MrG's Blog & Notes

* This is an archive of my own online blog and notes, with weekly entries collected by month.

[MON 04 APR 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 14

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("Taiwan Studying Ukraine War Tactics, Discussing With US", 30 March 2022), Taiwan is unsurprisingly taking a close interest in Russia's war on Ukraine. Russia is attempting to conquer another country whose legitimacy Russia denies; similarly, China is taking aggressive actions against Taiwan, whose legitimacy Beijing denies.

Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuocheng said they had had "contact" with foreign countries to discuss the war, and had set up their own working group to study it. Chiu added that the war "is not only discussed in exchange meetings between the United States and Taiwan, but also discussed with other countries that have regular contacts with Taiwan."

Taiwan's military is on enhanced alert, though there hasn't been any noticeable change in China's actions. One wonders if there is any consideration of Taiwan supplying advanced weapons, such as antiship missiles, to Ukraine -- Taiwan having a sophisticated arms industry. Russia has made threatening noises against NATO countries supplying such weapons, but is not in a position to seriously threaten Taiwan. A covert Ukraine-Taiwan alliance might well help Taiwan establish greater global influence.

The Chinese seem to be ambivalent about Russia's war, willing to back the Russians, but not comfortable with Russia invading a neighbor -- China and Russia have faced off in the past -- and similarly uncomfortable with how badly the war has gone for Russia, lending uncertainty to China's designs on Taiwan.

* The US government investigations into the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot and the underlying effort to overturn the 2020 election seem to be heating up as of late. Democratic House Member Stephanie Murphy told CNN: "We're triangulating basically from a lot of different angles, and we are getting a fulsome picture of what happened in the run-up to and on the day of January 6."

One of the latest items to drop was that there was a seven-hour gap in White House call logs on 6 January. As it turns out, Trump generally attempted to suppress call logging, and was inclined to evade it by using borrowed phones or throwaway burner phones. The 1-6 Committee is not discouraged, however, Murphy saying:

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There's been fuss among the critics of the 1-6 Committee from the Left that too many people have been "pleading the 5th" -- 5th Amendment, that is -- and refusing to testify. However, if the committee gets their hands on call records, pleading the 5th simply means that those under suspicion are refusing to defend themselves. They aren't beating the game, they're simply dealing themselves out of it, without being able to stop it.

* In closely related news, it turns out that Virginia "Ginnie" Thomas, wife of conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has been implicated in the 1-6 plot. She is a conservative activist and had been active in working to set up the 6 January public event that led to the Capitol riot. Citations show that she had fully bought into the "Big Lie" of election fraud spread by Trump to justify his subversion of the election.

Justice Thomas is now in a difficult position, being under pressure to recuse himself from Supreme Court decisions relevant to the 6 January riot. There's been talk of impeaching him, but that's absurd -- it isn't likely Senate Republicans would cooperate with an impeachment, rendering it futile. However, it does lead to the interesting question of what will happen if Ginnie Thomas is indicted, and then presumably cops a plea.

Who knows? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi framed the matter neatly in a response to reporters, who asked her if she thought Justice Thomas should resign. She neatly sidestepped the question and skewered Thomas at the same time, saying: "I don't think he should have ever been appointed." -- and then applied heat to Thomas over recusal: "If your wife is an admitted and proud contributor to a coup of our country, maybe you should weigh that in your ethical standards."

Justice Thomas has been quiet so far. He has apparently been ailing as of late. The controversy over his wife can't have made him feel any better.

* In other lunacies of the ongoing Era of Trump, the government of the state of Florida has passed a tapdancing anti-gay-rights bill, leading to pushback from big corporations such as Apple and, notably, Disney -- with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis calling for the state to revoke Disney's special rights there. Fox News propagandist Laura Ingraham chimed in:

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On Twitter, one Joe Trippi replied: "... and then they came for Mickey Mouse." How much longer can this go on?

* In good-natured news, an English bulldog named Chowder, an Oregonian, has gone viral online, by being an ace skateboarder. I thought it was an April Fool's prank at first, but the videos are convincing, and he's been viral for months.

When he was a youngster, he showed a fascination with skateboards, so his owners bought him one. He would scoot around the driveway on it, lying on the skateboard, but got frustrated with that after a few years. His owners then started taking him to empty parking lots to practice, and skateboarded along with him. Given instruction, he eventually decided to stand up on the skateboard. He can kick up to speed and maneuver, and it apparently even go over curbs. It seems a number of bulldogs have learned how to skateboard; other breeds of dogs don't seem so inclined to the sport, possibly because they have a higher center of gravity, and aren't such slow runners as bulldogs.

* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Are Some People Genetically Resistant To COVID-19?" by Rich Haridy, 21 October 2021), COVID-19 is unpredictable: many people who get infected for the first time hardly notice it, others will get very sick, and a few will die -- including, in a few cases, otherwise healthy young people who nobody would think were vulnerable.

It isn't unknown for diseases to behave that way, but it does present the question of why the variation exists. Is it because some event, such as infection by a related but harmless virus, gave them immunity? Or were they born with that immunity? An international collaborative effort named the "COVID Human Genetic Effort" has begun investigating whether specific genetic characteristics can make someone resistant to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

There's a precedent from the AIDS pandemic. In the late 1970s, a partner of New York artist Stephen Crohn died from what would become known as AIDS, and later other of Crohn's associates became infected with HIV -- but he never did. In the mid-1990s, a team of researchers conducted an investigation focused on subjects who seemed HIV-resistant, with Crohn taking part in the investigation. In the end, the researchers found a single genetic mutation that seemed to be the source of Crohn's resistance. That helped in the development of drugs to treat HIV.

Attempting to track down genetic resistance to COVID-19 is tricky, however. Trying to deliberately infect test subjects with the pathogen to see how easily they get infected is not an acceptable practice. One lead is from "discordant couples", or couples who live together, but only one gets sick. A study of 86 discordant couples relative to COVID-19 suggested that, unsurprisingly, resistance to the disease is not a factor of a single gene, but of a combination of them. 86 was a small sample size; the COVID Human Genetic Effort has already enrolled more than 400 people, and is seeking more.

[MON 11 APR 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 15

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed in an article from CNN.com ("Russia's Lies May Be Catching Up With It Faster Than It Ever Imagined" by Nic Robertson, 7 March 2022), the Russian war against Ukraine is being exposed by satellite imagery, smartphones, and global internet connections.

To be sure, surveillance satellite imagery is nothing at all new, but now high-resolution, up-to-date imagery is being provided on a commercial basis. Satellite images of murdered civilians that match videos, recorded weeks later, of bodies at the roadside have provided compelling evidence of Russian war crimes. Russia has proved behind the curve on the battlefield; now it is behind the curve in the information war.

Russian defense officials claimed photos and videos that emerged on 2 April -- showing the bodies of civilians shot in the head, some with their hands and legs bound -- were fake, saying their troops left before the killings occurred. However, publicly available satellite images from space-tech company Maxar, taken on 18 March while Russian troops were in control, showed the civilians lying dead at the roadside in exactly the same locations as Ukrainian forces discovered them when they re-entered the town in early April. Similarly, a drone video shot before March 10 showed a cyclist being gunned down by Russian troops. Ukrainian forces found his body weeks later, exactly where he fell.

This is the new world of "open-source intelligence (OSI)". Thanks to commercial satellite imagery, smartphone cameras, geolocation technology, and sophisticated drones, the world's public has a fronts-seat view of the conflict. Less visibly, there's also analysis software that can sort through the floods of data to hunt down details and analyze the big picture. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went from being a video entertainer to the presidency, and has an intuitive grasp of what OSI can do. Zelensky says: "It is 2022 now. We have conclusive evidence. There are satellite images. And we can conduct full and transparent investigations."

Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to shroud his war of aggression in Ukraine in lies -- while Zelensky is telling Putin, through the media, that he can't get away with it, proclaiming: "This is what we are interested in, maximum access for journalists, maximum cooperation with international institutions, enrollment of the International Criminal Court, complete truth and full accountability." Even if Putin never answers for his crimes, he won't be able to ignore the global spotlight glaring down on him.

* One of Putin's stated goals in the war is to restrict the expansion of NATO. As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("Finland Is Hurtling Towards NATO Membership", 8 April 2022), it appears that Putin has once again miscalculated. In January, when the massing of Russian forces on Ukraine's border could be thought a bluff, Sanna Marin -- Finland's prime minister -- said it was "very unlikely" that Finland would join NATO while she was in office. On 2 April, she sounded a different tune, saying Finland would have to make a decision "this spring." She explained: "Russia isn't the neighbor we thought it was."

