Russian stooge Dmitry Medvedev taunts President Trump by noting a lack of U.S. submarines near Russia, to which Trump responds that he's moved a couple nearby.
Amateur move. If you want to do psy-ops, you've got to respond with "Well, as far as you know.", or some such thing. Uncertainty and doubt--especially in light of the fact that U.S. submarines are famously quieter than the Russians--can be far more effective than bluster.
If there is any truth to Ukrainian President Zelensky's claim that Russia will not wait to defeat Ukraine before attacking the rest of NATO, we would have to assume that history, specifically the part of how bad an idea a war on two fronts against multiple enemies is, is not taught at Russian universities, military academies, and of course the KGB/FSB.
This is why, in my view, Putin's aggressive tactics towards the NATO border countries need to be responded to rather directly with something like "Mr. Putin, you're losing a war against Ukraine, and the help NATO has provided amounts to about 2% of our weapons systems. You do not want to see how quickly things go badly when the other 98% start to be used.".
Slava Ukraini, and Putin delenda est!
It was nice, but a bit disconcerting, last night when the young man at Culver's gave me my first senior discount. Hey, 72 cents off is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick!
I also read that former NFL player Shaun Alexander and his wife Valerie are expecting their 14th child. Call me weird, but I think Valerie's got just as much right to a spot in a Hall of Fame as her husband--and that's not disparaging Shaun's accomplishments at all.
It appears that after cartridges used by the murderer of Charlie Kirk had messages scrawled on them, the same thing was done for cartridges used by the shooter at an ICE facility. So either this is becoming a fashion among the far left, or maybe it suggests that there might be some coordination between some of these guys. Might be worth looking into.
And hopefully, of course, this causes the cartridges to fail to seat properly in the firing chamber, leading to inaccuracy and jamming. Perhaps someday, we will even have a situation where the mainstream media look at these things and say "you know, somebody might be trying to tell us something here...".
If it were possible to spin in one's grave as one's life's work was trashed by one's successors, I think my great uncle would be doing so. It is reasonable to ask "is this for real, or is this a diversionary tactic?", but not to ignore the evidence entirely.
Judge Steven Merryday, appointed by Donald Trump, strikes down Trump's lawsuit against the New York Times, filed in Tampa. OK, the President's home is in Florida, but we have to wonder if there was some venue shopping going on here, as the southern district is far closer to Mar-A-Lago.
But that noted, the judge's big objection is not venue, but apparently a violation of federal law that more or less says a complaint must be concise and understandable. Trump's attorneys apparently have pulled a trick out of Kamala Harris' hat and written a legal complaint in "word salad".
I am getting to be a broken record here, but it seems that too often, lawyers who ought to know better are failing in basic duties to their clients. This may not be a case where Trump gets to get these guys disbarred, but at the very least, he's entitled to a refund of his legal fees.
Apparently the lawyer (s?) for French President Macron and his wife are a bit slow on the uptake about how one is to win a defamation lawsuit. For the uninitiated, when someone has access to the press, as the Macrons doubtless have, one must prove both that the accused knew that what she was saying was a lie, and that it was done with actual malice.
In this case, by saying they are going to provide "scientific evidence" that Madame Macron is female, what they've just done is to concede that (a) one could indeed have reasonable doubt about whether Macron was born female or not, and (b) hence Owens' mental state when making the claims is of no importance.
Chalk that one up to "time to refund those billable hours, counsel", and of course my hope and prayer, for the sake of any jury that might be seated, is that the evidence is a cheek swab and not some other evidence of being born female. "I did not need to see that.", that sort of thing.
Again, the better way for the Macrons to retaliate against Candace Owens would have been to present the results of a cheek swab, pictures of Madame Macron while pregnant, and the like and ask "what kind of idiot would, knowing that Brigitte Macron is a mother, make up such a story?".
Apparently many on the left are up in arms about the recent firing of Jimmy Kimmel after he claimed--after news was coming out that Charlie Kirk's murderer was living with (or romantically involved with) a trans person, had inscribed socialist writings on cartridges, etc..--that the murderer was somehow "MAGA" and a Trump supporter.
For those unclear about the matter, yes, the First Amendment does, with narrowly defined exceptions, to say just about anything. However, what it does not do is prevent others from making decisions on whether they will associate with you based on what you say. So if you're running a TV show based on current events, and you completely misrepresent current events, your employer just might wonder if you're up to the job. It is worse if your interpretation of current events will offend half the prospective audience.
Again, there have been very real, very nasty fascist movements out there. Firing Jimmy Kimmel when he spouts off nonsense is not evidence of one.
Trans cyclist (and near-Olympic qualifier) tells those objecting to biological males in women's cycling to "suck a sawed off shotgun", among other things showing clearly what a paragon of class the individual is.
Pro tip for Wolfe; there are things called "history books" that explain precisely what the real Nazis did, and you might do well to read one. Suffice it to say that the real version went well beyond making speeches on college campuses.
I've been refraining a bit to let passions--maybe--die down a bit, but maybe I've got something good to say here. First thing is that I really don't like the term "assassination", but prefer "murder" to describe this sort of thing, because "assassination" can lend an air of respectability to a crime that left a woman a widow, their children fatherless, and all in the name of a perverse sort of politics.
Murder it is. Regarding the claim that a hot temperature of rhetoric led to this, maybe, but we might be a little more specific. The habit I can think of that makes things the worst--the one that inflames passions--is generally the habit of making false allegations. They are often close to true, but in reality, they are false.
A good example is the claim that Kirk said that black women did not have the brain power to be taken seriously. Now I am not enough of a fan of Kirk's work to comment on his whole life's statements on this (and on many issues he seems to have changed his mind), but I am smart enough to listen to what he said in that video, which was that some specific black women did not have the brain power to be taken seriously.
