Read it.

The back up for intermittent renewables will come from 40 year old plants, which should have been shut down already.

StrategyPage.

South Korea has become the seventh nation to use Sea Launched Ballistic Missiles or SLBMs. The second version of the KSS-III submarines feature a number of firsts. They were non-nuclear, the first non-nuclear submarines that not only use Air Independent Propulsion or AIP but do so using lithium ion instead of lead-acid batteries. With this AIP system the KSS-III submarines can operate submerged for about three weeks. These subs also have ten Vertical Launch Cells or VLS filled by Hyunmoo 4-4 SLBMs with a range of 800 kilometers. North Korea is developing similar technology, but the north can only manage to build crude imitations of what the South Korean created. South Korea is far wealthier and technically advanced than the north. Both Koreas produce weapons that work often enough to do some damage and kill people. The South Korean weapons do this more reliably and effectively. North Korea is content to be able to say, “We have that too.”

Unlike the Europeans, the Asians realize that they can’t depend on the U.S. (especially with a Democrat administration) to defend them from China, North Korea, and other threats, so they have no choice but to step up to the plate.

Read it.

It’s widely accepted that “migrants” are a net financial drain on any Western nation that decides to import them en masse. The following article reports on the research conducted by a German economist in an effort to quantify the amount of money lost due to all the cultural enrichment.

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

If the election comes down to Trump versus Biden again as is likely, it is a certainty that there will be no debates between them—the first presidential race in 50 years without debates. The Biden White House is already floating the trial balloons for refusing to debate Trump while concealing the real reason—they know Biden is not longer up to it. He can no longer do press conferences or one-on-one interview with friendly reporters.

Dementia Hitler, as Scott Adams calls him, is no longer up to a conversation with Trump, much less a debate.

John Hinderaker at Power Line.

During a television appearance last night, I was asked why the Biden administration pursues an open border policy that has had catastrophic consequences and is deeply unpopular with voters. It is a good question. I agreed with the host that liberals think they are importing a lot of future Democrats. I also think some Democrats perceive that mass illegal immigration dramatically increases the demand for social services, most of which are provided by Democrats. Still, I am not sure how persuasive those explanations are.

The New York Times understands its fellow Democrats better than I do, so yesterday’s “The Morning” email likely provides a clue–in a word, Trump made them do it.

Read it.

The Portland, Oregon, area is currently experiencing an explosion of shigellosis, a highly infectious, often antibiotic-resistant intestinal disease caused by contact with human feces.

Most of the outbreak—at least 218 cases in 2023, 45 of them reported in December—has taken place in Old Town, a once-lively restaurant and shopping destination near downtown Portland that’s now the site of numerous homeless encampments whose residents often use sidewalks as restrooms.

The Portland City Council, alarmed at a surge in the area’s homeless population, now estimated at about 6,000, in June 2023 passed severe restrictions on camping in public places. Tents and campsites are now technically banned during daytime hours and limited to certain designated areas at night. But no one in famously progressive Portland tried to enforce the legislation until the fall, when this latest infestation of shigella bacteria (there had been a similar outbreak among the homeless in 2021) began to generate headlines.

Read it.

Democrat Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is pleading with Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott not to send busloads of migrants to Chicago while the Midwest is being hit by a powerful winter storm.

Chicago is among the many Democrat-run cities that have declared themselves sanctuaries for illegal immigrants, and Abbott has sent thousands to Chicago and other sanctuary cities by bus and airplane to relieve the strain on his state caused by immigration at the U.S. southern border.

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Last time around, we considered NASA’s recent attempts to build outer space communications systems, and the strange belief of contemporary Left-leaning scientists and academics affiliated with astronomical organisations like SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) that any aliens we did manage one day to contact would inevitably talk in a language every bit as impeccably woke as they themselves do.

A classic illustration of such delusion came in the newly ideologically-captured journal Scientific American in 2022. Under the headline ‘Cultural Bias Distorts the Search for Alien Life’ appeared an interview with Rebecca Charbonneau, a young SETI-linked cultural historian whose paper ‘Imaginative Cosmos: The Impact of Colonial Heritage in Radio Astronomy and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ had brought her to the attention of the editors.

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As the Middle East is again consumed by wars of terrorist aggression, Africa, too, is experiencing a rise in violence. Despite the region receiving billions in U.S. foreign aid annually, groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have gained ground throughout the continent. As of 2023, the Sahel region—a broad sub-Saharan swathe of land stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Oceans—represents 43% of all global deaths caused by terrorism. This is a 7% increase over last year, with no signs of abating.

All of this chaos has helped American adversaries like China and Russia gain stronger footholds on the African continent—a continent rich in natural resources critical to U.S. commerce and national security, but a sanctuary for terrorists who seek to attack America and our allies. It’s also a place where people deserve better than terrorism, violence, and authoritarian dictators. Yet U.S. influence in the region has declined since the Biden administration took office and rolled out a tremendously weak Africa strategy.

Read it.

Brooklyn’s PS 261 school said it took down the colorful map titled, “Arab World,” in which the area that sits between Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria—where the Jewish state, as well as Gaza and the West Bank, lies—is labeled “Palestine,” after the Free Press on Thursday reported its display in a classroom there.

Qatar Foundation International, owned by the Qatari government, in April posted a picture of the map on X, then known as Twitter. The map was displayed in an “Arab Culture Arts” classroom in the school where children from pre-K to fifth grade learn as part of a program that the organization funds, the now-deleted post said.

The Free Press asked the city’s Department of Education whether the map remained up in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. Spokesman Nathaniel Styer responded by asking, “Why would it not be?” and added that it was a “map of countries that speak Arabic.” After the outlet published the story, however, Styer gave an update on the map’s status.

Read it.

More than a year since its creation, a U.S.-backed fund to support the Afghan people has not made a single disbursement and lacks safeguards to prevent the $3.5 billion investment from being stolen by the Taliban government, according to a government watchdog.

The Afghan Fund was created more than a year ago by a Biden administration order that allowed more than $3.5 billion in funds previously held by Afghanistan’s central bank to be moved into a charitable account tasked with aiding the war-torn country’s ailing population.

Since that time, “the Fund has made no disbursements for activities intended to benefit the Afghan people” and currently has no “specific controls in place to ensure funds are not diverted to or misused by the Taliban,” according to a report published earlier this week by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which monitors American aid to the country.

Babylon Bee.

At a press conference this week, Sony producers announced the production of a new modern adaptation of George Orwell’s dystopic novel 1984 that will feature the character of Big Brother as the good guy.

And, oddly enough, he looks very much like Joe Biden.

Read it.

Because he can?

If he were a Republican, his ass would be rotting in jail even as we speak.

Read it.

In a bid to “foster greater inclusivity,” King Arthur Baking Company is hosting a competition that discriminates against white contestants by barring them from entering

I’ll bet you didn’t know that King Arthur was a Person of Color.

Read it.

The Texas National Guard this week erected new barriers along part of the state’s border with Mexico blocking access for U.S. Border Patrol agents, the federal government said in a Friday court filing.

The move by Texas comes amid an escalating conflict between the Republican state government and the Democrat administration of President Joe Biden over migration.

Lawyers for the Biden administration told the U.S. Supreme Court in their filing that Texas’ “activities have changed the situation along the relevant stretch of the Rio Grande.” They added that the additional barriers in and around Eagle Pass, Texas “further restricts Border Patrol’s ability to reach the river in particular areas.”

More to the point, it restricts the illegal immigrants’ ability to reach Texas in particular areas, which the Border Patrol seems unwilling to do.

Read it.

E pur si muove….

Read it.

Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke is running for re-election this year in New York’s 9th District to FINISH THE JOB of utterly destroying New York.