Through the Cold War, Finland maintained a careful neutrality, buying arms from both sides, but avoiding alliances. The Soviet Union cast a long shadow over Finland and the consciousness of Finns, the process being mocked as "Finlandization". When the USSR collapsed, the Finns, along with the Swedes, were willing to join the European Union, but continued the policy of military neutrality. That began to shift in 2014, when Russia first attacked Ukraine, with Finland and Sweden intensifying joint exercises and other forms of co-operation with NATO.

In 2019, a bare majority of Finns were opposed to NATO membership. A poll at the end of March 2022 revealed 61% in favor, 16% against, and 23% undecided. All Finnish political parties support it, except for the Left Alliance. It is widely believed that if Sauli Niinisto, Finland's popular president, were to give his formal endorsement, support would grow further.

Both Marin and Niinisto are maintaining a quiet neutrality of their own for the time being, to allow the public discussion to play out. An official report on Finland's security position is to be released, with debate in Parliament following. Assuming the debate is favorable to NATO membership, Parliament and the government will then begin a formal process to that end. President Niinisto believes that a public referendum will not be needed. A decision will be made no later than the end of June, when the NATO summit in Madrid takes place.

There would be no problem on the NATO side, NATO officials saying that that Finland is in fact more "NATO interoperable" -- capable of conducting joint operations alongside other allies -- than some actual members. A special procedure set up in 2014 and activated after Russia's invasion means that Finnish and Swedish envoys now sit at the North Atlantic Council, the alliance's decision-making body, for every meeting relating to the crisis. No NATO member nation, not even Hungary, is expected to vote against Finnish membership.

In Sweden, the debate is moving more slowly -- but Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, believes Sweden will follow the Finnish lead: "For me, it is inconceivable that we would end up in a situation where the two countries come to different conclusions."

If Finland does join NATO, Russia's border with NATO will more than double. Putin is unlikely to take kindly to that idea, but the Russians would also have to reconsider the security of the Gulf of Finland and the strategic ports around Murmansk. He is certainly aware that NATO, even without US military might backing it up, is more powerful than Russia. Putin, by all appearances, wanted to fragment NATO -- but instead, it is becoming that much more powerful.

* Twisted Sister's rock classic "We're Not Gonna Take It" has become a MAGA anthem of sorts -- the problem with that being that Dee Snider, the center of the group, has no sympathy with MAGA. One MAGAbot wrote on Twitter, to get a reply from Snider:

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Commenters pointed out that MAGA has an inclination to embrace pop anthems that are anti-MAGA, Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" being the most visible example. I replied:

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* After the drought here last year, my lawn looks shabby, and it's not recovering well. We're likely to have more droughts in the future, and I could never get bluegrass to grow anywhere near as well as I liked anyway -- so I decided to look into alternative lawns.

Investigations into alternative grasses weren't promising. I don't like fescue grasses, they look way too weedy, and my investigations showed they formed tough clumps that made them look worse -- oh right, I know about those things. I finally figured out white / dutch clover would do the job. It doesn't need much watering, it's a legume and self-fertilizing, and it doesn't need much mowing; it can use the lawn clippings for self-fertilization. Also, clover looks pretty and attract pollinators when in bloom, though it doesn't bloom until the second year after planting.

I was thinking crimson clover would look nice, but it has to be reseeded regularly, while white clover reseeds itself. Clover is not durable for foot traffic, but it's okay if there's still plenty of grass to reinforce it. I went to Home Depot and bought two bags of white clover seed. I'm doing yard prep for the moment, with the intent to lay down seed in the bare and rough spots in mid-month. I'll see what happens to the end of the month, and if it looks promising, I think I'll buy two more bags to get better coverage.

Assuming all goes well, I expect it will take like three years to get the lawn up to speed. It would be nice if, for the first time, work on my lawn pays off better than I expect, instead of the other way around. It appears that up to the 1950s, clover lawns were nothing unusual, but people decided they were too weedy-looking. I have vague memories of that from when I was little -- but that was over 60 years ago, and nothing is certain in memories that old.

* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Lasers Beam High-Speed Internet Between Cities Through Open Air" by Michael Irving, 16 September 2021), Google's parent company Alphabet had a scheme named Project LOON to use high-altitude balloons to provide internet connectivity to underserved regions. LOON turned out to be economically infeasible and was abandoned, but laser communications links developed for the project live on.

