SAUDI CROWN PRINCE BIN SALMAN: If Iran Gets Nukes, We’re Next.
And it’s a safe bet, bordering on an open secret, that Saudi financial support for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program came with a few strings attached.
Archive for 2018
March 15, 2018
UH-OH, JEFF SESSIONS MAY BE TRAPPED ON THE HORNS OF A FRIDAY DILEMMA: He’s got to decide by tomorrow whether to fire a key figure in the FBI scandal and deprive him of a lucrative federal pension. But wait, there’s more, so very much more. Did I mention there’s still yet more to this one?
STATE OFFICIALS IN MANY PLACES returning to paper ballots.
I’ve been proposing this for over 15 years.
NIKKI HALEY: UN Security Council ‘Will Not Survive’ if Russia Not Held Accountable for UK Poison Attack.
It’s more collusion, I tell you.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Teacher on Leave After Questioning Whether School Would Let Pro-Life Students Walk Out, Too.
SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT: Turkey Approves Election Law Seen Boosting Erdogan.
“QUIETLY”: South Korea quietly orders 90 more Taurus bunker-busting missiles.
The contract for the missile system, made by German company Taurus Systems GmbH, was signed late February, said Kang Hwan-seok, spokesman for the DAPA.
The latest contract for the Taurus missile is the second of its kind since 2013, when the DAPA ordered 170 Taurus missiles to arm the fleet of F-15K fighter aircraft. Each missile costs about $1.8 million.
The missile is a core asset of South Korea’s “Kill Chain” pre-emptive strike systems against North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs upon imminent threat.
The precision-guided missile has a range of 500 kilometers and is said to be able to destroy North Korea’s major underground facilities, including Kim’s hideouts, with pinpoint accuracy.
Sleep tight, Li’l Kim.
NOW OUT AT AMAZON, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It.
Plus, fresh Gold Box and Lightning Deals.
SCENES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Antifa Radical Charged with Hateful Vandalism Raises Over $80k Thanks to L.A. Times Article. Ismael Chamu allegedly spray-painted people’s cars and fences with “F— White People” and other epithets.”
KIM’S YUGE NEGOTIATIONS CONCESSION: Trump told Tim Russert in 1999 he’d negotiate with North Korea but the negotiations would be serious. (My latest New York Observer essay.)
CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Inside the shady private equity firm run by Kerry and Biden’s kids.
THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T WORKING OUT THE WAY I HAD HOPED: German Court Orders Volkswagen to Rehire Suspected ISIS Recruiter Who Told Coworkers They’d ‘All Die.’
They have no intention of taking anyone’s guns, except that’s exactly what they intend to do.
Molon labe.
PARTISAN MIRRORING AND DIFFICULT CHOICES: Not all is looking rosy for Democrats ahead of what could be a wave election this fall.
There is nothing new about “left and lefter” tensions within the Democratic Party ranks, but they have become more complex due to broader changes in the political ecosystem. In the immediate post-WW II era, the professional operatives uniformly preferred winning over ideology while the grassroots amateurs favored principles over electoral expediency. The difference between the professionals and the amateurs has lessened. The battle over the DNC Chair revealed that even the official party ranks are ideologically divided.
Also, with the proliferation of public polls and social media forums, the professionals no longer have a distinct advantage over the grassroots in information and data. The districts in serious play are common knowledge thanks to sites like Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball and other online resources. As a consequence, there are more amateurs at the district level and in the political nonprofit world playing the targeting and mobilizing game at a sophisticated level. Meanwhile many professionals from the TV ad era struggle like amateurs as social media, interactive software, and big data have transformed what consultants do. It is simply not clear who knows best in the party, even when everyone agrees that winning is paramount in the Trump era.
Nobody knows anything.
U.K. NERVE AGENT ATTACK UPDATE: Britain’s allies condemn the “first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the Second World War” and describe it as an assault on UK sovereignty.
RELATED: My latest Creators Syndicate column.
…the use of an illegal chemical weapon that could be employed on a battlefield makes the March 4 crime qualitatively different. The assassins used Novichok -A-230, an “enhanced” nerve agent dispersible as a liquid or powder. Reports claim it is eight times more toxic than VX liquid nerve agent.
Tsar Vlad the Bad loves “gray zone warfare.” But the March 4 incident left the gray zone
BILL GERTZ: Shadowy Terrorist Group Emerges in Iraq.
White Flag is an armed group operating in areas of northwestern and central Iraq since late last year and appears to be a union of Kurdish terrorists and former ISIS fighters, according to U.S. defense and military officials.
“It’s kind of a hodge-podge of people and a white flag with a lion on it is their emblem,” said a military official familiar with the region.
Little is known about the new organization and some reports from the region say White Flag has adopted the Islamic State jihadist ideology.
But so far the group has not conducted suicide bombing attacks, a key ISIS terror tactic, and the lack of such attacks is raising suspicions White Flag may be a front group for Iraqi factions vying for power.
The military official said intelligence on the group is sketchy but preliminary indications are it poses a threat to the areas of Iraq where it has operated. White Flag, however, does not currently have capabilities for conducting terror attacks outside the country.
Then the time to start killing them is now, rather than blithely dismissing them as they “jayvee” and allowing the group to metastasize.
NEGOTIATION DEMONSTRATIONS: This “show of force” photo of a B-1B and South Korean F-15Ks was taken in September 2017, when North Korea threatened to shoot down U.S. aircraft in international airspace and launch a nuclear attack.
I’LL WAIT FOR VERSION 2.0: Startup Offers ‘100 Percent Fatal’ Procedure To Upload Your Brain.
Nectome, a startup founded by two MIT graduates who studied artificial intelligence, says they have created a method of perfectly preserving the human brain using a high-tech embalming process. “Our mission is to preserve your brain well enough to keep all its memories intact: from that great chapter of your favorite book to the feeling of cold winter air, baking an apple pie, or having dinner with your friends and family,” the company writes on their website.
Nectome adds that it believes science will create technology that will be able to digitally “recreate your consciousness” within the next 100 years and their service is the first step in making sure your mind is ready for that breakthrough. The unnerving twist to this digital immortality is that the company reportedly needs your brain to be alive and active when the embalming starts.
According to MIT Technology Review, Nectome says their plan is to focus on people suffering from terminal illnesses.
All kidding aside, if you’re dying and can afford the procedure — why not?
And I’d wager that in 100 years’ time, that either the putting old memories into new bodies will be commonplace, or Skynet will have forbidden it.
Not that I expect to be around that long, unless they’ve developed a bionic liver by, say, 2040.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, PARTY OF SCIENCE EDITION: ‘Feminist Health’ course suggests disease is ‘subjective.’
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Forced Antigun March, RUSSIA, PA-18 and Much, Much More.
LAWPROF STEPHEN PRESSER: The Irrelevance Of Stormy Daniels.
THE TRUTH ABOUT CARS: Buick responds to Jack Baruth’s inaugural “Buick Death Watch” column.
THIS TAKES THE GOLD IN THE KRUGMAN-DRAGGING OLYMPICS:
