OH: It looks like the ‘James Bond’ behind the dossier let a Putin pawn do all the work.

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina) asked Steele’s Clinton-paid handler Glenn Simpson, during the House Intelligence Committee’s Nov. 14 closed-door hearing, if Steele had gone “to Russia as part of this project,” to which Simpson replied, “No, sir.” Steele, at the time he compiled the dossier, hadn’t been back to Russia in 17 years.

So, Gowdy pressed, “How was he able to accumulate information in Russia if he didn’t go?” Simpson claimed that Steele ran a “network of subsources or subcontractors” who traveled around Russia and gathered information for him.

But it turns out the primary subcontractor worked not for Steele but for Simpson at Washington-based Fusion GPS, and he contributed key material for the investigation of Trump underwritten by the Clinton campaign. His name is Edward Baumgartner, a British national who speaks fluent Russian and runs a p.r. shop out of London (and who spent 2016 tweeting his forceful opposition to Trump’s candidacy).

While Baumgartner was working on the dossier, he was also working for Simpson on another case to smear an anti-Putin whistleblower in an effort to help Putin-tied company Prevezon defend itself against US charges of money laundering.

This whole thing stinks, to coin a phrase.

UGH. I’VE ALREADY GIVEN TWICE IN THE PAST YEAR, BUT MAYBE I’LL GO AGAIN: Severe flu season, rough winter leave blood banks with a shortage.

ALLIES: Christian Kurds Bombed by Turkey: ‘Many Lives are in Mortal Danger… Help.’

This report is from Bridget Johnson, whose unexplained and unacknowledged Twitter banishment remains unexplained and unacknowledged by Twitter management.

GERMAINE GREER CRITICISES ‘WHINGEING’ #METOO MOVEMENT, SAYING IN THE ‘OLD DAYS’ WOMEN WOULD ‘SLAP DOWN LEERING MEN.’

As Megan McArdle wrote last week, “Listen to the ‘Bad Feminists’ — They’re the ones who still believe women have power.”

OH NO: Linus Torvalds declares Intel fix for Meltdown/Spectre ‘COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE.’. “As a potential line of inquiry, he suggests: ‘Has anybody talked to them and told them they are f*cking insane?'”

These and other kind epithets are awarded by Torvalds in a public email chain between him and David Woodhouse, an engineer at Amazon in the U.K., regarding Intel’s solution as relating to the Linux kernel. The issue is (as far as I can tell as someone far out of their depth) a clumsy and, Torvalds argues, “insane” implementation of a fix that essentially does nothing while also doing a bunch of unnecessary things.

The fix needs to address Meltdown (which primarily affects Intel chips), but instead of just doing so across the board, it makes the whole fix something the user or administrator has to opt into at boot. Why even ask, if this is such a huge vulnerability? And why do it at such a low level when future CPUs will supposedly not require it, at which point the choice would be at best unnecessary and at worst misleading or lead to performance issues?

Meanwhile, a bunch of other things are added in the same patch that Torvalds points out are redundant with existing solutions, for instance adding protections against an exploit already mitigated by Google Project Zero’s “retpoline” technique.

Why do this? Torvalds speculates that a major part of Intel’s technique, in this case “Indirect Branch Restricted Speculation” or IBRS, is so inefficient that to roll it out universally would result in widespread performance hits. So instead, it made the main Meltdown fix optional and added the redundant stuff to make the patch look more comprehensive.

RELATED: Intel asks customers to halt patching for chip bug, citing flaw.

That appears to be something of an understatement.

SOUTH SEAS: China will again triple dredging and will have over 50 fortified islands by 2030 in South China Sea.

China has built a 140-meter-long, 28-meter-wide dregger, the Tian Kun Hao, which has described by some local media as “Asia’s most powerful island maker”. It is expected to go into service in the summer of 2018.

The Tian Kun Hao has a deck the size of nine basketball courts, it is capable of dredging up to 6,000 cubic meters an hour and can dig as deep as 35 meters under the sea floor. It also has an advanced global positioning system and thanks to an automatic control system can be operated without any crew. The previous largest Chinese dregger could dig 4500 cubic meters per hour. Tian Kun can blast through seabed rocks, suck up sand, and pump material through a pipeline over a distance of up to 15km, allowing it to dredge in one spot and refill in another without requiring landfill material to be transported from elsewhere. That gives it the unique edge to reclaim land at a faster speed and greater efficiency than conventional operations.

