatever is considered the cool way to greet at the moment) you, you can instantly be exposed to global hate from hordes of angry dimwits on social media, like that poor minimum wage worker at the Sesame Street theme park.

On the other hand, if you are a Korean pop star, you can still probably get away with it, because you are cool and a star, and only the most pathetic fans in Asia much care about what stupid Americans think.

Read it.

It is not just some crazy notion at the Claremont Institute, some crazy right-wing think tank’s invention, that we no longer live under the Constitution. The Left has been trying to undermine and overturn the Constitution for a long time. That agenda has been consistent. And the only thing that’s really changed is the rhetoric. The Progressive movement is where the attack on the Constitution first started more than a hundred years ago. And the most famous proponent of that was Woodrow Wilson, the only political scientist to be president of the United States. That tells you something right there—his being a political scientist.

And he was very open about repudiating both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as relics of the 18th century that had no relevance to the modern world. That’s where this all started. But it was a little too bold, and it’s not an accident that Wilson was followed by 12 years of Republican presidents: Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover. Then, Franklin Roosevelt came along. Roosevelt didn’t change the agenda, but he did change the rhetoric.

And that’s where the Left started adopting this idea: they’re actually defenders of the Constitution, but they simply tweaked, and redefined, and reworked all of the concepts. And so, you’ve got a living Constitution, and you’ve got all this language about rights, but they were no longer the natural rights that the founders defended. They were a whole series of invented new rights that the government would bestow on us, rather than natural rights that the government would protect.

Read it.

Imagine, for a moment, the near future Amazon dreams of.

Every morning, you are gently awakened by the Amazon Halo Rise. From its perch on your nightstand, the round device has spent the night monitoring the movements of your body, the light in your room, and the space’s temperature and humidity. At the optimal moment in your sleep cycle, as calculated by a proprietary algorithm, the device’s light gradually brightens to mimic the natural warm hue of sunrise. Your Amazon Echo, plugged in somewhere nearby, automatically starts playing your favorite music as part of your wake-up routine. You ask the device about the day’s weather; it tells you to expect rain. Then it informs you that your next “Subscribe & Save” shipment of Amazon Elements Super Omega-3 softgels is out for delivery. On your way to the bathroom, a notification bubbles up on your phone from Amazon’s Neighbors app, which is populated with video footage from the area’s Amazon Ring cameras: Someone has been overturning garbage cans, leaving the community’s yards a total wreck. (Maybe it’s just raccoons.)

Read it.

French accounts that use planes’ transponder signals and publicly accessible information have tracked Arnault’s and other rich folks’ use of private jets to reveal just how much wasteful flying time is used by the world’s wealthiest.

Easily done: Just make a deal with a selection of charter air services and pick one at random when you want to go somewhere.

Anyone who isn’t constantly traveling is a fool to buy a jet.

In September, the Twitter account laviodebernard (Bernard’s Plane) wrote that Arnault’s plane had been de-registered in France. The account wrote “The LVMH private jet has not been registered in France since September 1, 2022. Still no word from Bernard Arnault or LVMH on the subject of private jets. So Bernard, are we hiding?”

If I were the world’s second richest man I would track this guy down and beat him until he rang like a bell. A couple hundred thousand ought to do it.

“Just Read” always works for me.

Ukraine war: Kyiv attacked by ‘kamikaze drones’, say officials

How Iodine Pills Can—and Can’t—Help Against Radiation (Wired ‘Science’)

NATO Kicks Off Nuclear War Games On Monday

Gazprom CEO Says All Nord Stream NatGas Could Be Redirected To Turkey

How Russian Ships Are Laundering Grain Stolen From Occupied Ukraine (Bloomberg)

Russian Journalist Who Protested War Flees Country

EU Unanimously Votes To Designate Vladimir Putin ‘A Real Jerk’ (Babylon Bee)

Newsweek Legitimizes Idea Nuclear War Could Offer ‘Temporary’ Help for Climate Change

Report: Missile Tech ‘Funded by US Taxpayers, Through the US Government,’ Ends Up in China

Report: Ukrainian Nuclear Reactor Staff Must Join Russian Energy Company to Keep Jobs

Read it.

