US Fighter Jets Now Under Consideration For Ukraine: Air Force Chief

Biden administration preps Taiwan for Chinese attack after Ukraine invasion

Escalation is Inevitable

Russian missiles strike Odessa port day after grain deal, Ukraine says

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You can tell a bit about someone based on their preconceptions about Peter Thiel. Whether the reflexive response to the name is “malign far-Right plutocrat”, “philanthropic saviour of all that is good” or “who?” is a reasonably reliable guide to where that person otherwise sits in the great online psychodrama we now call “the culture wars”.

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

“Lucretia” joins in the fun of my absence with a dunk on the latest instance of soi-disant conservatives pining for the “strange new respect” award from liberals for abandoning a conservative position. My biography of M. Stanton Evans recounts that Stan disliked George Will starting back in the 1970s because “George is always coming up with ‘conservative’ reasons to do some liberal thing.” As usual, Stan was ahead of his time. In recent years this defect has become a pandemic on the right. And it doesn’t even bother to mask itself any more! My train ride from London to Edinburgh today prompts me to propose an American conservative variation of the “no true Scotsman” fallacy, which in this case comes out as the “no true French-man” (as in David French-man) fallacy, which manifests itself in the seemingly endless series of “The Conservative Case for” some kind of conservative defeat.

Former Chinese state media editor suggests Nancy Pelosi be ‘restrained,’ ‘punished’ by CCP for visiting Taiwan

Russia’s Ukraine war effort running ‘out of steam’ as Putin’s ability to spy in Europe cut in half, MI6 chief says (CNN)

British intelligence retools to meet the growing challenge of China

AP Highlights ‘Ukraine’s History Of Rampant Corruption’ After US Lawmaker Slams Zelensky

Vladimir Putin’s fascist fetish

IEA Chief: Europe Must Cut Gas Usage 20% To Survive Winter  Take that, nose!

Still Cute? Dystopian Robot Dogs Now Sporting Guns And Russian Insignia

German Government Bails Out Uniper From Energy Crisis

French Nuclear Outages Risk Making Europe’s Gas Crisis Worse

4 questions the US and NATO need to ask, and answer, about their Ukraine strategy

Russia and Ukraine agree to release blockaded grain exports

Russia tests U.S. air defenses in midst of Ukraine war

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Last night Congressman and Republican candidate for Governor of New York Lee Zeldin was on stage, giving a speech at a campaign stop in upstate New York, when a man climbed onto the stage and attacked Zeldin with some kind of bladed weapon. Zeldin defended himself and bystanders wrestled the attacker to the ground. Zeldin was unhurt and later resumed his speech.

The assailant was identified as 43-year-old David Jakubonis. Not much is known about Jakubonis at this point. He has been described as an Iraq war veteran, but that may be only because of the hat he was wearing. It seems reasonable to assume that he is a Democrat, although he might just be a nut, and some observers said he looked as though he could be intoxicated.

UPDATE: Why New York Police Released the Man Who Tried To Stab Jewish Republican

Giving A-10 Warthogs To Ukraine Isn’t Off The Table

Nord Stream 1 resumes gas flows from Russia to Europe after fears of complete cutoff (CNBC)

US officials recovered possible Fabergé egg from Russian oligarch’s seized yacht (CNN) Ooooo, what else can we steal?

US Destroyer Enters China-Claimed Waters For 3rd Time In A Week Ahead Of Pelosi Taiwan Trip

William Burns, CIA chief, says China plans Taiwan takeover in next few years

‘A New World Order Is Coming’ – Putin Blasts “Globalist” Ideology As “Totalitarian”

Pelosi to Blinken: Label Russia as terrorist state, or else Congress will (Politico)

Russia Plans ‘Annexation Votes’ For Captured Ukraine Territories By Mid-September: Report

US warns losing access to Taiwanese chips could break the economy

US “Started” The Ukraine Crisis, China Says, In Fiercest Official Criticism Yet  Once Russia ceased being Communist, NATO ought to have been dissolved.

