WHAT WAS BETSY DEVOS JUST SAYING ABOUT THIS? School Put on ‘Secure Mode’ After Bear Spotted Nearby.

We find one sniffing around in our garage every now and then.

JAMES JOYNER: Mattis Is Mostly Right on NATO.

We should be clear that this new reality is not a threat to walk away from an alliance that has served us well for nearly seven decades. While Donald Trump made some inflammatory remarks about NATO on the campaign trail and even called it “obsolete” a few days before his inauguration, he has since moderated his tone, declaring, “We strongly support NATO.” His follow-up plea that “NATO members make their full and proper financial contributions” was, as we have seen, routine.

I share the concerns of my fellow Atlanticists that the Trump administration risks overplaying its hand. The desired end state must be to bolster NATO by turning more members into security contributors, not fracture it.

The Article 5 commitment at the heart of NATO that an armed attack against any member “shall be considered an attack against them all” must remain sacrosanct. And, it is worth reminding ourselves, the only time it has been carried out was when the other Allies came to American aid in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Still, that guarantee is much more valuable when backed by 28 countries pulling their weight rather than a handful.

Indeed.

UH-HUH: It was a heart attack, not poison, says North Korea.

“We have information that Kim Chol suffered from heart disease and was not fit to travel without his medication,” Ri Tong-il (pic) told a press conference at the North Korean embassy here on Thursday.

Ri, who was part of a delegation which arrived on Tuesday, identified the deceased as Kim Chol and not Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Ri also cited the postmortem examination conducted by Malaysian health authorities, claiming that the postmortem showed Jong-nam died of a heart attack.

“Medications for diabetes and high blood pressure were also found among his belongings,” Ri said.

However, on Feb 21, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah had said there was no evidence of a heart attack.

The old “Never believe anything until Moscow denies it” could be updated to “Believe anything Pyongyang says isn’t true.”

UNEXPECTEDLY: Pepsi is laying off up to 100 workers in Philadelphia and blaming a 2-month-old soda tax.

The layoffs, which account for roughly 20% of Pepsi’s 423 Philadelphia employees, will begin Wednesday and be spread out over the next few months, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

“Unfortunately, after careful consideration of the economic realities created by the recently enacted beverage tax, we have been forced to give notice that we intend to eliminate 80-100 positions, including frontline and supervisory roles, in Philadelphia over the next few months, beginning today,” Pepsi said in a statement to Business Insider.

Why are Democrat-run cities such cesspits of anti-worker sentiment?

HANS A. VON SPAKOVSKY: Did a Big Law Attorney Act Unethically to Sabotage Trump’s Travel ‘Ban’?

ACHTUNG, BABY: The Very Drugged Nazis.

Fascinating book review. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t know it was that bad.

OOPS: ICE nabs young ‘dreamer’ applicant after she speaks out at a news conference.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained the 22-year-old’s father and brother, Argentines who were living in the country illegally, amid the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation effort that has riled immigrant communities across the country.

Although Vargas was in the process of renewing her status as a “dreamer” to remain in the United States legally — a status she had allowed to lapse — she feared that immigration officials would come after her next.

But those fears did not stop Vargas from speaking out at a news conference Wednesday at Jackson City Hall, alongside immigrant rights advocates.

“Today my father and brother await deportation, she said, “while I continue to fight this battle as a dreamer to help contribute to this country which I feel that is very much my country.”

Whatever moral authority Vargas feels she has, it is not the same as legal authority.

REPORT: Barack Obama’s close confidante Valerie Jarrett has moved into his new DC home, which is now the nerve center for their plan to mastermind the insurgency against President Trump.

The former president has set up an office on the West End of the national’s capitol, where he recently hosted an open house for his White House staff – including Joe Biden, Susan Rice, Josh Earnest and Jarrett.

But the office, part of his post presidency perks, cannot be used for political purposes. The rent on his home is paid by him personally.

On Tuesday, former Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that Obama is indeed getting closer to making his public reappearance in politics.

‘It’s coming. He’s coming,’ Holder said speaking to reporters. ‘And he’s ready to roll.’

According to the family source, Obama was at first reluctant to assume the role of leader of the opposition.

‘No longer the most powerful man in the world, he was just observing Trump and not liking what he saw,’ said the source.

That last bit seems more than a little contrived.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Will Conservatives Punish Trump-Hating Hollywood?

Interviews with John Nolte, Roger L. Simon, Jim Treacher, and more.