We might say that Kirk ought to have considered the fact that some of these women have Ivy League degrees, whatever their affirmative action status, but in context, his actual statement is nowhere near as inflammatory as many, including supposed fact checkers, claim. It is the difference between the Aristotelian categories of "some" and "all".
And so how might we respond to this tragedy? I would dare say by choosing our words carefully, and by pointing out the problem when peoples' words and deeds are twisted to something they never meant.
It is said that sometimes, diplomacy is the art of telling a man to go to Hell in such a way that he looks forward to the trip (attribution unknown). That is, the art of saying things indirectly.
But that noted, as I review the situation in Ukraine and Russia, I wonder if a bit more directness directed towards the Russians might be helpful. Specifically, several treaties signed by Russia--or by the Soviet Union before it and renewed by Russia--prohibit aggressive war and the redrawing of borders by force. So instead of politely talking about the matter, just say
As a signatory to the United Nations Charter, Helsinki Accords, Geneva Conventions, as well as the treaties ending the Soviet Union, Russia needs to honor these treaties and immediately cease its illegal war, withdraw from all Ukrainian territory (1991 boundaries), and deliver those generals involved in long range attacks on civilian targets for trial on war crimes.
Economic sanctions against Russia, including against trading partners buying Russian oil and natural gas, will continue until this is done. NATO will also continue to provide arms to Ukraine for its defense.
More or less, if Putin wants his neo-Soviet experiment, he can deal with how we treated his Soviet ancestors. The USSR was an evil empire; the renewal of the USSR by Putin is the same. We ought to treat it that way.
If they do, it appears Russia attacked a treasure trove of voters recently.
Seriously, if Russia's best missiles can't avoid hitting such obviously non-military targets as graveyards, maybe they need to stop launching them; it is as if every launch is a war crime.
A study from my alma mater, Michigan State, has concluded that for a more electrified future with up to two million EVs on the road, about 66,000 more chargers will be needed in Michigan. Interestingly, that's about the number EVs on the road in Michigan right now.
But for perspective, there are just short of 200,000 gas stations in the U.S, and just over 6000 in Michigan serving about 2.7 million passenger vehicles, plus trucks, motorcycles, and other uses. Now if I do the math for my own vehicles, I find that about every 300-400 miles, or ten hours of driving, I will need to spend about ten minutes or less fueling the vehicle. So I have a drive: fuel ratio of about 60 or more. Each vehicle will require about 7 hours at the pump each year, so those 6000 gas stations will be used about 700 hours per year, or with five pumps per station, each pump will be used about 2.5% of the time.
In contrast, best practices for an EV indicate that for every 200-250 miles (you never want to run an electric until the batteries run out) or 5-6 hours of driving, you will recharge (level 2 charger) for about....6-12 hours. So your drive:fuel ratio drops by a factor of 100. Even if you use "superchargers", you end up with a drive: fuel ratio of only about 10:1.
So if Michigan indeed ends up with millions of EVs, and each one gets driven 300 hours per year, that requires 3-500 hours per year of charging. If you have a mere 66000 chargers, that means, with two million cars, the amount of charging hours needed exceeds the available chargers by a wide margin. Even if only 25% of charging is done outside the home, that means that charging infrastructure would be subject to long wait times. 10% is probably the upper bound for what could be tolerated.
Long and short of it is that the MSU study underestimates the infrastructure for EVs by a wide margin, even assuming large numbers of home charging units--and renters will often not be able to have these, because what landlord is going to approve the installation of a 240V charging unit. Maybe it's time for advocates of EVs to start calculating metrics honestly.
Vladimir "Hitler" Putin has gifted a Ural motorcycle to an Alaskan "concerned" about things, and just for kicks, I looked up what it is.
Yup, it's a knock-off of a 1941 BMW R71 originally used by the Wehrmacht. In its current incarnation, it makes a mighty 41hp (Harleys and Hondas start at about 90hp +), meaning that Ural certainly hasn't been wasting money on R&D. Maybe de-Nazify Russian motorcycles?
If we simply return the wannabe Soviet Union to the trade conditions the old Soviet Union had, I think we can break its back in a hurry. There is no reason to ease sanctions as long as Vladimir Putin and his cronies are in power.
Hunter Biden, who may or may not have actually been at some of the parties the Trumps attended while dating, has alleged without providing evidence that it was none other then Epstein who introduced them, and that the Trumps were in thick with Epstein.
The Trumps have responded rather predictably by filing a defamation lawsuit against Hunter, but I'm thinking that since Hunter can't draw on political patronage anymore, their chance of recovery parallels that of the Macrons suing Candace Owens. When compared to the Trumps, Biden really doesn't have two nickels to rub together, and while they might make his (and their own lives) miserable by suing him, their better approach is to simply stand by their own stories of how they met and courted--it's salacious enough as is--and suggest that a guy hooked on crack just might not be able to process evidence well.
Sometimes the best response to lewd allegations is simple dignity. I wish the Trumps would learn about it a little.
.....after seeing this brilliant episode of Chinese seamanship; a Chinese Coast Guard vessel collides with a Chinese Navy destroyer while pursuing a Philippine Coast Guard vessel at top speed. It's a perfect, clear day, glassy seas....and one has to ask "did no one post a watch, or look at radar, to see what other ships might be in the vicinity?".
As things are, two Chinese ships are out of commission for a while, which is just fine by me, and the navies of the world, especially those of Taiwan, Australia, Great Britain, and the United States, have been put on notice that Beijing does a lot better at putting steel into salt water than actually using that steel as a warship.
In related news, a brand new Russian tugboat has sunk in the shipyard, just like a North Korean frigate did last month. We might suggest that totalitarian government and competence don't exactly go together.