British intelligence retools for spying on China

The war for warmth

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In order to better understand how people will interact with mobile robots in the wild, we need to take them out of the lab and deploy them in the real world. But this isn’t easy to do.

Roboticists tend to develop robots under the assumption that they’ll know exactly where their robots are at any given time—clearly that’s an important capability if the robot’s job is to usefully move between specific locations. But that ability to localize generally requires the robot to have powerful sensors and a map of its environment. There are ways to wriggle out of some of these requirements: If you don’t have a map, there are methods that build a map and localize at the same time, and if you don’t have a good range sensor, visual navigation methods use just a regular RGB camera, which most robots would have anyway. Unfortunately, these alternatives to traditional localization-based navigation are either computationally expensive, not very robust, or both.

The problem with engineers is that they think that the world is full of people like them, i.e. intelligent and honest.

The first thing that will happen when they ‘deploy their robot in the real world’ is that some crook from the ‘hood will throw it in the back of a van and you’ll never see it–or its contents–again (except as small parts sold out of the back of a bodega).

Read it.

The goals of the company are quite ambitious—clean, continuous energy for 1 cent per kilowatt-hour, and the ability to manufacture enough power plants to satisfy the current electrical demand of earth in a ten year period.

If both things happen, it will transform the world. Abundant, clean, and radically inexpensive energy will elevate the quality of life for all of us—think about how much the cost of energy factors into what we do and use. Also, electricity at this price will allow us to do things like efficiently capture carbon (so although we’ll still rely on gasoline for awhile, it’ll be ok).

Read it.

In 1941, Henry Ford built a car out of plastic from hemp and other plant material that ran on hemp fuel. Why aren’t we driving it today? asks Return to Now.

Ford’s 1941 bioplastic Model T was made of hemp, flax, wheat, and spruce pulp, which made the car lighter than fiberglass and ten times tougher than steel, wrote the New York Times on February 2, 1941. The car ran on ethanol made from hemp or other agricultural waste. Ford’s experimental model was deemed a step toward the realization of his dream to “grow automobiles from soil,” wrote Popular Mechanics in their December 1941 issue and reduce greenhouse gases—already known to occur by then.

China threatens ‘strong measures’ if Pelosi visits Taiwan (Associated Press)

New UK Hub To Develop Anti-Drone Laser Weapons As Ukraine War Fuels Demand

Intelligence Agencies Say Russia Election Threat Persists Amid Ukraine War (N.Y. Times) I can’t say that Putin’s choice for U.S. President wouldn’t be preferable to that of the New York Times.

E.U. urges gas rationing ahead of ‘likely’ cutoff by Russia  (Washington Post)

Putin Says Russia Will Honor Gas Commitment But Flows Will Drop As Much As 20% Of Capacity

Russia’s goals in Ukraine now include territory outside the Donbas, Lavrov says

China Spent 72% More On Russian Oil In June As Moscow Remains Top Chinese Supplier; Saudi Volumes Tumble

Ukraine shows need for NATO ‘magazine depth’: Raytheon exec

Tanker Companies Race To Ship Russian Oil Ahead Of New Sanctions

Read it.

Denmark is to start demolishing parts of migrant ghettos and moving people elsewhere in a bid to put an end to ‘parallel societies’ that have led to high crime and social dislocation.

How About: Returning them to where they came from?

(Naw….)

ZMan stares into the abyss.

There is a growing sense that there is a crisis in science, with science being broadly defined to include the soft sciences. The reproducibility crisis, as pointed out by the statistician W. M. Briggs, is close to universal. Across the academy, there is a plague of faulty and fraudulent studies being produced. Worse yet, the systems for controlling fraud seem to be encouraging it. Peer review now means nothing more than politically acceptable in the soft science fields.

Briggs offers one reason for what is happening. He notes that engineering is not having this problem. The reason is the bridge has to actually work as predicted or the engineers suffer a heavy price. Engineering is not science, but it relies upon the sciences to produce practical things. Those practical things must hold up to reality, which controls what comes out of engineering as accepted theory. In other words, everything in engineering gets tested against reality.