They forgot one: Regularly vote Democrat.

(Most reference works I’ve consulted make no distinction between ‘sociopath’ and ‘psychopath’.)

Steve at Tools of Renewal lets it all go.

I do not want to sign up for your cool updates and offers, especially when you sign me up without permission. When I am forced to opt out, I do not want to be asked why I left. Please don’t tell me you’re sorry to see me go. No human being was ever aware I was there in the first place.

I do not want to be part of your cool new community, or worse, “family,” and neither does anyone else. I do not want to interact with you or other users. I do not want other users to know I exist.

If people wanted to associate with you, they would have talked to you when you were in high school, which they did not, because you are nerds.

I do not want a password on the hardware you sold me. I do not care if someone hacks into my Gopro or wireless printer. If your stupid software insists on a password, do not tell me what kind of password it has to be. Allow me to use “1,” which is my all-time favorite. Please do not put a long, complicated initial password with a lot of numbers and capital letters on the product you sold me and then put the password on a tiny label on the bottom of the product in microprint.

Please do not print your serial numbers in fonts only an ant can read.

Please put your software on disks (in the box) AND online, do not charge me for downloading it, do not put a bunch of junk in it no one wants, and do not make me fill out any forms in order to get it. Don’t even think about charging me for it.

Include all the necessary cables. Seriously, what’s wrong with you?

Do not force me to upgrade my firmware or software before using the product. I don’t care if it understands the latest emojis or gets along well with Tiktok. Last year’s stuff is fine.

If your product is a printer, do not write your software so it tries to sell me your toner cartridges and lies and says they’re better than the other ones. I do not want the $100 cartridges. I want the $17 cartridges from China which work just as well, and I am willing to hack your printer in able to use them, because using someone else’s toner isn’t stealing.

Do not include “lite” software which does not work but hits me with ads for the real software I have to pay extra for.

Do not cover your package with ridiculous bragging about how green it is. I do not care. It’s going to the same dumpster, where I will mingle the plastic, styrofoam, cardboard and staples without remorse. For all I care, you can spray your boxes with dioxin and use plutonium staples along with cellophane that has been rubbed all over Ebola patients. Just get your product to me without damage.

Just knock it off, okay? Just sell me what I want, make it quick to start using it, and buzz off.

Joel Kotkin.

In the past, ruling classes sought to protect the system that secured their coveted positions. But sometimes, as in the era before the French or Russian Revolutions, some in the ruling circles stopped believing in their religion, their traditions, and their state, only to be exiled, executed, or turned into what the Soviets called “former persons.”

Like our current elites, many French aristocrats lived dissolute lives but also supported revolutionary ideas which threatened “their own rights and even their existence,” as Alexis de Tocqueville noted. Today a large, even dominant portion of the wealthiest and most privileged parts of our society—including the heirs of nasty capitalist titans such as Henry Ford or John D. Rockefeller—are key funders of an increasingly anti-capitalist left. Others are still young tech billionaires and—increasingly—their discarded or former spouses.

This elite has arisen at a time when, as in France before 1789, inheritance is becoming ever more important as a vehicle for upward mobility, which is otherwise increasingly remote for most of the population. Home ownership among middle income Americans, for example, the primary means for asset accumulation for the non-rich, has dropped by over 8 percent in the past decade, while the wealthy have garnered the greatest gain from increased housing prices. American millennials are three times as likely as boomers to count on inheritance for their retirement. Among the youngest cohort, those ages 18 to 22, over 60 percent see inheritance as their primary source of sustenance as they age.

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

There used to be a time when certain pundits would post about the correlation between economics and election results. They would go to one of the quantitative guys who modeled these things and then make predictions based on his model. This was a way for a pundit to pretend he was smart. George Will perfected this trick back in 1992 when he consulted a Yale professor whose model predicted a Clinton win.

We do not see much of that anymore. The last time anyone bothered to make the connection was in the 2012 election. The economic models said the election should be razor thin, but that was declared haram. Obama was black Jesus and no one would be allowed to cast shade on our dusky savior. Since then, no one has bothered to talk about economics and elections.