Alphabet's moonshot company X is now working on Project TAARA, to demonstrate ground-based laser communications links for underserved regions. TAARA has conducted a demonstration in which a laser link connected Brazzaville, in the Republic of the Congo, to the neighboring city of Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Although the two cities are only 4.8 kilometers (3 miles) apart, they are divided by the Congo River, making an optical-fiber connection difficult.

Over 20 days, the link delivered almost 700 TB of data at speeds of up to 20 GBPS, with 99.9% availability. Since the beam can be disrupted by weather and, momentarily, by birds, that level of availability is impressive. The receiver has sensors to track the laser beam from the transmitter, and automatically adjust a mirror to maintain the connection. The laser beam is invisible and eye-safe. * As discussed in an article from NAVALNEWS.com ("USMC's Ship Killing NMESIS to Become Operational in 2023" by Xavier Vavasseur, 02 Sep 2021), the US Marines have become very enthusiastic about the Naval Strike Missile (NSM) -- a cruise missile designed for antiship and land attack, developed by Kongsberg of Norway.

They are now working towards deployment of the "Navy/Marine Corps Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS)", which will to become operational in 2023. In 2021, during a large-scale exercise, a NMESIS vehicle was deployed by a C-130 transport, then fired NSMs to sink the decommissioned guided-missile frigate INGRAHAM. NMESIS integrates a robot variant of the Joint Lightweight Tactical Vehicle, the NSM, and the NSM fire control system used by the Navy.

NMESIS is linked "Light Amphibious Warship (LAW)" program. LAW will be the "new strategy and tactic" to countering the Chinese Anti-Access/Area Denial island chains around the South China Sea. LAW will be a high-value platform, deploying NMESIS on islands across the Pacific in order to deter the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surface ships. Under the LAW program, the Navy plans to acquire 24 to 35 new amphibious ships, with procurement from 2023.

In related news, the US Navy's Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) will be fitted with twin quad mounts for Kongsberg RGM-184 Naval Strike Missiles (NSM). The NSM has a range of at least 185 kilometers (115 miles / 100 NMI); the missile has counter-countermeasures to penetrate ship defenses, and can target specific sections of a ship.

This compares with the current version of the long-enduring Harpoon antiship missile, the "RGM-84Q-4" or "Block II+", the product of an upgrade kit. It has a range of 250 kilometers (155 miles / 135 NMI), an improved seeker system, and a lighter but more effective warhead. Somewhat puzzlingly, the NSM and Harpoon are seen as complementary, with no plans at present to have the NSM replace the Harpoon.

[MON 18 APR 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 16

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: It was obvious that the Ukrainians needed to come up with some surprises in their war with Russia to get inside Vladimir Putin's turning radius -- to make him the hunted and not the hunter. A big one was dropped this last week, when the Russian cruiser MOSKVA, flagship of the Black Sea fleet, was hit by two Ukrainian Neptune antiship missiles, and went to the bottom. Rumor has it that the captain went down with it.

Retired US Army General Mark Hertling commented on the incident on Twitter, starting out by dismissing reports that the loss of the MOSKVA was an accident. US intelligence indicates it wasn't, and the Russians reacted with air strikes on Kyiv and Lviv -- which was hardly consistent with an accident. Hertling pointed out that Russian intelligence should have known the Ukrainians were fielding the Neptune missile, and that the Russian Navy seems to have been caught fatally napping, the loss being a significant blow to Putin's ambitions:

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* The use of the Neptune antiship missile was a surprise. It's apparently based on the Russian Kh-35 antiship missile, which is so configurationally similar to the US Harpoon missile that it has been nicknamed the "Harpoonski".

Not surprisingly, the Russians tried to destroy the factory that makes the Neptune, but it's a good bet the Ukrainians have distributed production across a number of small sites, some of them dug in. The US Harpoon, incidentally, has a land-attack cruise missile derivative called SLAM, and it would not be so difficult to come up with a Neptune land-attack derivative. It would need a modified guidance system, terminal attack seeker, and possibly warhead.

Working from there, no doubt the Ukrainians took notice of the way Yemen's Houthis beat up the Saudis with long-range kamikaze drones, made by Iran. It would not be so difficult to build small drones that were almost invisible to radar that could hit Moscow or beyond. The Houthis demonstrated how effective the drones were against Saudi oil infrastructure, using cheap weapons.

Along roughly parallel lines, the latest US arms package for Ukraine included 18 155-millimeter guns and 40,000 rounds of ammunition. That was a bit of a puzzle, since the Ukrainians have 152-millimeter guns, and it seemed to make no sense to provide them with incompatible weapons. On consideration, the trick is that the US 155-mm guns can fire rocket-boosted guided shells. In other words, the US guns deliver precision guided weapons.