Hollywood has been producing primarily for overseas markets for so long, it makes you wonder if they’ve forgotten how to be Americans.

HOW CAN WE KEEPING MISSING HIM IF HE WON’T STAY AWAY? George W. Bush warns against ‘isolationist tendency’

MEXICAN AMBASSADOR: Mexico Will Take Mexican Deportees, But Not Others.

IT’S WHAT THEY DO: Your state is soaking you for beer money.

VIDEO: Watch a Liberal Bro Student Calmly Destroy the Berkeley College Republicans’ Property.

Plus this classic exchange:

“You just vandalized our property,” said the person recording the video.

“Yeah,” replied the perpetrator. “I did.”

You can watch the video below: it’s one of the more chill acts of illiberalism I’ve ever seen. The perpetrator even asked the CR if he knows whether the sign should be composted, or placed in the trash.

“I believe that would be compost,” the CR replied, because this is Berkeley, after all.

Indeed.

TWICHY: Mary Katharine Ham to Dems on Carryn Owens: ‘this moment is bigger than Trump or you.’

You’ll want to read the whole thing.

WHY DOES NANCY PELOSI HATE WORKING AMERICANS? Pelosi Refuses to Clap When Trump Talks About American Job Creation.

HOME NETWORKING: Upgrade Your Home Wireless Network to Orbi and See What You’ve Been Missing.

I tried a number of routers over the past several months, including an Asus RT series, an Apple Airport, and a few others, touted as offering broad coverage. I even tried some extenders, that were small devices that supposedly extended coverage throughout the home. I found some minor differences, but none that improved the performance on the second floor or reached the garage. And even on the first floor, the signal was mediocre because the WiFi needed to pass through a thick wooden floor. My conclusion was for this 2600 sq. ft. home, a single router was just not sufficient for good coverage where I needed it.

That’s when I decided to try one of the new generation of mesh router systems that seems to have proliferated over the past six months. Each consists of a basic unit placed near the modem and one or two additional satellite units that are placed throughout the home. The concept is that they communicate with each other to deliver the WiFi signal to the remote units, located closer to where you need the strong signal, with each remote broadcasting a WiFi signal as if it was the primary router.

Among the numerous makes are Google WiFi, Eero and Orbi. From my research and speaking with others who had tried all of them, I settled on Orbi, a new product from Netgear, one of the major router brands. It’s the product that’s received the top reviews from a majority of the technology sites.

I had similar troubles last year, and ended up creating my own “mesh” network out of a commerical-grade ethernet switch and three of Ubiquiti Networking’s Unifi wireless access points. Orbi’s gear does the same thing for about the same price, but is easier to set up. Either way, the result is the same: Strong WiFi throughout your house — and probably most of your property, too.

PRESIDENT ME HAS LEFT THE BUILDING: Trump references self 60 percent less than Obama in first joint session speech.

21ST CENTURY EDUCATION: Code schools and boot camps that teach computer programming skills prove they can rapidly retrain American workers for the 21st century.

Code schools aren’t the place to go if you want to be a “rock star” at Google or Facebook. These are designed to turn out junior developers, or “apprentices” as they’re known at Software Guild, which currently has 16 instructors and 148 students split between in-person and online programs. Students learn just enough to be dropped into teams of more experienced coders and continue their education at a company, even as they draw a competitive full-time salary. They aren’t building the high-flying startups; most are simply translating business processes into code, transforming data or helping maintain and update legacy systems.

The number of code-school graduates is roughly doubling every year, says Liz Eggleston of Course Report, one of the few organizations that track these schools. In 2016, there were nearly 18,000 graduates of code schools, a healthy number when you compare it with the nearly 60,000 students who graduated with computer-science degrees from U.S. colleges and universities in 2015. There are currently 91 full-time coding “boot camps” in the U.S. spread across 71 cities, up from just a handful in 2012, when the phenomenon began in tech hotspots like San Francisco and New York.

It doesn’t seem possible for public education to keep up, much less compete. Or stay relevant.

SPY HARD: Kim Jong Nam murder suspect trades ‘LOL’ T-shirt for bulletproof vest as she makes court appearance.

The other suspect, Indonesian Siti Aisyah, nodded as her translator told her: “You are accused of murdering a North Korean man at the departure hall” of Kuala Lumpur International Airport. She was dressed in a red T-shirt and jeans.

