BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: The U.S. Should Support Kurdish Independence for Moral and Practical Reasons.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: NRA threatens legal action over Virgin Islands firearm confiscation order.

STOP FAKING SERVICE DOGS: Loving your pet too much is putting people with real disabilities at risk.

I’d noticed the big uptick, but never minded so long as the dogs were well-behaved. This article puts an entirely different spin on the situation.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: VIRTUAL VIRTUE. “It is not healthy for a society to live two lives that are antithetical, as America has been doing in recent decades. Disillusionment with government and popular culture arises at anger over two entirely different realities. One truth is politically correct and voiced on the news and by the government. It is often abstract and theoretical. And the other truth is empirical, hushed and accepted informally by ordinary people from what they see and hear on the ground.”

JOHN FUND: Christie for Senate?

Christie could appoint anyone, but in reality he couldn’t appoint himself. Should he want the seat, he would first resign as governor and then his lieutenant governor would make the appointment. Such a maneuver has happened five times since the 1960s, but all five governors-turned-senators lost their next election.

So with public resentment of “self-appointed” senators usually high and Christie’s approval ratings quite low, why would Christie even consider such a move? One reason is that the GOP is unlikely to hold the Senate seat should it become vacant. New Jersey has gone Democratic for president in every election since 1988 and hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 1972. Christie would probably be the strongest candidate the GOP could put up in what is shaping up to be a tough year for the party.

A second reason is that even if Christie chose not to seek election to a full six-year term in November 2018, he could still shake up the Senate in dramatic ways. His vote could be crucial in passing all kinds of legislation. His national stature would guarantee he would be a prominent voice pushing President Trump’s agenda. A solid year swinging the bat for Trump in the Senate could well repair his frayed relations with the White House and land him a major appointment after he left the Senate.

Stranger things have happened, and often to New Jersey’s Senators.

WELL, GOOD: Holocaust Museum Pulls Study Absolving Obama Administration For Inaction In Face of Syrian Genocide.

Some Jewish communal leaders suggested both privately to Tablet, and in conversations with board members and staff at the Holocaust Museum, that the Museum’s moral authority had been hijacked for a partisan re-writing of recent history, and alleged that the museum had absolved the Obama administration of any moral or political error in its response to mass atrocities in Syria. At least one of the architects of the Obama administration policy in Syria, former deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, was appointed to the museum’s Memorial Council during the closing days of the Obama administration. The Council also includes Obama NSC alumni Grant Harris and Daniel Benjamin. Other Obama NSC alumni, including Hudson and Anna Cave, have joined the Museum’s staff.

The Museum apparently undertook its Syria project without the usual degree of input from Washington’s community of Syrian activists who had worked with the Holocaust Museum to bring the Ceasar files and video from the besieged city of Aleppo to light. Given that the Museum had previously worked hard to expose Syrian government atrocities, members of the anti-Assad community found the counterfactuals report to be curiously out of character for the museum, and objected to the report’s seeming vindication of US policy.

Obama people tried — and nearly succeeded — to hijack the Holocaust Museum for partisan purposes.

SPENGLER: The Coming Economic Disaster, and the Last Chance to Avert It.

UM… NEVER? How States Will Hit 100 Percent Clean Energy.

“For the country as a whole it shows the laboratory effect of having states take the lead on this issue,” said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the University of California, Berkeley, Center for Law, Energy & the Environment. “As Hawaii and California take the lead, it will provide examples of how it can be done for other states, both good and bad.”

Hawaii passed its 100 percent renewable electricity mandate with a 2045 target two years ago. The Aloha State at the time had no blueprint for how to make it happen. Much of it remains in the planning stage, though leaders argue it’s achievable.

“We are ahead of schedule on our path to 100 percent renewable energy goal,” Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) said at a clean energy summit this summer. “We are making significant progress toward getting off of fossil fuel and into clean energy, more aggressively than any other community in the United States.”

The (unwitting?) hat tip to federalism was nice, but codified wishful thinking is still wishful thinking.

Flashback: Road to renewable energy is filled with potholes of ‘magic thinking.’

And: Renewable energy is not as clean as you think.

And finally: City Pledges for ‘100% Renewable Energy’ Are 99% Misleading.

NIKKI HALEY: No More Can-Kicking on North Korea.

Tensions are rising, stocks are falling, and pulses are quickening in the wake of North Korea’s sixth and strongest nuclear test. The Trump Administration has been quick to respond: on Sunday, after Pyongyang claimed to have detonated a hydrogen bomb, Defense Secretary James Mattis responded with a terse statement warning of a “massive military response” to any threat to the homeland. On Monday, President Trump said the Administration was weighing halting all trade with countries doing business with Pyongyang; the next day, he announced that Washington would sell “highly sophisticated military equipment” to Japan and South Korea.