The US expects China to build up in the Paracel Island area. This will weaken Vietnam’s claims. China has a deal with the Philippines so China will not build more islands in the Spratley’s to keep relations with the Philippines.

Nextbigfuture makes the obvious observation that China will modernize its dregger fleet and triple dredging capacity again over the next 15 years. China will spend $2 to 4 billion per year on better ships and on operations to build islands.

The Paracel Islands are a chain of some 130 tiny features. China will likely building up dozens into islands with airports, missile facilities and ports.

China’s island-building might be the biggest non-violent power play since the Berlin Wall, yet hardly anyone seems to take real notice.

NAME THAT PARTY: Texas Politician Accused of ‘Grooming’ Grieving Mother for Sex and a Ponzi Scheme:

Texas state Sen. Carlos Uresti “groomed” nearly $900,000 out of a former client and grieving mother by cultivating a sexual relationship with her, according to prosecutors in court on Monday.

The 54-year-old Uresti, who has also been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment during his time as a legislator, is on trial for 11 felony charges—including money laundering, wire fraud, and securities fraud—over his alleged part in a Ponzi scheme involving frac sand company FourWinds Logistics‍. Uresti, who served as legal counsel for the now-defunct company, has repeatedly denied all of the charges.

“Unexpectedly,” it takes the Daily Beast 15 paragraphs to reveal that Uresti is a Democrat, in the second-to-last ‘graph. At least the San Antonio Express-News article linked to in the above except identifies it in the fourth paragraph.

(Via Neontaster.)

CONTINUING RESOLUTIONS ARE DANGEROUSLY IRRESOLUTE: Unpredictable Pentagon Spending Causing Vendors to Leave Marketplace; Research and Development Stagnant.

The cyclical nature of department budgeting, including delays in getting new spending approved, is a problem for all but the largest vendors, said Eric Chewning, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for manufacturing and industrial base policy, as a member of the panel discussion.

With annual unsteady funding, Chewning said the department has been unable to “send demand signals to industry.”

“The reality is that the Defense Department does not exist for the purpose of taking care of the industrial base. it’s the other way around, said Frank Kendall, former undersecretary of Defense. “So, what the Department of Defense has to do is to ensure, to the extent that it can while doing its mission, that there is a healthy industrial base to support it.”

When Congress won’t budget, defense industries can’t.

MAYBE IT’S JUST BECAUSE STEM ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE EASY: White Men Feel Discrimination in STEM Too, Study Finds.

UNEXPECTEDLY: AMVETS says NFL censored its ad against flag protests.

Pete Rozelle is pretty much doing non-stop 360s in his grave at this point.

BUSINESS CLIMATE: How JPMorgan Will Spend a Big Chunk of Its Tax Windfall. “The biggest U.S. bank is planning to open more branches, expand mortgage lending and boost pay for some employees.”

The largest U.S. bank by assets is planning to open up to 400 branches in new markets across the country, grow its home lending to lower-income consumers and boost wages for some retail-banking employees, among other changes, Chief Executive James Dimon said in an interview.

JPMorgan is one of many large companies passing its employees or clients some of the windfall of billions of dollars in expected additional profit from the tax-code overhaul enacted late last year. The bank’s effective tax rate will be about 19% this year and 20% over the near term, down from 35% previously, finance chief Marianne Lake said during an earnings call earlier in January.

“In anticipation [of tax reform], we asked our people: ’What can we do? What different things can we do to help? What can we do to accelerate our growth?’” Mr. Dimon said of the planned new investments. “This is good for the business, good for employees, [good for] wages, skills, jobs.”

FLASHBACK: If Trump thinks he can get more than 3% economic growth, he’s dreaming.

We’ll see.

MEMO TO CHUCK SCHUMER – GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT BEFORE TANGLING WITH LAURA INGRAHAM: This was the Senate Minority Leader’s second worst mistake over the weekend, with the first being causing Schumer’s Shutdown. Kathryn Blackhurst has more at LifeZette.

I DOUBT THAT’S THE WAY TO BET: Maybe Democrats Learned Their Lesson About Shutdowns.

At noon on Monday, after two days of government shutdown, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer got to his feet and explained that the “Trump shutdown” was coming to an end. There was a slightly wistful quality to the words as he said them; one got the feeling that Democrats had expected “Trump shutdown” to play with the public slightly better than it did.