The latest US rocket-boosted 155-mm shells have a maximum range of 40 kilometers (24 miles). What gets more interesting is that Norwegian arms manufacturer Nammo has been developing a ramjet-boosted 155-mm round with a range of more than 100 kilometers (60 miles). A small long-endurance drone, effectively invisible to radar, could be sent deep behind Russian lines and designate precision attacks for laser-guided shells. Infrared-guided shells could hammer shipping. What happens next? No way of knowing, but expect surprises.

* Discussion of the investigations into the 6-1-21 Capitol riot and associated effort to overturn the 2020 election necessarily continues, the investigations being complicated and protracted. One comment reflected on the fact that those planning the demonstration that led to the riot didn't get a permit, downplaying the event, with me replying:

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My reply went a bit viral. One reply back to me suggested that the supposed distress of the plotters was a just a cover, to which I replied: "Then again, maybe they were as clueless as they were crooked -- we're not dealing with Einsteins here."

Some people object to the suggestion that crooked people are more likely to be clueless than clever -- which is puzzling, because it's not like being clueless makes them look better, it's more like it makes them look worse. Anyway, it's hard to say too much about the investigations, since they are ongoing and not completely transparent. I'm not troubled by that; by all evidence, things are going well. There are still some claims that the DOJ is doing nothing, but they are increasingly only made by MAGAbots, Kremlin Stooges, and other fakes.

[MON 25 APR 22] THE WEEK THAT WAS 17

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Russia launched a new assault in Ukraine this last week, the objective being to seal off Ukraine from the Donbas and coastal regions. Weapons and munitions from the West have been pouring into Ukraine, and while it's too early to know how the battle will turn out, there's cause for optimism. Retired US Army General Mark Hertling, cited here last week, commented that this will be a battle of logistics, and Ukraine will win.

That makes sense: Ukraine is operating on internal supply lines, while the Russians are at the end of external supply lines -- and their logistics are poor anyway. Add to that new options available to Ukraine, US President Joe Biden having mentioned sending 121 new "Ghost" kamikaze drones to help the defense. Nothing was said about what made them special, other than that they were tailored to Ukrainian requirements, but we'll find out soon.

There's talk that the war could drag on, and the Russians could win by attrition. That might be true -- but then again, the Russians have lost well more troops in Ukraine than they did for all the time they were in Afghanistan. Besides, so far the Russian war effort has been a parade of incompetence. They may improve, but they're working from a low level. The offensive seems to be bogging down, and the Ukrainians hit a field headquarters -- it is not clear what weapons were used -- to kill two Russian generals and badly wound a third. Some observers have suggested that this is the last gasp of the Russian assault on Ukraine: if it fails, they won't have the resources to try again.

One puzzling item that came to light was a propaganda video with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in a staged interview. What was strange was that Putin was sitting at a table, and kept his right hand clutching the table at all times. The general suggestion was that he is suffering from Parkinson's disease, and was trying to suppress trembling. He left his left hand passively dangling, with some suggestions that he'd had a stroke. In short, he doesn't look healthy. Another puzzle was reports of major fires at installations across Russia. Could there be a campaign of sabotage in progress? Or is this nothing out of the ordinary?

* Malcolm Nance -- a retired US Navy senior petty officer, with background in intelligence and counter-terrorism -- has made a name for himself as a military pundit on Twitter and elsewhere. He just made a big splash by announcing that he had joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion, and appeared before camera in his combat togs and with a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Not bad for age 61.

That agitated the nutjob Right, with retired Army General Mike Flynn saying on Right-wing TV: "Is he fighting for a fascist dictator, or is he fighting communism? Whose side is he on here? ... Is he supposed to be a journalist reporting the news, or is he out there trying to make the news? What kind of ploy is that?"

Of course, that got a very negative reaction on Twitter, with pictures of Flynn at dinner with Vladimir Putin making the rounds. None were more negative than the reaction of Nance, who replied:

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There's no real doubting Nance's sincerity, but he won't be financially hurting for the exercise. He's likely to have an interesting story to tell once this is all over, and the public prominence to sell it. Who will play him in the movie version? As for Flynn, it's impossible to figure out where he's coming from. It's easy to read Donald Trump: he's just a greedy pig. What motivates Flynn? All that can be said is that, whatever he wants, it's crazy. He needs to be locked up, and probably will be.