Even now it is not getting much discussion, despite the fact we have 1970’s style inflation and a crumbling economy. People are feeling the pain at the cash register, but the real pain lies just after the election. People seem to get that and will most likely make this known on election day. On the other hand, the great invisible army of Biden voters may think everything is great. Who can really know?

Read it.

You think the Biden inflation is bad? Check out grade inflation at Harvard.

Read it.

Law professor Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond is a well-known member of Canada’s Great and the Good.

She’s received eleven honorary degrees from law schools for being the first Canadian Amerindian this and that, despite being extremely white-looking.

Not surprisingly, a long investigative report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation can’t find any evidence of her actually being an Indian.

Read it.

A 2017 YouGov survey of 2,300 US adults on issues related to free speech and tolerance on college campuses (weighted to be nationally representative) found that:

* 56 percent of men said that colleges should not protect students from offensive ideas; 64 percent of women said that they should.
* When presented with a variety of controversial claims made by speakers (e.g., men are better at math, all white people are racist, police are justified at stopping African Americans at higher rates), a majority of men supported nine of the 11 speakers’ right to speak on campus, and a majority of women opposed all 11 speakers’ right to do so.
* 51 percent of men said colleges should not disinvite speakers if students threaten violent protest; 67 percent of women said they should.
* 58 percent of men opposed a confidential reporting system at colleges which students could use to report offensive comments; 54 percent of women supported it.
* 63 percent of men thought controversial news stories in student papers should not need administrators’ approval before publication; 51 percent of women thought they should.
* 65 percent of men believed that supporting the right to make an argument is not the same as endorsing it; 51 percent of women disagreed.

Apparently women are fascists.

Ukraine Situation Report: U.S. To Rush Delivery Of NASAMS Air Defense Systems

Could Long-Range Iranian Missiles Be Next For Russia?

U.S. Army Eyes Buying More New APCs After M113 Transfers To Ukraine

U.N. publicly rejects Russia’s call for secret vote on Ukraine (Reuters)

Jamie Dimon: Oil crisis should be treated ‘almost as a matter of war at this point’

Exclusive: KLA to stop sales and service to China to comply with U.S. export curbs (Reuters)

Explainer: What makes a nuclear weapon ‘tactical’? (Reuters)

Iran’s Illicit Oil Sales Help Fuel Mass Military Buildup

US arms sales rebound back to $50B in fiscal 2022

Better fighting vehicles and trucks are in the Army’s future

U.S. sensors unable to track Chinese, Russian hypersonic missiles: report

CCP Runs Police Outpost In New York City, Part Of Global Network Of Transnational Repression: Report

Dark Days Ahead For Europe As Lack Of Russian Oil Could Spark ‘Worst Energy Crisis In Decades’

AIR DEFENSE: Delivering New Systems To Ukraine

Ukraine Recaptures 5 Settlements in Kherson Region

Major Russia-Germany Oil Pipeline Partially Shut After Leak

German Government Fears Millions of Furnaces Going Off…Children Now Being Handed Blankets at School  Off with the nose! Take that, face!

How Close Is Vladimir Putin to Using a Nuclear Bomb? (The New Yorker)

Read it.

Modified off-the-shelf drones have been found carrying wireless network-intrusion kit in a very unlikely place.

The idea of using consumer-oriented drones for hacking has been explored over the past decade at security conferences like Black Hat 2016, in both the US and in Europe. Naomi Wu, a DIY tech enthusiast, demonstrated a related project called Screaming Fist in 2017. And in 2013, security researcher Samy Kamkar demonstrated his SkyJack drone, which used a Raspberry Pi to take over other drones via Wi-Fi.

Now these sort of attacks are actually taking place.

Greg Linares, a security researcher, recently recounted an incident that he said occurred over the summer at a US East Coast financial firm focused on private investment. He told The Register that he was not involved directly with the investigation but interacted with those involved as part of his work in the finance sector.

Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your drains!

Read it.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

Read it.

