MATCH MADE IN HADES: China’s dictator, Xi Jinping, is heading to Moscow to meet with Russia’s dictator, Vladimir Putin, according to the Wall Street Journal. Officially, the primary purpose of the summit is for Xi to push for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Call me cynical, but here’s betting Xi and Putin will also discuss the timing of China’s prospective invasion of Taiwan and how it might force the U.S. to limit or reduce its involvement in supplying and equipping the Ukrainian military in its defense against the Russian invasion that is now more than a year old.

LOL, JANE FONDA: In urging Global Ocean Treaty, Jane Fonda delivers 5.5M petition signatures to United Nations. Far less than 1/1000 of the world’s population, and disproportionately white and wealthy to boot, I suspect.

WELL, GOOD: German doctors say another person declared free of HIV after blood stem cell transplant.

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: Sci-fi becomes real as renowned magazine closes submissions due to AI writers. “One side effect of unlimited content-creation machines—generative AI—is unlimited content. On Monday, the editor of the renowned sci-fi publication Clarkesworld Magazine announced that he had temporarily closed story submissions due to a massive increase in machine-generated stories sent to the publication.”

NOT THE BEST WAY TO GO: Irish rooster with a violent past kills man with attack to the back of his leg, court says.

JAMES PETHOKOUKIS: In defense of ‘cornucopianism’ and a more populous planet. “It’s no easy task to select just one wrong-headed assertion among so many in the Scientific American essay ‘Eight Billion People in the World Is a Crisis, Not an Achievement’ by Naomi Oreskes, a science historian at Harvard University. But here goes.”

Plus: “On what principle is it that, when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?”

CDR SALAMANDER: Vietnam, the Great Strategic Opportunity: Not Low-Hanging Fruit, But Fruit in a Basket. “One of the stronger nations willing to stand up to the People’s Republic of China – Vietnam.”

ARKANCIDE: Clinton Aide Linked to Jeffrey Epstein Ruled a Suicide Despite No Sign of Weapon.

THAT WOULD BE NICE: Russian military expert on Ukraine: ‘War could end this year.’ “I don’t see how this can continue in the present pattern for a long time. It’s like football, you never know what’s going to happen actually on the battlefield. There’s a well-known saying that ‘Russia is never a strong as your fear’, as we see during this year, but ‘Russia is also never as weak as you hope’. So you can’t just write off Russia. The intensity of the fighting is too high for it to be maintained for long.”

THE COUNTRY IS IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: How Does This Happen? U.S. Military Email Server Was Exposed for Two Weeks.

DEAL OF THE DAY: APC UPS 1500VA Battery Backup Surge Protector. #CommissionEarned

TOYOTA IS LOOKING BETTER ALL THE TIME: Biden’s Climate Bill Was Meant To Combat China. Now a Chinese Firm Is Poised To Cash In.

Ford announced last week it is investing $3.5 billion to build a Michigan factory that will produce EV batteries in partnership with Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited. The Chinese firm is not only providing technology but also sending equipment and workers to help build and run the factory, according to Ford.

Biden promised that his massive climate spending package, the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, would give the United States the ability “to compete with China for the future.” The law, which Democrats pushed through Congress along party lines, has provisions that bar companies from qualifying for tax credits if any EV battery components were manufactured by a “foreign entity of concern,” a provision aimed at quelling concerns that China will benefit.

But Ford expressed confidence Monday that its EV battery plant, 100 miles west of Detroit, will qualify for some of the Inflation Reduction Act’s lucrative federal tax breaks. The company emphasized that it owns 100 percent of the factory because the deal with the Chinese firm is structured as a licensing agreement rather than as a joint venture, meaning Ford’s Chinese partner does not have direct ownership.

Did the Big Guy get his 10%?

Related: Toyota to EV-only extremists: Science says you’re wrong.

OUT: DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION. IN: UNIVERSITY AND EXCLUSION. Bates College removes Instagram post profiling conservative student amid backlash: The college first defended its action but eventually caved to student demands.

Of course it did. I remember when Higher Education was promoted on the grounds that it built character.