The academy, on the other hand, never has to face reality this way. Even in the hard sciences, reality avoidance is common. Theoretical physics has entered a world that is beyond the ability to test. Math is still math, but much of what is done is purely speculative or requires unproven assumptions. In the soft sciences, the rules have collapsed entirely and most of what comes out is narrative framing. The “science” is limited to providing cover for current fads.

Read it.

I mentioned in a previous posting that most companies have very conservative values because the liberal companies go bankrupt fairly quickly. You can’t run a company on the basis of your social justice values – your employees will walk all over you. In theory, it is a great idea to be “nice” to your employees and grant them all sorts of benefits and perks, but the biggest pushback you will get is not from the shareholders or management, but from the employees themselves. People want strong leadership and being “nice” is seen as being weak.

This from a bona-fide Leftist.

Ukraine Situation Report: Russia Shops For Armed Drones At Iranian Base

Russian forces ‘preparing new offensive’ – as it happened (The Guardian) Now that the Russians are winning, coverage is strangely light.

This Proxy War Has No Exit Strategy

Germany’s Running Out Of Energy: Wind Turbine Construction Stalls, Firewood Becoming Scarce!

Top Energy Regulator Warns Germany Won’t Survive Winter Without Russian NatGas  Entirely self-inflicted.

Read it.

It might be too late for Liz Cheney to change her ways. She is trailing her Republican opponent, Harriet Hagerman, by 22 points in the Wyoming Republican primary.

Liz is encouraging Democrats in Wyoming to vote for her in the primary. That may not be enough to help her hold onto her seat in the House. Registered Republicans make up 71% of registered voters in Wyoming compared to 15% registered as Democrats.

Read it.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that there was an ‘arrow industry’.

I’ll bet you didn’t know what ‘disrupting the arrow industry’ even means. (Does it turn into a bolt of plasma as it comes off the bow?)

Read it

DC-based and international consulting firms are seeing a sharp increase in clients seeking briefings on war risks between China and Taiwan, following US defense and intelligence leaders spotlighting the potential for conflict amid the backdrop of the Ukraine war.

A fresh report in Financial Times describes that these firms and think tanks have observed a huge uptick in company executives seeking information that would help them gauge risk and exposure in the scenario of a Chinese invasion of the democratic-run island. The general atmosphere of unpreparedness during the late February Russian invasion of Ukraine is fueling this in large part.

Sarah Hoyt. Highly recommended.

For some reason, the left really wants to force both sexes to act like the worst examples of the other sex. To a great extent, they’re succeeding.

Read it.

Basic economics says that companies can only set prices at a level where the current supply will meet demand. Moreover, looking at prices in a vacuum is also very misleading because it doesn’t account for changes in the firm’s input or operating costs.

As Milton Friedman once stated, corporations don’t cause inflation; governments create inflation by printing money. There was no better example of this than the massive Government interventions in 2020 and 2021 that sent subsequent rounds of checks to households (creating demand) when an economic shutdown constrained supply due to the pandemic.

ZMan’s weekly podcast. Highly recommended.

Arguably, one of the most important political concepts to come out of the 20th century was James Burnham’s theory of managerialism. It is important mostly because it is a set of accurate observations that allow for a further understanding of what is happening in Western societies since the Second World War. Once you understand that our society is organized like a corporation, with senior management and a large layer of middle-management, things make much more sense.

The trouble is most people do not want to see this. Instead, they indulge in reductionist theories about secret cabals manipulating the system. Others pretend that the system is what is advertised and you just have to vote harder. Still others insist we have drifted into something randomly called socialist, Marxist or communist, not because the system possesses these qualities, but because those words are epithets. Despite being incredibly useful, the concept is hardly used.

