DEAR ACHMED: ISIS Warns of ‘Lack of Manliness’ in Marriage in Relationship Advice Column.

CHANGE: U.S.-led coalition confirms Marines deploy to Syria.

The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State confirmed on Thursday the deployment of additional U.S. forces to Syria to accelerate the defeat of Islamic State in its Syrian base of operations at Raqqa city.

Coalition spokesman U.S. Air Force Colonel John Dorrian said the additional forces would be working with local partners in Syria – the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian Arab Coalition – and would not have a frontline role.

The SDF includes the Kurdish YPG militia.

The additional forces that had arrived in “the last few days” comprised a Marines artillery unit and Army Rangers.

“We are talking about an additional 400 or so forces in total, and they will be there for a temporary period,” Dorrian said by telephone. The deployment was on top of an existing 500 U.S. forces already in Syria, he said.

Look for headlines with the words “quagmire” and “grim milestone” in five… four… three…

More seriously, Reuters headlined their writeup with “Turkey’s Syria plans face setbacks as Kurds see more U.S. support.” That seems like the smart — and right — thing to do.

Erdogan’s ambitions are now getting squeezed by Washington from one side and by Moscow from the other.

HMM: Border Patrol apprehensions plummet as Trump turns up heat.

U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions have dropped 40 percent since Donald Trump was sworn into office and issued a series of executive orders that have fueled the perceptions that migrants are unwelcome in the United States.

The number of people apprehended in February, 18,762, was dramatically lower than the 31,578 detained in January.

Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said the Border Patrol typically sees a 10 to 20 percent increase starting in January. The drop this year makes February’s one of the lowest apprehension totals in at least the last five years.

“This trend is encouraging because it means many fewer people are putting themselves and their families at risk of exploitation, assault and injury by human traffickers and the physical dangers of the treacherous journey north,” Kelly said in a statement.

I thought it was illegal aliens, not “migrants,” that a wall was being built to stop.

HAVE YOU HUGGED A FRACKER TODAY? Here’s why U.S. oil data should rattle OPEC nerves.

Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have been concerned that rising U.S. crude output will offset OPEC-led efforts to ease a glut of global crude and raise oil prices.

“Market participants must begin to wonder how sustainable some of this production growth will be as recent trends, if persistent, could disrupt the narrative of a swift market rebalance” between global supply and demand, said Starkey.

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister recently stated that the Saudis have borne “most of the production cuts and requested more cooperation,” noted Macaluso.

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said at the annual CERAWeek conference this week that he was surprised by the speed at which operators have returned to U.S. shale basins, according to The Wall Street Journal. But he said that his country welcomes shale investments because more spending will be needed to meet demand in the coming years.

al-Falih would probably prefer that it were just Saudi wells supplying the increased demand.

THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH: This Hotel Wants to Be a Disneyland For Beer Lovers.

“7 OF 9” FANS HURT MOST: Scientist Shows What Space Aliens Will Really Look Like.

DOESN’T THAT MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO READ? Cate Blanchett: My Moral Compass ‘Is In My Vagina’

Alternate take: Pray she isn’t “Method.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: 4 Ways to Entertain Your Toddler Without Getting Up from the Couch.

Not on the list? Get a puppy.

WOW: Rabbit hole leads to incredible 700-year-old Knights Templar cave complex.

STUDY: Americans Are Eating Too Much Bacon and Too Few Nuts.

Considering how often these studies are found to be useless or just plain wrong, try adding more nuts and more bacon to your diet.

QUESTION ASKED: Is A Second OPEC Cut On The Cards?

The supply-cut deal has so far resulted in a surprisingly high OPEC compliance of more than 90 percent, thanks to the cartel’s leader and biggest producer, Saudi Arabia, which has been cutting deeper than pledged. But the market has already priced in this high compliance, and although oil prices jump for a few hours on every report of ‘extraordinary efforts’ and reassurance that members will strive for ‘full conformity’, they are stuck in a narrow band, kept in check by U.S. shale and record high inventories in America.

A key upside driver for prices would be an extension of the OPEC deal beyond its original expiry date at the end of June. Just over a month had passed since the beginning of the production cut deal when talk of extending the agreement started to intensify. OPEC is said to be prepared to extend the deal, and may also increase the cuts, if inventories fail to drop to a specified level, sources from the group told Reuters.

The current cut got prices up by about $10 a barrel, but also put lots of American shale oil fields back into production. Now that our frackers are leaner than ever, further OPEC cuts might not accomplish too much more than cede market share to our domestic producers.