The women did not enter pleas because the magistrate court where they appeared has no jurisdiction over a murder case. Lead prosecutor Iskander Ahmad told the court he will ask for the case to be transferred to a higher court and for both women to be tried together.

Each faces a mandatory death sentence if convicted. Both women were wearing bulletproof vests as they were escorted from the court to Kajang Prison.

Kim Jong Nam was attacked as he waited for his flight home to Macau on Feb. 13. He died shortly after two women went up behind him and wiped something onto his face.

Both women have reportedly said they thought they were part of a prank TV show playing harmless tricks on unsuspecting passengers. Aisyah told authorities she was paid the equivalent of $90.

This is the most unbelievable assassination story outside of a bad spy movie.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SHARE, AND WITH WHOM: Insurance Company Cancels Couple’s Policy After Seeing Pic of Their Dog on Facebook.

ONE-THE-JOB TRAINING: Iran Sends Students, Cadets to Syria.

Just a year and a half ago, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif shamelessly denied that Iran had sent any troops to fight in Syria even as one of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ top generals was killed in fighting in Aleppo. Six months later, Tasnim, a news portal affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard acknowledged that more than 1,000 Iranians had already died fighting in Syria. (So much for the honesty of the official in whom John Kerry put so much trust).

As the Iranian regime—newly-resourced with billions of dollars as a result of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—has doubled down on Syria, it has sought to supplement its presence. Initially, that meant student volunteers. Given the high rate of casualties, however, it appears the Iranian government has gone to new lengths to shore up its Syria presence.

It isn’t imperialism when they do it.

MARINE LE PEN SMILES: Fillon refuses to quit French election despite charges.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: The Coming Warbot Revolution.

Most militaries continue to look at warbots as support weapons that can conduct reconnaissance, selective strike, and logistical or other supporting tasks. Many military leaders are most comfortable with warbots in these limited rolesbecause it is easier to keep humans in the loop and therefore retain a greater feeling of control. There is comparatively little discussion of incorporating warbots in significant, and in certain scenarios, primary combat roles into future combat doctrine. To do so, and to take advantage of the full capabilities of warbots, would require acceptance of a greater degree of autonomy, akin to the Army concept of Mission Command, than the US military seems to be comfortable with at this point. The U.S. military continues to invest in manned combat systems, yet warbots offer tremendous potential advantages as primary combatants. They are simply more capable, cheaper, and offer less risk to humans than manned equivalents in many, if not most, combat situations.

Robotic systems are able to engage enemies and respond to threats at far higher speeds than humans.The AH-64D Apache attack helicopter’s Longbow fire control radar already “automatically searches, detects, locates, classifies, and prioritizes multiple moving and stationary targets on land, air, and water in all weather and battlefield conditions.”[iv] Adding the ability to engage within human “on the loop” specified parameters offers the advantage of getting the first, and likely lethal, shot off faster than a human “in the loop” configuration. While the Israeli Trophy Active Protection System (APS) is a defensive system, it further demonstrates how faster reaction times could be achieved in an offensive system. It is a “fully automated” active point defense for vehicles thatresponds without human intervention to rapidly detect and neutralize incoming rockets and missiles with both “shotgun like blast[s] of pellets” as well as jamming.[v] Inserting a human into this decision loop would degrade the system and put it at a disadvantage due the necessity of ultra fast reaction times to counter an incoming missile.

Skynet smiles.

A.P. FACT CHECK FAIL: Trump Claim on Terrorism and Immigration Correlates with Justice Dept. Data.

Silly, it isn’t the A.P.’s job to upset a perfectly established narrative.

THEY CAN HAVE IT: Turkey seeks to ‘absorb’ northern Syria.

Ankara seeks “to absorb northern Syria into the greater Turkey,” because the Turkish authorities want to take possession of Syrian water and oil resources, says Richard Hayden Black, an Republican member of the Virginia state Senate.

Turkey uses terrorist groups like Daesh and al-Qaeda to carry out ethnic cleansing in northern Syria and pave the ground for Ankara’s dominance there, the senator told Press TV on Tuesday.

According to Hayden Black, “The group ISIS (Daesh) is sort of a tool of Turkey, of the United States, [and] of all of these groups (US allies). They don’t want [Syria] to eventually survive, because Erdogan sees himself as the head of a vast caliphate, [and] as [the head of] a resurgent Ottoman Empire that stretches from Europe onto China.”

Well, that’s a little over the top. It seems unlikely that however authoritarian Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions are domestically, that he would want to take on the Arab world’s dysfunctions, too.