At the Security Council, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is urging countries to support a last-ditch effort to choke off North Korea’s fuel supplies—or else. . . .

In other words, China and Russia may be willing to live with a nuclear North Korea if that leads to a weakening of the American position in Asia. And if the United States must learn to live with it, too, we should be strategizing for how we can do so without surrendering our strong standing in the region.

Too bad the last 3 administrations did so much can-kicking.

GOTT IST TOT: German Food Chain Faces Backlash After Airbrushing Crosses From Churches On Food Packaging.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: More than 40 percent of colleges don’t challenge lawsuits filed by railroaded students.

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MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Hurricane Harvey revealed the awesome power of real America. “Across the affected area, Americans are coming together to help each other. Despite the racial divisions exacerbated by small numbers of fanatics on the left and right, (and amplified by the press), out in the real America white people, black people and Asians helped each other, men rescued women and children, and so on. The ‘Cajun Navy,’ which had so distinguished itself in response to flooding in Louisiana, took its boats to Texas and started saving people. . . . Some of the people helping were rich, others clearly were not. Likewise those they helped. The photos of rescuers and rescued show the kind of wide-ranging diversity that our colleges and corporations aspire to, but usually fail to deliver.”

EMBRACE THE SUCK ALERT: Second Edition pre-order page at Amazon. Everybody who’s been voluntold will understand.

ME, OVER AT PJMEDIA: Four Options on North Korea.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Hackers Gain ‘Switch-Flipping’ Access to US Power Grid Control Systems.

WE NEED MAJOR HOUSECLEANING AT THE BUREAU: Former FBI special agent challenges new director to investigate whistleblower claims. Note that this isn’t an “anonymous source” but an actual whistleblower with a name.

BRITAIN: Sarah Champion interview: ‘I’d rather be called a racist than turn a blind eye to child abuse’: The Labour MP’s article about sex gangs caused a furore. Clearly a lot of British officialdom felt differently.

PROFESSIONALS STUDY LOGISTICS: PLAN commissions carrier replenishment ship.

Named Hulun Hu (with pennant number 965), the 240 m-long ship was commissioned in a ceremony held on 1 September at the Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI) facility on Longxue Island on the Pearl River.

The ship, which has a beam of 31 m and an estimated full-load displacement of 45,000 tonnes, is the first in the class of Type 901 replenishment auxiliaries, the primary function of which will be to support the PLAN’s carrier task groups.

The vessel has five liquid transfer stations (three on the port side and two on the starboard) for replenishing fuel oil and aviation fuel, and two solid supply transfer rigs for replenishing food, armaments, and general stores.

The ship is also equipped for refuelling astern – a procedure that the PLAN appears to practise regularly – and has a large flight deck and hangar facilities for two helicopters (at present most likely to be Z-8 medium lift helicopters), which would enable it to also undertake vertical replenishment.

China’s carriers are no match for our own, but they’re putting together all the right pieces — and developing all the necessary skillsets — for a much more formidable navy later on.

INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENT: According to The Diplomat North Korea’s sixth nuclear test detonated a 140 kiloton nuclear device.

Trump said all options are on the table.

I EXPECT A WAVE OF HARD-DRIVE FAILURES: House committee subpoenas FBI, Justice over Trump dossier.

In the most significant escalation yet in the wrangling between Congress and the FBI over the Trump dossier, the House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed the bureau and the Justice Department for documents relating to the dossier, the FBI’s relationship with dossier author Christopher Steele, and the bureau’s possible role in supporting what began as an opposition research project against candidate Donald Trump in the final months of last year’s presidential campaign.

The subpoenas are an indication of growing frustration inside the committee over the FBI and Justice Department’s lack of cooperation in the Trump-Russia investigation.

Yeah, I’m being cynical, but with these lawless agencies, the only real question is, am I being cynical enough?

THAT’LL STOP THE LOOTERS: Virgin Islands Allows National Guard To Seize Guns, Ammo Ahead Of Hurricane Irma.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I’m seeing this report in a lot of places, but the actual order seems more about commandeering supplies than seizing weapons from individuals. At any rate, such action would be illegal under federal law passed post-Katrina, which “prohibits persons acting under color of federal law, receiving federal funds, or acting at the direction of a federal employee from seizing or authorizing the seizure of lawfully-possessed firearms or imposing or enforcing certain restrictions on firearms during a state of emergency.”

VIDEO: St. Martin hit by Irma. Just because it hasn’t hit the US yet doesn’t mean other people aren’t already suffering.

[IRMA] Saint Martin dans le mur de l'oeil subit les effets de l'ouragan IRMA #iram #ouragan #SaintMartin (Source : Rinsy Xieng) pic.twitter.com/e2j7e9KtOu

— RCI Guadeloupe (@RCI_GP) September 6, 2017