Cool.

FEDERALISM: Justin Amash Co-Sponsors Bill to End Federal Prohibition on Marijuana.

HMM: At Tesla, Departures Mount at a Critical Time.

Chief Financial Officer Jason Wheeler’s impending departure, announced just 15 months after he joined Tesla from Google, will be the latest in a raft of largely under-the-radar exits. Former executives, who spoke on the condition they not be identified, cited a range of reasons for their exits over the past year, including long hours in the rush to high-volume production, mission creep, and a tense culture that reflects their visionary but indefatigable chief executive officer, Elon Musk.

“Tesla looks like a company that is getting stretched to the limit,” said Dave Sullivan, an analyst at industry researcher AutoPacific Inc. “The pressure of getting out the Model 3 is getting to everybody, from the people on the factory floor to the people at the top.”

It isn’t appreciated enough just how difficult it is to design, manufacture, and successfully market automobiles.

D.C. MCCALLISTER: ‘A Day Without a Women’ Participants Should be Ashamed, Especially With Schools Closing.

Virtue-signaling should never be confused with genuine virtue.

BUT WOULD THEY DARE? North Korea Could Soon Launch Attack on Hawaii.

The United States today relies on ground-based ballistic missile interceptors deployed in California and Alaska to protect Hawaii, but these defenses would do little to guard U.S. territory in the Pacific against a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which officials believe is nearing completion.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency in February test fired a new SM-3 Block IIA missile from Hawaii that successfully intercepted an incoming ballistic missile, but the Pentagon does not maintain a permanent missile defense installation or detection capabilities on the Hawaiian Islands.

The Pacific Missile Range Facility in Hawaii hosts an experimental, land-based ballistic missile defense system called Aegis Ashore. The facility served as a prototype for the U.S. missile defense facility in Romania, which was declared operational last year, and another in Poland that will be completed in 2018.

Ariel Cohen, director of the Center for Energy, Natural Resources, and Geopolitics at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, told the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday that the Defense Department needs to immediately upgrade the Aegis Ashore facility in Hawaii from experimental to operational to guard against North Korean aggression.

“Senior national security leaders have stated that the U.S. needs to work off the assumption that North Korea will have ICBM capabilities soon, and in this business ‘soon’ could mean five to 10 years, or earlier,” Cohen said.

I have friends and family working missile defense out of Hawaii, and they seem confident that Aegis Ashore would work as advertised.

PROGRESS: 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2017.

Including “practical” quantum computers, predicted at 4-5 years out:

One of the labs at QuTech, a Dutch research institute, is responsible for some of the world’s most advanced work on quantum computing, but it looks like an HVAC testing facility. Tucked away in a quiet corner of the applied sciences building at Delft University of Technology, the space is devoid of people. Buzzing with resonant waves as if occupied by a swarm of electric katydids, it is cluttered by tangles of insulated tubes, wires, and control hardware erupting from big blue cylinders on three and four legs.

Inside the blue cylinders—essentially supercharged refrigerators—spooky quantum-mechanical things are happening where nanowires, semiconductors, and superconductors meet at just a hair above absolute zero. It’s here, down at the limits of physics, that solid materials give rise to so-called quasiparticles, whose unusual behavior gives them the potential to serve as the key components of quantum computers. And this lab in particular has taken big steps toward finally bringing those computers to fruition. In a few years they could rewrite encryption, materials science, pharmaceutical research, and artificial intelligence.

The Singularity is coming.

GRAVEYARDS ARE FILLED WITH IRREPLACEABLE (WO)MEN:

Welcome to the real world.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I had lunch at Shoney’s today. All the waitresses seemed to have shown up. Related: ‘A Day Without a Woman’ is a strike for privileged protesters. “Make no mistake, March 8 will mostly be a day without women who can afford to skip work, shuffle childcare and household duties to someone else, and shop at stores that are likely to open at 10 and close at 5.” Lots of public employees taking a day of “personal leave” by all appearances.

FACE, MEET PALM: Statue of Liberty Mysteriously Goes Dark, ‘Women’s March’ Claims to Know Why.

Do they really want to tug at that thread?

GOOD LORD: Navy veteran commits suicide in VA parking garage.

The body of a 63-year-old Navy veteran was discovered in the parking garage of a North Carolina VA facility six days after he took his own life.

On Feb. 15, Paul Shuping used a .22-caliber rifle to kill himself inside a parked car at the Durham Veteran Affairs Medical Center after the VA’s recent decision to deny him full disability benefits, NBC affiliate WRAL reported Monday.