It’s not hard to see where they got that idea. Republicans decisively lost the showdown in 2011, when they resisted raising the government’s debt ceiling, and the government shutdown in 2013, when they tried to defund Obamacare. Both times, the public blamed them for obstructionism. Of course, the lesson that one could have taken from this is that, as Commentary’s Noah Rothman put it, “Shutdowns don’t work. Ever.” But Democrats could be forgiven for having taken a quite different lesson: that given the media’s friendliness to Democratic priorities, any shutdown would be blamed on Republicans.

Every government shutdown, after all, involves two sides, either of which could theoretically stop it by agreeing to the other’s demands. But as it turned out a few years back, virtually 100 percent of the blame fell on “Republican obstructionism.”

Given that Republicans now control all three branches of the government — given that they spent the last eight years gathering a reputation for intransigence — given that the media was apt to be much more sympathetic to an immigration bill than it was to the cause of repealing Obamacare — given that Republicans had taken the brunt of the blame not just for the shutdown in 2013, but for earlier ones in 1995 and 1996 … no, it wasn’t entirely crazy to think that Democrats might be able to achieve a double political coup: securing action on the DACA recipients and making Republicans pay the political price for Democratic hardball negotiating tactics.

But that wasn’t how it worked out. Despite their attempt to frame this as the “Trump shutdown,” Democrats didn’t win the first news cycle. Nor did things get better on Sunday.

Weird. I wonder what changed?

TURNOVER: Twitter COO Anthony Noto Resigns, Stock Slides.

It’s just a very badly run company.

IT’S COME TO THIS: American Tennis Player Advances To Quarterfinals, Quizzed On Politics, Clay Travis writes.

For the left, there’s never any exit from politics and searching for heretics.

WINNING: U.S. rising as world’s ‘undisputed’ energy leader.

I remember being assured by the highest authorities that we couldn’t drill our way to energy independence, and that we were almost out of oil anyway.

“YOU GUYS ARE LUCKY THAT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BUILD A BOMB BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE DONE THAT:” Muslim Former Student Torches University Over US Foreign Policy. “19 year-old Tnuza Hassan allegedly set eight fires in seven buildings on campus last week, later telling authorities that her intention was to ‘burn [the school] to the ground’ and to ‘hurt people.'”

Weird how this hasn’t gotten any national press to speak of, even with immigration policy at the forefront of the news.

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HMM: “For a couple weeks now, I’ve been saying that DACA is not a bargaining chip, it’s a bait. In fact, you just saw who Trump used it to bait the Dems into a Banzai Charge on his most heavily fortified position.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Dems Lose Shutdown Battle, Secret Societies, and Much, Much More.

PLUS: Here’s video of Rep. Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House I LEAK EVERYTHING committee, explaining that the public is too dumb to understand the four-page memo written by the House Intel committee on FISA abuse.

GUY BENSON AT PRAGER U: I’m Gay…Conservative…So What?

BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN INDOCTRINATED NOT TO HEAR IT: The Atlantic: Why Can’t People Hear What Jordan Peterson Is Saying? A British broadcaster doggedly tried to put words into the academic’s mouth.

WHO’S NEXT? Going Nuclear? The Optimal Posture and Force Structure for Australia.

The states with smaller nuclear arsenals including, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel each adopt one of three postures according to Vipin Narang. These being, a “catalytic posture” whereby a state that is being threatened attempts to use its nuclear arsenal to compel, or catalyze, third-party intervention on the state’s behalf. An “assured retaliation posture” whereby a state can threaten nuclear retaliation if it suffers a nuclear attack. Lastly, an “asymmetric escalation posture” that enables the first use of nuclear weapons in the event of a conventional attack.

Each posture requires a different force structure that is optimal for the state’s perceived needs but what would work for Australia? It is my opinion that if Australia were ever to consider going down the nuclear path, it would be best suited to an “assured retaliation posture.” This would provide the capability of deterring a nuclear attack and nuclear coercion. Australia’s conventional force would continue to be modified and strengthened, but an “assured retaliation posture” would enable the country to free itself from the potential fear of not being able to counter nuclear blackmail. With an adequately deployed nuclear force suited to the concept of assured retaliation, the strategic nuclear option would be off the table for any future adversary determined to use threats to obtain resources, economic gain, territory or any form of strategic dominance.

China is going to end up hemmed in by nuclear powers at every turn, if they don’t rein in Li’l Kim.