To achieve her goal of ruining a once great city, Clarke is demanding MORE illegal migrants.

Clarke actually admitted that the Democrats need more migrants to overrun their cities and states for “redistricting purposes.”

Of course, if we based our districts on number of citizens rather than number of inhabitants it would not be a problem. But Democrats would fight that to their last breath.

Read it.

For their latest magic trick, physicists have done the quantum equivalent of conjuring energy out of thin air. It’s a feat that seems to fly in the face of physical law and common sense.

“You can’t extract energy directly from the vacuum because there’s nothing there to give,” said William Unruh, a theoretical physicist at the University of British Columbia, describing the standard way of thinking.

But 15 years ago, Masahiro Hotta, a theoretical physicist at Tohoku University in Japan, proposed that perhaps the vacuum could, in fact, be coaxed into giving something up.

Read it.

You will be happier if you spend your money on experiences rather than possessions… or so says the modern truism, supposedly proven by psychological science. Researchers call it the “experience recommendation.”

It sounds good, right? It’s very flattering to a certain class of worldly people who spent their capital on accruing anecdotes. Ah, yes—we who go on retreats in Bali are much happier than the unsophisticated materialistic people who spend money on handbags or whatever.

It also supports the notion, which occasionally floats around, that wealthy people aren’t really made happy by their fancy possessions, which is comforting if you like to believe that wealthy people are idiots.

If you think that money can’t buy happiness you’re shopping in the wrong place.

Read it.

When we speak to visitors or students about our medieval manuscripts, we frequently find ourselves spending a significant amount of time talking about how such books were created. We discuss the ways that scribes worked and artists painted, and quite often we will then be asked just how it is that we can know such details. There are, of course, medieval manuals for craftspeople that still exist, but often we can find clues in the manuscripts themselves. Writing was a skill that was hard-won and greatly valued, and many authors and scribes were memorialised by their artisan brethren.

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Imagine being trapped in London rush hour traffic next to a huge 4500F / 2500C fireball, or even worse, being a passenger trapped on the upper deck of a burning EV.

Read it.

American ‘journalism’: More interested in Elon Musk’s use of drugs than Hunter Biden’s.

No wonder the country’s in bad shape.

Read it.

How dare he act like an American President!

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It’s tough out there for a hungry grasshopper on the Kansas prairie. Oh, there’s plenty of grass to eat, but this century’s grass isn’t what it used to be. It’s less nutritious, deficient in minerals like iron, potassium and calcium.

Partly due to that nutrient-deficient diet, there’s been a huge decline in grasshopper numbers of late, by about one-third over two decades, according to a 2020 study. The prairie’s not hoppin’ like it used to — and a major culprit is carbon dioxide, says study author Michael Kaspari, an ecologist at the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

Read it.

In its latest assertion of sovereignty and responsibility for securing its border with Mexico, the once and future Republic of Texas has seized control of a 47-acre park in the city of Eagle Pass, which has been a major avenue of illegal immigration. What’s more, the Texans are barring US Border Patrol agents and watercraft from the property, which they’ve used as a staging area for processing migrants.

Read it.

Markets work, even when you don’t want them to.

Read it.

The young “French” woman in the following video avers that she was born in France, but doesn’t like the country. She would prefer to live in a Muslim country, but she foresees an Islamic future for France, and clearly regards it as her distasteful duty to remain in her despicable infidel milieu in order to further the process of Islamization.

Read it.

People reacted to the news that the U.S. Army is struggling to recruit white soldiers by asking why they would want to serve a regime that hates them.

Good point. In fact, any white male who works for a corporation with an HR department might just as well quit now, because there is no chance that you will ever get promoted.

“A total of 44,042 new Army recruits were categorized by the service as white in 2018, but that number has fallen consistently each year to a low of 25,070 in 2023, with a 6% dip from 2022 to 2023 being the most significant drop. No other demographic group has seen such a precipitous decline, though there have been ups and downs from year to year,” reports the website.