James Alston of the Triangle Veterans Outreach Center said he helped Shuping through a two-year process to obtain partial disability benefits, but the VA’s decision to deny him full benefits was the last straw.

“I really think he was trying to send a message for all veterans who are crying out for help,” Mr. Alston said.

We’re failing our vets.

STEPHEN EIDE: The Blue-State Model Collapses in Connecticut.

Many Connecticut conservatives cite the adoption of an income tax in 1991 as the beginning of the state’s woes. Up to that point, the Land of Steady Habits had an inspired run, poaching businesses and residents from overtaxed New York. Connecticut governor Lowell Weicker, a former Republican who served as an independent, worked out a deal with lawmakers: Government would impose a spending cap in exchange for the tax hike. But the state never fully implemented the former.

After having been raised four times, the top marginal income-tax rate now stands at 6.99 percent, almost two points higher than the 5.1 percent in neighboring Massachusetts. The income tax has generated a flood of new revenues — $126 billion over 25 years, according to the Hartford-based Yankee Institute for Public Policy — but somehow state lawmakers neglected to direct adequate funds to the pension system. As a consequence, Connecticut’s state employees’ retirement system is funded at only 35.5 percent, one of lowest rates in the nation. Despite a slew of recent tax increases, state government now faces deficits of $1.5 and $1.6 billion in the next two fiscal years.

Anything that can’t continue indefinitely will stop, and debt that can’t be paid won’t be.

THE COASTAL ELITE: Lawmaker shocked by ‘insane’ boozing at Rhode Island State House.

New Rhode Island State Rep. Moira Walsh told WPRO talk show host Matt Allen that she’s surprised by the “insane amount of drinking” that goes on in the State House.

“You cannot operate a motor vehicle when you’ve had two beers, but you can make laws that affect people’s lives forever when you’re half in the bag,” Walsh said to Allen on Tuesday. “That’s outrageous.

Walsh referenced ceremonial toasts, including a recent Dominican celebration when lawmakers were handed alcoholic drinks.

She also made other claims about lawmakers and alcohol.

“People have file cabinets full of booze,” Walsh said.

Why are Democrat-run governments such cesspits of frat-house behavior?

ADP: US private sector created 298K jobs in Feb. vs. 190K est. “Companies added jobs at a blistering pace in February, with a notable shift away from the service-sector positions that have dominated hiring for years, according to a report Wednesday.”

“February proved to be an incredibly strong month for employment with increases we have not seen in years,” Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute, said in a statement.

In addition to the construction and manufacturing positions, mining and natural resources also contributed 8,000 to the total. Trump has promised to restore mining jobs as well.

The year is off to a sizzling start for job creation, according to the ADP counts. January added 261,000 positions, a number that was revised upward from the originally reported 246,000.

“Confidence is playing a large role,” Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, told CNBC. “Businesses are anticipating a lot of good stuff — tax cuts, less regulation. They are hiring more aggressively.”

I remember reading assurances at the start of the Obama Administration that the “business climate” was meaningless.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Should Cops in Prostitution Stings Be Able to Go All the Way?

LIKE FATHER… Sen. Kaine’s son arrested at Trump rally in Minnesota.

Linwood Michael Kaine, 24, and four others were arrested on suspicion of second-degree riot at the “March 4 Trump” rally in St. Paul. Another person was cited for disorderly conduct, the Duluth News Tribune reported.

Kaine, who lives in Minneapolis, was released from the Ramsey County Jail Tuesday pending a further investigation, authorities said. No charges were filed against him or the four others. The city attorney is reviewing the incident.

Kaine was involved in a skirmish between Trump supporters and counter-protesters, St. Paul police spokesman Steve Linders said.

Linders said Kaine was seen with four people who lit fireworks in the capitol and fled. Police were investigating whether Kaine lit a firework, the newspaper reported.

Linders said Kaine and the group were arrested a block from the capitol. He said police tracked Kaine and the group down and arresting officers had to use “some force” to take him into custody.

Charming.

GROWN-UP TEMPER TANTRUM: Two School Districts Plan to Close for ‘Day Without a Woman’ Strike.

Officials with Alexandria City Public Schools in Virginia and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools in North Carolina cited safety concerns with so many employees taking off as a primary reason for closing.

“We’re not closing to show support for the cause,” said Chapel Hill-Carrboro spokesman Jeffrey Nash. “We’re closing because so many are not going to be here, making the schools possibly unsafe.”

I don’t want to hear one more damn chorus of “for the children” ever again.