It’s been just over a century since Ireland was divided into two political entities, and an increasing number of people in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland think it’s time to join together as one nation.

Read it.

The lacustrine landscape of Mexico Valley was covered with five big lakes: Texcoco, Xaltocan, Zumpango, Chalco and Xochimilco, and very small boggy islands.

To solve their land crisis, archaeological evidence as well as narratives of Spanish colonial writers tell us that the Aztecs came up with a genius plan: the chinampas. They artificially constructed these long, narrow strips of land over shallow lakes by piling earth on reeds and sedges and raising them to the required height. The islands were then anchored to the lake floor by a fence of ahuejote, a native willow tree.

While the Aztecs built Tenochtitlan’s city centre by connecting existing islands via bridges and boardwalks, in areas further from the city centre, such as the Xochimilco lake basin, they used chinampas to create floating gardens that could be used for agriculture, animal rearing, hunting and foraging. The ingenious technique of farming on water allowed the Aztecs to sustain their growing empire.

Joel Kotkin reveals that he is a socialist after all.

The implications of the current land grab are profound, threatening the future of democratic institutions and the middle class. These trends are distressingly common across the higher income countries. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported in Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle-Class that the future of the middle-class is threatened by house prices that have been growing “three times faster than household median income over the last two decades.” The pandemic drove prices even further, and, in the U.S., housing affordability is at the lowest level since 1989.

The use of the smear ‘land grab’ is illuminating. Apparently, buying land that you can afford and that other people are willing to sell you (without coercion) is a ‘grab’. Purer class-warfare sentiments are hard to imagine.

There is nothing about rich people owning land that ‘threatens the future of democratic institutions’; the right to vote, last time I looked, did not depend on land ownership. Whether or not the ‘middle class’ it threatened by it is an assertion for which neither evidence nor argument is presented–he just says it as if it were an Obviously Bad Thing, a traditional progressive practice. (Ask Dave Ramsay some time about the typical ‘middle class’ 30-year mortgage … and Stand Back.)

Ukraine live updates Strikes across Ukraine, including heart of Kyiv; Putin convenes his Security Council (Washington Post)

Russian strikes kill 17 in Ukraine following bridge attack (CNBC)

Russian missiles strike Ukraine after bridge bombing (CBS)

Explosions rock multiple Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv (The Hill)

Several loud explosions heard in Ukrainian capital Kyiv (Al Jezeera)

Why Zelensky’s World War III Gambit Will Fail

Russia Strikes Kyiv, Multiple Ukrainian Cities; Many Dead

Kyiv, Other Cities Hit as Putin Orders ‘Harsh Response’ to Crimea Bridge Attack

Live Updates: Putin’s ‘Mass Strike’ on Ukraine Draws Furious Condemnation (N.Y.Times)

Two Wars, Two Visions

Professor Sachs: “Ukraine Needs To Stop Bombing Nuclear Power Plant And Blaming It On Russia”

Joe Rogan & Dave Smith Break Down The Real Reasons Russia Invaded Ukraine In Viral Clip

Axios.

Nearly four out of 10 Republicans and one in four Democrats say they’ll blame election fraud if their party doesn’t win control of Congress in November, in the latest wave of the Axios-Ipsos Two Americas Index.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

So young, and already an insurrectionist.

Read it.

Central to Vladimir Putin’s claim that Ukraine is historically part of some greater Russia, and the staged plebiscites recently in the Russian-occupied territory, it is worth looking back on the actual votes cast in Ukraine back in 1991 when it had a referendum on the question of independence from the post-Soviet Union. Only in Crimea was there any serious sentiment in favor of remaining with Russia, and even there not a majority. I suspect most Ukrainians still have long memories of their treatment at the hands of Russia over the centuries.

Read it.

Markets, we are told, are rebelling against the government’s irresponsible fiscal policy, not least the now-abandoned plan to abolish the 45p tax rate. If that is what they are doing, it marks a sharp change in their behaviour. For most of the past decade they have whooped with delight whenever a fantastically expensive stimulus package has been announced and gone into a sulk whenever there have been rumours that the punch bowl is about to be withdrawn.

