MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: The IRS Just Made the Best Argument in Favor of a Shutdown.

CHANGE: Taiwan unveils first domestically made submarine to help defend against possible Chinese attack.

“Even if there are risks, and no matter how many challenges there are, Taiwan must take this step and allow the self-reliant national defense policy to grow and flourish on our land,” Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said at the unveiling ceremony.

The diesel-electric submarine, called “Haikun,” cost $1.5 billion and still needs to undergo further tests before it’s deployed. It will be handed over to the Taiwanese navy in 2024, CBS News partner network BBC News reported.

It is the first of eight submarines Taiwan plans to build, according to the Reuters news agency, and will join two others that were purchased from the Netherlands in the 1980s.

The Haikun will carry U.S.-made Mark 48 heavyweight torpedoes and use a combat system manufactured by U.S. defense industry giant Lockhead [sic] Martin.

It ought to pack a punch.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: A Most Perfect Comparison of Dem/Rep Differences Regarding the Border. “Who would know more about how secure the U.S./Mexican border is than a woman who lives in Massachusetts and works in Washington, D.C.? Next up, I’ll be speaking authoritatively on the fishing conditions in Newfoundland.”

SAD: Young Chinese adults can’t find work. Now many have a new job description: ‘Full-time children.’

As China’s economy deteriorates and job opportunities dry up, the concept of becoming a professional son or daughter, which started circulating on a popular Chinese internet forum in December, has taken off.

“Increasingly, when young people look around, there is almost no one they can rely on except their parents,” said Yunxiang Yan, a UCLA anthropology professor, noting that bonds have been strengthening between parents and children as family sizes shrink.

“It’s more complicated than an economic downturn, but the economic downturn is definitely the trigger,” Yan said.

It’s unclear how many people are taking part in the “full time children” phenomenon, though it’s become a prevalent and divisive topic online, with related hashtags receiving more than 40 million views on China’s Instagram-like app Xiaohongshu.

That this is happening while China’s working-age population is already shrinking makes China’s official figures about economic growth even more difficult to believe.

COME TO THINK OF IT, “IVY LEAGUE” WOULD BE A PRETTY GOOD DRAG NAME: For Just $83,140, Princeton Will Train Your Son to Be a Drag Queen.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX wins first Pentagon contract for Starshield, its satellite network for military use.

The Pentagon has awarded Elon Musk’s SpaceX its first confirmed contract for the Starshield network it’s developing, a military-specific version of the company’s Starlink satellite internet system, the defense agency said Wednesday.

A Space Force spokesperson confirmed that SpaceX on Sept. 1 was awarded a one-year contract for Starshield with a maximum value of $70 million. The award came alongside 18 other companies through a program run by the Space Force’s commercial satellite communications office.

“The SpaceX contract provides for Starshield end-to-end service (via the Starlink constellation), user terminals, ancillary equipment, network management and other related services,” Space Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek told CNBC.

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of maintaining internet communications in a major war, hopefully while denying it to the other side. So far, China has nothing like Starlink.

SAY ANYTHING: Squad Member Rep. Pressley: ‘No Doubt About It. Our Border is Secure.’

SHOCK VIDEOS [VIP]: Trans Student Assaults Three Girls at Oregon Middle School.

UM, NO: Fake belly buttons sold as quick fix for women who want legs to look longer.

KRUISER: Senate Forces Fetterman to Wear Big Boy Pants, Passing a Formal Dress Code.

LOTS OF PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW: What the Heck Was Fox News Thinking? “Not to say some candidates didn’t acquit themselves very well, including Ron DeSantis, Doug Burgum, and Vivek Ramaswamy (in my opinion), but it is to say that the overall production hovered somewhere between a dumpster fire and testicle cancer. All of that can be traced back to the moderators. As was mentioned in my post-debate article about Univision’s Ilia Calderón, who was inexplicably allowed to be a moderator by Fox News and the Ronna McDaniel-led RNC, it felt like you were watching an MSNBC primetime show at points.”

IT’S CERTAINLY THE MOST COMICAL: Is This The Worst Fact Check From the GOP Debate?

BUT THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: Risks of long COVID have been ‘distorted’ due to ‘flawed research’: study.

Scientists from the US, UK and Denmark are pointing to overly broad definitions and a lack of comparison groups, among other factors in studies looking at the incidence, prevalence and control of long COVID for the distortion.

The paper, published Monday in BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine, investigates the working definitions of the condition provided by multiple global health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the UK National Institute for Health.

None of the definitions required a “causal link” between the virus and a range of symptoms.