How Yellen plans to deplete Putin’s war funds (Politico)

Russia, Ukraine Reach Breakthrough Over Blocked Grain Exports: UN Chief

Germany To Halt Russian Coal Imports Next Month

Lithuania To Allow Rail Transit Of Russian Goods After EU Reaches Compromise On Kaliningrad

Officials Reveal Haphazard, Chaotic Way Western Arms Are Being Distributed In Ukraine

Stockpile concerns rising in Europe amid efforts to help Ukraine: Dutch DefMin

Russia Hails “Victory Of Our Diplomacy” In Wake Of EU’s Kaliningrad Decision

Steve Sailer looks at Matt Continetti’s new book.

William F. Buckley, founder of National Review, is the central figure in The Right, showing up on 107 pages according to the index. I didn’t see too much in the book that’s new about that legendary personality, so here’s a story about WFB that I heard only recently (and only from one source, but a reasonably reliable one): WFB, who had won 13 percent of the vote in an entertaining Conservative Party run for mayor of New York City in 1965, intensely wanted to run for president in 1968. If Jack Kennedy could be president at age 43, why not him? He was surprised and frustrated to find that his own inner circle didn’t take him seriously as presidential timber.

Buckley’s popularity shared at least one common characteristic with Trump’s: He was entertaining.

… when a friend asked press baron Rupert Murdoch why he funded The Weekly Standard, which was edited by Continetti’s father-in-law William Kristol (15 references in the index), even though Murdoch doesn’t seem to care that much about Israel one way or another, the wily Australian magnate replied that when you are a foreigner trying to make it in the America media business, you don’t need all the Jews in New York on your side, but you do need some of them.

Read it.

Populism: When the wrong person or cause wins a free election, like Brexit or Trump.

Racism: Any kind of resistance, conscious or unconscious, to the political program of the left.

Democracy: Any institutional design or voting system that enables the left to get what it wants.

Updated version: “Our” democracy—the version of “democracy as the left defines it.”

“Threat to democracy”: When Republicans win an election.

Read it.

Business press articles on the widely experienced shortage of workers in the United States often identify as part of the problem that the current “labor participation rate” (1) is unusually low. The articles generally offer up several theories on why so many people are not participating in the labor market. Those theories include 1) people still living off government pandemic checks, 2) people unwilling to commit to a job while the school schedules for their children continue to be unreliable, 3) laziness of the youngest generation, and 4) older people who were prematurely retired during the pandemic and choose to stay retired. Businesses lament the difficulties in finding and attracting employees, and complain how the worker shortage negatively affects their business activities.

But, have businesses considered the possibility that they could be contributing to the problem themselves? Are businesses scaring off potential employees with “woke” policies and controversial political messaging? I’m not sure I can muster much sympathy for the “woe is me” businesses lamenting their inability to find workers while the businesses push “woke” policies and controversial political positions.

I am a premature retiree, though my premature retirement slightly preceded the pandemic. I sometimes miss aspects of working, and so occasionally look at reentering the paid labor market. But when I do look, I see all the focus prospective employers put on non-core issues such as promoting sexual deviancy and related bullying (illustrated with widespread use of rainbow flags), promoting “anti-racist” racism, opposing formation of stable families, promoting the killing of employees’ babies, hating on many aspects of Western Civilization and on the foundational values of America, and other topics from the current “woke” agenda. From that I conclude that the company probably doesn’t want me, and that if I were to go to work there I would be uncomfortable and the company would be working actively to make me uncomfortable.

Germany braces for ‘nightmare’ of Russia turning off gas for good (The Guardian)

Canada joins UK in sanctioning Russian primate

Exit, Pursued by a Bear: Europes Coming Gas Shortages Analyzed

Ukrainian Forces Bear Some Blame For Civilian Deaths In Nursing Home Attack: UN Report

Majority Of Europeans Unwilling To ‘Pay The Price’ To Defend ‘Democracy’ In Ukraine

Russia Controls Area The Size Of Mississippi In Ukraine Despite US Pledge Of $54BN

Putin Signs Decree Offering Citizenship To All Ukrainians

Russia suffers ‘wild shell hunger’ as Ukraine hits arms depots with long-range Western rockets

EU Readying 7th Round Of Anti-Russia Sanctions, Even As Oil Price-Cap Likely Shelved  ‘Russia is still fighting!’ ‘We’ll show them! Shave another layer off of our nose!’