In this Alice in Wonderland world, good news became bad and bad news became good. Why? Because bad news means greater likelihood of a stimulus package; good news means stimulus is likely to be withdrawn. And of course, the extra billions pumped into the economy through stimulus – whether it be quantitative-easing or Joe Biden’s blatant helicopter money – had a tendency to be sucked into inflated asset prices.

Maybe like a reformed gambler, global markets have finally come to the realisation that this really can’t go on. You can’t go on creating money out of thin air forever after and expect it not to end up with serious inflation. They are giving the global bookmakers – i.e. central banks – a message: save us, before we all end up broke. If markets have told us anything over the past month it is: governments and central banks, get your fiscal and monetary houses in order.

Avoid the red areas. Don’t go there. Don’t eat their food. Don’t buy their products. Don’t adopt their politics. Just … don’t. THERE’S A REASON PEOPLE ARE LEAVING. THEY KNOW SOMETHING YOU DON’T.

Read it.

In just the last few weeks, Liz Truss, Britain’s new prime minister, has been denounced by critics as a “fascist.” So has Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s newly elected prime minister. Along with all Republicans in Congress, Texas and Florida GOP Govs. Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis and, of course, former President Donald Trump. Every one of the tens of thousands of “MAGA Republicans” who attend Trump rallies, too.

Dangerous fascists, for that matter, all of whom critics say need to be shut up.

Joel Kotkin.

The great core cities don’t die — but only if they are willing to change. Today the world’s great cities, such as New York or London, face dramatically changed conditions, notably the rise of remote work, fears from the pandemic, and rising crime.

In many ways they are experiencing an acceleration of already deep-seated trends. The percentage of Americans living in suburbs rose from 13 percent of the metropolitan population in 1940 to 86 percent in 2017, a gradual increase of 2 percent a year. And since 2012, suburbs and exurbs have accounted for about 90 percent of all metropolitan growth. This dispersion has occurred not only in the United States but in the old cities of Europe, too, including London and Paris.

Read it.

You could see this one coming a mile away, and many of us did. When the Supreme Court declared that there is no rational reason to deny the right of two people of the same sex to marry–love is love!–it eliminated the teleological foundation of marriage and the family. If marriage is no longer grounded in the biology of reproduction–it takes two, a man and a woman, to make a child–then the number two is likewise irrational. If George and Ken can be in love, and therefore entitled to marry, then why can’t George, Ken and Susan?

Mormons will be pleased.

Muslims will be pleased.

Turd World countries will be pleased.

Saudi Arabia and Russia plan deep oil cuts in defiance of US (Financial Times)

White House launches last ditch effort to dissuade OPEC from cutting oil production to avoid a ‘total disaster’ (CNN)

Russia-Ukraine news (CNN)

Biden speaks with Zelensky, unveils $625 million weapons package to Ukraine (The Hill)

It’s Time to Brace for Putin’s Greatest Meltdown Yet (Daily Beast)

What happens if Putin decides to cut his losses in Ukraine? (NPR)

US-China Space Wars & Moon-Mining

Kiev Offers White House Targeting Control For Longer Range Weapons

COUNTER-TERRORISM: The Growing Use of Sanctuaries

AFGHANISTAN: Shunned, Sanctioned And Starving

Europe’s Energy Crisis Forces Factories to Go Dark

Read it.

And are you willing to bet your heat on the dependability of the electrical grid in a winter storm?

Joel Kotkin.

Reading the mainstream media, one would be forgiven for believing that the upcoming midterms are part of a Manichaean struggle for the soul of democracy, pitting righteous progressives against the authoritarian “ultra-MAGA” hordes. The truth is nothing of the sort. Even today, the vast majority of Americans are moderate and pragmatic, with fewer than 20% combined for those identifying as either “very conservative” or “very liberal”. The apocalyptic ideological struggle envisioned by the country’s elites has little to do with how most Americans actually live and think. For most people, it is not ideology but the powerful forces of class, race, and geography that determine their political allegiances — and how they will vote come November.

Read it.

Ewww. Just … ewww.

Well, that’s one way to force ‘vaccines’ on people. I guess.