The “flaws” have led to consequences such as increased public anxiety, misdiagnoses, increased health-care spending and a “diversion of funds” from those who are actually suffering from long-term effects of COVID-19, researchers suggest.

Exit quote: “Researchers argue that the umbrella term ‘long COVID’ should be replaced by different terms for the specific long-term effects.”

REPORT: Biden Crime Family ‘Earned’ $24 MILLION from China, Russia, Ukraine, Others.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Oil Is Near $100. Shale Isn’t Coming to the Rescue.

The U.S. remains an oil and gas superpower. Rystad Energy forecasts that American crude production is on track to hit a record 13 million barrels a day in September. But the industry’s recovery from the pandemic was relatively slow—it last recorded 13 million barrels a day in November 2019—and it appears that it is no longer willing to grow rapidly to meet rising demand.

Some of the recent growth came from private operators, who added rigs in response to higher oil prices last year and helped push up the national output.

But smaller companies have run out of sweet spots, forcing them to slow down. Higher costs of equipment, labor and steel in the oil patch has also reined in their activity, executives and analysts said, as has an outflow of investment from the sector.

Where did the investment dollars go?

Here: Biden’s Climate Law Is Reshaping Private Investment in the United States. “Private investment in clean energy projects like solar panels, hydrogen power and electric vehicles surged after President Biden signed an expansive climate bill into law last year, a development that shows how tax incentives and federal subsidies have helped reshape some consumer and corporate spending in the United States.”

Just not in ways that make economic sense.

XI’S GOTTA HAVE IT: CCP Propaganda Has Infected Hundreds of U.S. K-12 Classrooms.

HEADLINES WE’LL SEE AGAIN IN 10 YEARS: Nuclear fusion to power US cities within the next 10 years.

QUESTIONS PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ASKING SINCE ARIZONA 2020: Whose Side Is Fox on Anyway?

OUCH: Meta Rips Off The Author And Passes The Savings On To Skynet. “The fact that Meta is not only training AI on author’s works without their permission, but using pirated copies to do so adds insult to injury.”

PRIORITIES: 95-Year-Old War Vet Gets the Boot to Make Room for Illegal Immigrants.

THEY NEVER GIVE UP: FCC Chair Confirms Plan to Reinstate Net Neutrality Rules Eviscerated Under Trump. “Rosenworcel intends to release the full text of the proposal on Thursday and hold a vote regarding whether to kick off rulemaking on October 19. While Brendan Carr, one of the two Republican commissioners, signaled his opposition to the Title II approach on Tuesday, Gomez’s confirmation earlier this month gives Democrats a 3-2 majority at the FCC.”

Net neutrality was Barack Obama’s gift to Netflix, who then gave him a sweetheart production deal a short time after he left office.

I wonder what Joe Biden expects to get.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: After 2 GOP Debates, Trump’s Sabotage Is Almost Complete. “The big question then is: Why is the GOP still letting this crap happen?”

BIDEN’S CRISIS BY DESIGN WASN’T WITHOUT A PURPOSE:

Without the mass deportation of tens of millions, including their children, covering over a decade of illegal entry since DACA, the US population and electorate is going to be defined by recent arrival illegal aliens in your lifetime. pic.twitter.com/Lord75zeCY

— ib (@Indian_Bronson) September 27, 2023

Mission accomplished.

IF YOU’RE THE ONE WHO HEARS THE DOG WHISTLE…: Steve Schmidt Finds a New ‘Nazi Dog Whistle’ for Trump.

TONIGHT WE’RE GONNA PARTY LIKE IT’S 1959: Cuba and Russia Tightening Relations.

Alongside these trade agreements, Russia is positioning Cuba as a resort nation for Russians looking to travel to the tropics. They are aiming to develop and advertise the poverty-ridden areas around Havana as a playground for tourists similar to the tourist villa of Varadero, inaccessible to most Cubans.

Cuba and Russia are moving to create a joint rum company, which would boost Cuba’s flagging rum exports. Russia is also providing financial resources and expertise to build a steel mill to aid lagging construction across the island.

Additionally, Russia is supplying more wheat and oil to Cuba, which has struggled to provide food and consistent energy supplies to even urban areas, especially to those lowest in income. As the island has been rocked by storms, citizens are repeatedly left without power for days. Cuba recently has tightened its rationing system, including eliminating chicken allowances. Rationing has driven widespread discontent across the island and contributed to record emigration rates. Cuban officials hope these imports, and steel that may feed construction, may keep more people on the island.

While these moves seem to put Cuba on the path to greater self-reliance, they may put the small island nation under the grip of Russia as it aims to build a rival axis of power to the United States.

Still, Moscow might have to wait in line behind Beijing.