In 2023, the Army missed its recruiting goal of 65,000 soldiers by a shortfall of 10,000, with just 44% of new recruits categorized as white in 2023 compared to 56.4% in 2018.

Read it.

A former civil servant, Anna Stanley reports on a counter-terrorism course she attended which she found a deeply, existentially depressing experience. She argues that ‘prestigious’ educational institutions are delivering politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination and that extremism and terrorism are misunderstood by civil servants to the point of being a national security risk.

I recently attended a Kings College course called ‘Issues in Countering Terrorism’. Organised by the Centre for Defence Studies, it was designed for civil servants and professionals in Counter Terrorism. Staff from the Foreign Office, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Defence and Home Office attended. Facilitating this relatively new 3 day course were senior lecturers from the Security Studies Department.

The civil servants were given presentations by Kings College lecturers while Visiting Senior Research Fellows and Professors also spoke. These included those formerly holding positions such as Permanent Secretary of the Home Office and Director of GCHQ, Defence Minister and Foreign Office Director.

PJ Media.

These Fani Willis allegations are getting crazier by the day. By now, I’m sure you’ve read Athena Thorne’s intrepid report on the accusations that Willis hired an attorney with whom she is supposedly carrying on an extramarital affair as a special prosecutor in the Trump RICO case, despite his lack of qualifications with that type of litigation. The special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, also allegedly met with White House representatives about the case.

I penned a follow-up piece about another Willis hire, Pallavi Bailey, who serves as the DA’s spokeswoman. She is married to Charlie Bailey, who ran for lieutenant governor and lost in 2022. Willis hired Pallavi Bailey and actively campaigned for Charlie Bailey while using the Trump grand jury to target Burt Jones, his rival in the lieutenant governor’s race. Targeting Jones led a judge to bar Willis from investigating him due to the conflict of interest.

But now the plot thickens for the beleaguered prosecutor, who probably just wants to be left alone so she can take Trump down and profit off that achievement. The estranged wife of Willis’ alleged sneaky link wants her to testify in their divorce proceedings.

The Other McCain.

In Seattle, one of the richest cities in the world, entire blocks of downtown streets have become open-air drug markets, but — BUT! — you can’t get a plastic straw in a restaurant there.

Bloomberg.

An oil tanker previously seized by the US for carrying illicit Iranian oil, was boarded by people in military-style uniforms off the coast of Oman.

Four to five people wearing black masks went aboard the ship, the UK Maritime Trade Operations said. The tanker — identified as St Nikolas by the Associated Press — was heading toward Iran after it was boarded, maritime risk-management company Ambrey Analytics said. It didn’t name the vessel.

UPDATE: Iran Hijacks Oil Tanker In Gulf Of Oman

Read it.

The Biden administration’s refusal to redesignate Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a terrorist organization is causing tension with U.S. military leaders in the region as they struggle to counter a rise in attacks by the Iran-backed militant group.

Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, leader of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT), which is tasked with responding to Houthi attacks on American assets in the Middle East, told lawmakers in a private meeting that it is harder to combat the Iran-backed terror group since the Biden administration stripped its designation as a foreign terrorist organization. That problem became clear during a congressional delegation trip to the region.

“I did ask specifically about the Houthi attacks and their designation,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), who led the bipartisan congressional delegation to the region, told the Washington Free Beacon. “When I spoke to the NAVCENT commander he did indicate it would be helpful to have them listed on the foreign terrorist organization list. So I think that has been a little bit of contention.”

Steve Sailer.

As I’ve been pointing out since October 7th, a key choice is coming up: as American Jews come to slowly realize that Diversity Inclusion Equity works against them because they are classified in quota-counting schemes as white, will Jews respond by turning against DIE in general or will they demand instead that Jews be on top of the DIE Pyramid of Diversity Pokemon Points?

Read it.