I hate it when that happens.

Works for me.

Read it.

The man whose posting on social media warned authorities that agent provocateurs from Antifa and Black Lives Matter would be at the U.S. Capitol dressed as Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, is a self-described government informant tied to former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein.

Tell the truth: We’ve all wanted to do that.

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This ought to come as no surprise. Intelligence, if not entirely hereditary, has a large hereditary component. In these degenerate modern times, when even people who don’t have the smarts to make it in college nevertheless get admitted and funded (with YOUR tax dollars), the children of people with advanced degrees have no trouble getting advanced degrees themselves, unless they are total screw-ups (which many are). In the Good Old Days, being a professor didn’t pay all that much, so their kids sometimes had to get a Real Job. But not any more.

Read it.

An article featured in British newspaper The Guardian forecasts a world in which it is commonplace for young adults and would-be parents to opt toward raising “digital babies” over having real children of their own. Powered by virtual reality and artificial intelligence, these “programmable and highly realistic children” would simulate play, emotional feedback, and the tactile feel of caring for offspring.

Cute, right?

I propose that they all bear the surname ‘Tamagochi’.

Actually, this isn’t a bad idea; there are a lot of people that I wouldn’t want to see actually reproduce, so this ‘digital baby’ might serve as a substitute for people whose offspring we’d really not want in our gene pool.

The Military Situation: Part II –the First Week

Russia is set to switch off the gas for work on a key pipeline — and Germany fears the worst (CNBC)

Nickel Prices Surge As UK Sanctions Major Russian Miner

Iran, Russia, China To Run War Drills in Latin America

The Test Of Strategy

Ukraine Says $750BN Needed To Rebuild, Wants To Use Seized Russian Assets

Ron Paul: Biden’s Sanctions Are A Windfall For Russia, Foreign Policy Fail

Read it.

In the past 20 years—and particularly the last 10 to 15—the average age of actors appearing toward the top of the bill in film and TV projects has risen significantly. Whereas the star, or the top two or three stars, of the typical movie or TV series released in the closing decades of the 20th century was typically in their late 30s—several years older than the median age of the United States population at the time—today’s average actor age has reached the mid-40s and is steadily climbing toward 50. Actors who became fixtures on big screens and small in previous decades haven’t given way to new blood as quickly as was once customary. As a result, Hollywood’s leading men and women of today bear a strong resemblance to the leading men and women from the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s after a trip to the beach from Old—except, of course, for the fact that actors like Cruise (who’ll turn 60 next week) don’t always look their age. The graying of actors—the ones with their natural hair colors, at least—appears to be the product of a confluence of factors that reflect the fracturing of culture in the post-monoculture age, the industry’s gravitation toward franchises and sequels, shifts in audience demographics, efforts to promote more inclusive casting, and a growing range of options for maintaining a more youthful appearance.

Ukraine war to shift to Donetsk after fall of Luhansk; Russia claims major victory (Reuters)

Ukrainian forces withdraw from Lysychansk, their last holdout in key region (CNN)

The last city in Luhansk has fallen to Russia. What does that mean for Ukraine? (NPR)

The G-7 is considering a price cap on Russian oil. But energy analysts think it’s impossible (CNBC)

Can the G7 proposal for a cap on Russian oil prices work?  (Al Jezeera) No.

SURFACE  FORCES : Ukraine Rebuilds

Putin Says Western Sanctions Speeding Up Russia-Belarus Unification

Are US Weapons Supplied To Ukraine Ending Up On DarkNet Marketplaces?

Bulgaria Expels 70 Russian Diplomats As Kremlin Says Kiev Must Accept ‘All Conditions’ To End War

Blocked Persons and Letters of Marque

Read it.