TRAINING IN ICELAND: More winter war training, this time conducted by the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit. The GIUK gap — that’s a Cold War era echo.

RELATED, IN SEVERAL WAYS: USN ice diving in Minnesota. Snow Crab Exercise 23-1.

MY LATEST CREATORS SYNDICATE COLUMN: Weaponizing Everything, Including Lawyers and Balloons: China’s 1999 Manual for Defeating America

The balloon wasn’t just blowing in the wind. Its calculated military itinerary tells reasonable Americans and Canadians — reasonable being a qualifier that excludes media influencers and politicians bribed or blackmailed by communist China — that the balloon was spying on critical North American defense installations.

Which means it had a War Mission. Note I did not write “pre-War”; I wrote “War.”

Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsu and a recent European lawsuit against Beijing help me prove the charge.

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Tell Me Teacher-Groomers Aren’t Real: Degenerate Teacher’s Aide Arrested for Licking the Feet of a Seven-Year-Old.

CLEARLY, NO BLACK PERSON SHOULD APPLY TO BUCKNELL: Bucknell Black Student Union makes demands in wake of campus’ ‘unrelenting anti-blackness.’

SAY ANYTHING: NH Dem Party Official Smears Gay Republican as Homophobe.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Unease Over Biden’s Proxy Quagmire in Ukraine Is Growing. “The lack of clarity on exactly what America’s priorities are there has bothered me all along as well. Yeah, we want to help. But how much and for how long? After all, this country has had some rough history when it comes to getting involved in wars when our intentions are vague.”

THE WAGES OF DEI AT TEXAS A&M. Tar. Feathers.

#JOURNALISM:

When the Trump-era press secretaries Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kayleigh McEnany joined Fox News, liberals cried foul about a “revolving door” and claimed the Murdoch-owned network was an extension of the Trump White House. Those voices have said little about Ms. Psaki’s migration to MSNBC, or that of another Biden White House alumna, Symone D. Sanders, who also hosts a weekend show on the channel.

Plus:

When Mr. Stephanopoulos moved from Bill Clinton’s White House to ABC News in 1996, it set off alarm bells among media ethicists. That was a less partisan era.

“As an analyst, the thing I told myself was, ‘How do you maintain your integrity and do your job?’” Mr. Stephanopoulos said in an interview, reflecting on his transition into TV.

You didn’t, George. You absolutely didn’t.

THE CALIFORNICATION OF COLORADO CONTINUES APACE: Colorado lawmakers to consider allowing safe injection sites for supervised drug use.

“It’s about saving lives,” said Democratic state Sen. Kevin Priola from Adams County, one of the bill’s main sponsors. “If people overdose, and there’s no one there to provide naloxone to save their life, they’ll never be able to go to rehab. They’ll never be able to kick the habit because they’re dead.”

How’s that working out in San Francisco? It isn’t helping at all, because the “safe injection sites” are function as open-air drug bazaars, and aggressive intervention and rehab are promises never fulfilled.

IT BEGINS: Detransitioner Files First Lawsuit In Canada Against Medical Providers.

MARK JUDGE: The establishment’s erasure of JK Rowling and other pulp fiction rebels is just the start.

Let’s erase the establishment instead. Unlike the authors, it produces nothing of value.

GOODER AND HARDER, SAN FRAN: San Francisco Boycott of Pro-Life States Backfires, City Costs Increase 20% as Government Crippled. “By refusing to outsource or partner with red states, San Francisco’s contracting costs went through the roof — up 10-20% just over the past few years. ‘It’s an ineffective policy that complicates the business of San Francisco government,’ Supervisor Rafael Mandelmanm insisted, ‘and makes it very likely that we pay more than we should for goods and services.’ In a state where residents are already running for the exits, the last thing cities should be doing is giving people another excuse to leave. And a 20% surcharge for San Francisco’s intolerance is just one in a long line of absurdities. Since COVID, the moving vans have been in a perpetual, one-way convoy out of California, as 508,903 people called it quits on the state with sky-high costs, crime, taxes, and regulation.”