Wealth Tax Details

• The bill would impose an annual excise tax of 1.5% on the worldwide net worth of every full- and part-year California resident that exceeds $1 billion, starting this tax year.
• Come Jan. 1, 2026, the state would tax wealth that exceeds $50 million at a rate of 1% each year, with an additional 0.5% tax on assets valued at more than $1 billion.
• Part-time residents would be taxed on a pro rata share of their wealth based on the number of days they spend annually in California.
• The tax would also apply to nonresidents who have recently left the state.
• Democrats exempted real property from the tax as a favor to their high-end real-estate industry and Hollywood donors.
• To spread the wealth around to plaintiff-bar donors, the bill would apply the state’s False Claims Act to wealth-tax records and statements. This means plaintiff attorneys could sue affluent individuals on behalf of the state for allegedly under-reporting assets. Plaintiff attorneys would be entitled to a share of the state’s recovery.

Time to leave.

New York Times.

ying nine passengers was captured in Somalia on Wednesday by the terrorist group al-Shabab after making an emergency landing in an area controlled by the group, two Somali officials said.

Six of the passengers were captured, while two escaped and one was killed, according to the two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. There were foreigners among the passengers, one of the officials said, though their nationalities were not known.

The helicopter, which was attached to the United Nations Support Office in Somalia, landed in the Galgaduud region in central Somalia on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear why the helicopter had to land. The fates of the two passengers who fled were still unknown, one of the officials said.

Read it.

The world’s fifth richest person, with a fortune worth almost $127 billion – and one-time would be sparring partner of Elon Musk – says his goal is to “create some of the highest quality beef in the world” on the island of Kauai.

“The cattle are Wagyu and Angus, and they’ll grow up eating macadamia meal and drinking beer that we grow and produce here on the ranch,” said the unlikely cowboy-cum-data-wrangler via his Instagram account.

Alex Tabarrok.

Why do today’s dishwashers typically take more than 2 hours to run through a normal cycle when less than a hour was common in the past? The reason is absurd energy and water “conservation” rules. These rules, imposed on dish and clothes washers, have made these products perform worse than in the past, cleaning less well or much more slowly. One of the best things that the Trump administration did (other than Operation Warp Speed, of course) was creating a product class–superwashers!–that cleaned in under an hour and were not subject to energy and water conservation standards. The Biden administration reversed these rules but the 5th circuit just ruled that the reversal was “arbitrary and capricious.”

Unfortunately, he gives no clue as to how to buy one of these marvelous machines.

Read it.

This year, seven blue states are pursuing even higher tax rates on the top 1 percent of earners, despite the evidence that these policies are detrimental to their citizens.

One such state is Washington. Once an importer of talent and brainpower because of its no-income-tax status, the Democrats who control all the levers of power in Olympia just enshrined a 7 percent capital gains tax, and the Democratic Washington Supreme Court strangely ruled that it’s constitutional. This is one of the highest taxes on the sale of assets in the country.

State Sen. Noel Frame (D-Seattle) wants a 1 percent annual tax on financial intangible assets—such as cash, stocks, and bonds—valued at more than $250 million. And then they wonder why one of the world’s richest human beings, Jeff Bezos, has moved to South Florida.

Read it.

The University of Michigan continues to exponentially grow the number of staffers dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, with at least 241 paid employees now focused on DEI and payroll costs exceeding $30 million annually, according to an analysis conducted for The College Fix.

The payroll costs are $23.24 million for salaries and $7.44 million for benefits, or $30.68 million, an amount that would cover in-state tuition and fees for 1,781 undergraduate students.

Thirteen DEI staff members earn more than $200,000 and 66 earn more than $100,000 when factoring in benefits.

Read it.

A U.S. appeals court on Jan. 6 allowed a judge’s ruling that blocked California from enforcing a new gun-control law that bans the carrying of firearms in most public places on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.

Which it obviously is.

UPDATE : Ore. Judge Enters Final Order Striking Down Gun Control Law

New York Post.

