BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: F-35 Development Inches Closer To Finish Line.

The first operational U.S. Air Force F-35 squadron is set to receive its initial aircraft configured with a version of the long-awaited Block 3F software in September. But the event, while a sign of progress toward the end of the F-35’s lengthy development phase, is mostly symbolic. The 34th Fighter Sqdn., known as the “Rude Rams,” of Hill AFB, Utah, will receive F-35 aircraft equipped with an initial release of 3F, but not the final updates that are still under test, according to service spokesman Capt. Mark Graff.

This means the aircraft will have all the capabilities of 3F but be restricted to the more limited 3i flight envelope and weapons the squadrons are currently flying, Graff says.

Even at 3i the F-35 performed very well at Red Flag earlier this year, but given events in Korea and elsewhere, getting to 3F is looking like a real nail-biter.

ACROSS THE AISLE: Trump Wants to See DACA Deal with ‘Chuck and Nancy’ and ‘Make a Lot of Happy People.’. “Asked if he wants to see a pathway to citizenship for DREAMers: ‘That’s going to be discussed later, but we want to talk about legal right now.'”

ANALYSIS: TRUE. North Korea’s Nuclear Arsenal Threatens China’s Path to Power.

China’s path to dominance requires an American withdrawal and a message to American allies that they cannot count on the United States for protection. But North Korea threatens to draw the United States more deeply into the region and complicate China’s effort to diminish its influence and persuade countries to live without its nuclear umbrella.

At the same time, the strategic location of the North — and its advancing nuclear capabilities — makes it dangerous for China to restrain it.

“North Korea may not be the biggest problem to China, but it does add a unique and very serious dimension to China’s task of supplanting America in East Asia,” said Hugh White, a former strategist for the Australian Defense Department. “That’s because it is the only East Asian power with nuclear weapons.”

Even if the United States steps back from the region, Mr. White added, “North Korea’s capability means China can never be able to dominate the region as much as its leaders today probably hope.”

The time for China to rein in its erratic ally was yesterday, but Beijing still thinks they can have it all.

OH MY: Democratic IT staffer who fled the country strikes deal to return, face charges.

A document filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia indicates that federal prosecutors have struck a deal with Alvi that would allow her to return to the U.S., but would also require her to surrender her passport and afterwards not book any international travel. The deal only surrounds how Alvi will turn herself in, and is structured so that she can avoid being arrested in front of her children when she returns to the U.S., “during the last week of September 2017.”

Alvi, and Awan in particular, are the focus of investigations by the FBI and Capitol Police regarding irregularities for purchases of some computers and other equipment which was later discovered to be missing. The pair, and their associates, could have had access to sensitive government information over the years.

In July, the Daily Caller reported that the FBI seized smashed hard drives from Awan’s home.

Hardest hit: Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.

Exit Question: Whatever happened to Russiagate, anyway?

ADMIN SOURCES: Creepy Tweet Was a Coded Message to General McMaster About Leakers.. David Steinberg adds, “This one’s weird, and it’s big, and you’re just going to have to read it.”

STEPHEN KRUISER: Tucker Carlson a Rare Voice of Honesty About Trump’s DACA Decision.

ANOTHER ROUND, PLEASE: German tax inspector breaks world record for carrying beer.

Oliver Strumpfel, a tax inspector, clinched the title at a festival in Bavaria on Sunday after carting dozens of the litre sized glasses which weighed almost 70 kg (154lbs) in total.

The 45-year-old almost carried 31 glasses but unfortunately one glass dropped at the very last moment and another ended up losing more than 10 per cent of its beer.

He was cheered on and then applauded by 1,500 onlookers yelling “Oli, oli” at the Gillamoos Fair in Abensberg where he carried out the Maßkrugtragen – otherwise known as beer tankard challenging – challenge.

“I first did 27, because I wanted to be sure and then at the end I said, ‘Let’s add another one and get over 30’,” Struempfel said.

“Unfortunately it didn’t quite work, but having managed to put 29 down … I think it’s amazing.”

Indeed.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: The One Way ‘Laugh-In’ Crushes Today’s Political Humor.

When I first bought a TiVo 13 or 14 years ago, it decided to record Nick at Nite reruns of Laugh-In — and found that it hadn’t lost its goofy charm.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Sex lives collide when millennials move back home.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Edinburgh Student Accused of ‘Hate Crime’ for Making Fun of ISIS.

DEPLORABLE: Publisher pulls book from Clinton’s pastor over plagiarism.

Rev. Brian Milford, president of The United Methodist Publishing House, which owns Abingdon Press, said the publisher “has zero tolerance for plagiarism.”

“Consequently, we have discontinued sales, will remove existing copies from all sales outlets, and will have them destroyed along with our existing inventory,” Milford said.

CNN previously reported that Shillady had plagiarized material in the book, which includes the pastor’s emails with Clinton during her Democratic presidential bid, prompting a review by the company that owns the book’s publisher.

Shillady had reportedly taken content from another pastor in a devotional he sent Clinton on the day she lost the election to Donald Trump.

“I deeply regret my actions,” Shillady said Tuesday, according to CNN. “I was wrong and there is no excuse for it. I apologize to those whose work I mistakenly did not attribute. I apologize to those I have disappointed, including Secretary Hillary Clinton, Abingdon Press, and all the writers and others who have helped me publish and promote this book. I ask for everyone’s forgiveness.”

“Mistakenly?”

BUT OF COURSE: ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ Premiere Sets Up Trump Supporters as Racist, Fear Mongers.

The first season was all in campy good fun, but my wife and I gave up in the first half of Season Two and never went back.

SCRATCH A PROGRESSIVE, FIND A SOCIALIST: Biggest Obstacle to Progress? Private Property, Says Bill de Blasio.

CLOSING THE TAB: Germany must pay Poland up to $1 trillion in reparations, minister says.

TRACKS MORE THAN JUST FITNESS: Red Sox Used Apple Watches to Help Steal Signs Against Yankees.

The Yankees, who had long been suspicious of the Red Sox’ stealing catchers’ signs in Fenway Park, contended the video showed a member of the Red Sox training staff looking at his Apple Watch in the dugout. The trainer then relayed a message to other players in the dugout, who, in turn, would signal teammates on the field about the type of pitch that was about to be thrown, according to the people familiar with the case.

Baseball investigators corroborated the Yankees’ claims based on video the commissioner’s office uses for instant replay and broadcasts, the people said. The commissioner’s office then confronted the Red Sox, who admitted that their trainers had received signals from video replay personnel and then relayed that information to Red Sox players — an operation that had been in place for at least several weeks.

That’s a clever cheat, but still a cheat.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.”