Students at a Brooklyn high school were kicked out of the classroom to make room for nearly 2,000 migrants who were evacuated from a controversial tent shelter due to a monster storm closing in on the Big Apple.

The city made the move amid concerns that a massive migrant tent at Floyd Bennett Field would collapse from torrential rains and gusting winds — packing them instead into the second-floor gym at James Madison High School five miles away.

The school’s neighbors were not keen on the last-minute decision.

“This is f—ed up,” said a local resident who identified himself only as Rob. “It’s a litmus test. They are using a storm, a legitimate situation, where they are testing this out. I guarantee you they’ll be here for the entire summer.

Well, you voted for these clowns….

The problem with government schools is that they belong to the government, and the government can use the schools for whatever they choose. If they choose to use it to store homeless people or drug users or illegal immigrants, the actual students and their parents need not be consulted.

Read it.

Was special counsel Jack Smith illegally appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and is his prosecution of former President Donald Trump unlawful?

That is the intriguing issue raised in an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court by Schaerr Jaffe LLP on behalf of former Attorney General Ed Meese and two law professors, Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson, in the case of U.S. v. Trump.

I knew Stevfe Calabresi when we were undergrads at Yale. He’s a sharp guy. His uncle, Guido Calabresi, was Dean of the Yale Law School and a Federal Appellate Court Judge.

Read it.

Following a private meeting between Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Border Patrol agents in Eagle Pass, Texas, on Monday, sources in the room told Fox News’ Bill Melugin that “Mayorkas admitted that the current release rate for migrants caught crossing the border illegally is ‘above 85%.’”

Refusing to do his job sure sounds to me like an impeachable offense.

Read it.

“Electrification would require sweeping changes to the nation’s power grids. Under the scenario visualized above, total electricity demand in the United States would roughly double by 2050, even as overall energy use went down.” ….  “To meet that demand, electric utilities would need to add staggering amounts of new emissions-free power while making sure that all those newly electrified cars, homes and factories don’t strain the system and cause blackouts. “

Read it.

San Francisco lawmakers will vote Tuesday on a proposal urging an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, as Bay Area activists insist failing to pass such a resolution would be racist and “pro-genocide.”

The resolution, which includes just one mention of the “brutal attack” by Hamas militants, cites the “armed violence” that has taken place since Oct. 7 and calls for “a sustained ceasefire in Gaza, humanitarian aid, release of hostages, and condemning antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, and Islamophobic rhetoric and attacks.” It cites the growing number of labor unions and other blue cities calling for a ceasefire as its justification.

San Francisco’s proposal is the latest high-profile attempt by a blue California city to wade into the conflict and comes after anti-Israel protesters have shut down the state Democratic convention, Sacramento’s annual Christmas-tree lighting, and the state assembly. San Francisco lawmakers on Monday spent nearly six hours adjudicating the resolution even as their city faces an $800 million deficit while dealing with crime, homelessness, and drug and economic crises.

Proglodytes are compelled by their sociopathy to stick their noses into everybody else’s business. It’s part of their self-identity.

Read it.

Michelle Obama has said that she is kept awake at night by the thought of Donald Trump winning in 2024, in comments have already led to speculation that she could replace Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee.

And she has every right to be, since Donald Trump as President would put another nail in the coffin of the race-hustler industry, of which she and her husband are poster children.

Read it.

Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) published its official figures for 2023 on Monday, January 8th, revealing that asylum requests have increased significantly compared to 2022.

The data shows that there were nearly 352,000 asylum applications submitted in Germany last year, an increase of 51.1% compared to the 218,000 applications in the year before. The figure includes 23,000 ‘subsequent’ applications from migrants who have already been rejected at least once.

The statistics also make it clear that Ukrainian refugees are not included, as they are provided with a separate scheme to apply for asylum in the country. Germany hosts the largest population of Ukrainian refugees in Europe at nearly 1.2 million, or close to 29% of all people who fled Ukraine for the European Union.