* As reported in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("What Taiwan Can Learn From Russia's Invasion of Ukraine", 23 April 2022), the war in Ukraine is being followed with great interest in Taiwan. Vladimir Putin regards Ukraine as part of Russia, and is willing to use force to retake it; similarly, Xi Jinping regards Taiwan as part of China, and wants to bring it back into the fold -- without war, if possible, with war if not.

Taiwan's defense budget, however, has been steadily shrinking, in part because of fatalism, in part because Taiwan was effectively a military dictatorship for too long. Taiwan's ties with the USA were seen as the best defense against Chinese aggression. The war in Ukraine has led to reconsideration. Vladimir Putin went ahead with the invasion of Ukraine, regardless of Western sanctions, and his threats to go nuclear meant Western powers could not directly intervene against him. China is economically much stronger than Russia, making it able to withstand sanctions better, and China has an effective nuclear force, too.

The Chinese have not relented in their ongoing probes of Taiwan's defenses -- "gray-zone" attacks short of war, involving air incursions and cyber-warfare. However, a full-scale military operation remains problematic:

• At the least, China could conduct an intensive bombardment of the island, but that would not get quick results, and retaliation would be certain.
  
  
• The next option would be an air and naval blockade, but that would take a long time to be effective, and would lead to a direct military confrontation.
  
  
• A lightning invasion, presenting a fait accompli to the world, would be most effective, but it's doubtful that China has the capability of doing it.

China could use nuclear intimidation to block intervention, but that's a two-edge sword: the threat of China going nuclear is balanced by the threat of the USA going nuclear in return. Vladimir Putin has been playing the game of bluff, and finding it offers only limited returns.

Taiwan is focusing on an "asymmetric" defensive strategy, in which the weaker side uses defensive weapons, concealment, and misdirection to frustrate its adversary. The USA has been encouraging Taiwan to develop a "porcupine" doctrine. The concept has gone by various names and the "Overall Defense Concept (ODC)" -- with ODC promoted by a former Taiwanese military chief, Lee Hsi-Ming, who suggests that:

• Taiwan should buy "a low quantity of high-quality platforms", for example as jet fighters, ships, and submarines, to deal with China's gray-zone attacks. Small-scale incursions can then be met with comparable resources.
  
  
• Taiwan should also acquire "a large number of small things", especially anti-ship missiles, to ward off an invasion. Lee says: "If Ukraine had only tanks, could they fight Russia? Think of 1,000 Ukrainian tanks versus 10,000 Russian tanks. Then think of 10,000 Russian tanks versus 100,000 Ukrainian Javelins. That is asymmetric warfare."

Although Taiwan's government does embrace the porcupine strategy, it seems to be slow to sink in. Taiwan's military appears to be inclined to buy expensive combat platforms at the expense of large numbers of relatively cheap weapons. Lee sees that as a mistake. Taiwan, after all, could build hundreds, even thousands, of cheap long-range kamikaze drones that would be very difficult to intercept, and would be able to inflict massive damage on China. They could also obtain long-endurance drones and fit them with air-to-air missiles to deal with air attacks. The numbers of expensive fighter jets that Taiwan could field would, in contrast, be quickly overwhelmed by China's superiority in brute force, and they would not represent much of an offensive threat to China either. Phil Davidson, the former commander of American forces in the Indo-Pacific, says:

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For now, the first line of defense remains the USA. The Taiwanese also can expect some help from Japan, which recognizes that China is a threat, and that Taiwan is key to containing that threat. Former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo said late in 2021: "A Taiwan contingency is a Japanese contingency, and therefore a contingency for the Japan-US alliance. Beijing, President Xi Jinping in particular, should not have any misunderstanding in recognizing this."

How much the USA and Japan could help is unclear, but the lack of clarity cuts both ways. The defense of Taiwan needs a strategy, in which ambiguity plays a role. Davidson says:

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In warfare, it is necessary to get a step ahead of an adversary. If Xi Jinping feels encouraged in aggression against Taiwan by the invasion of Ukraine, will he feel so encouraged if the invasion is a disaster for Russia? That seems unlikely, and so it is in Taiwan's interests to help that disaster happen.

* In domestic news, one Mallory McMorrow, a Democratic state senator in Michigan, went viral online, after McMorrow had been attacked by Republican State Senator Lana Theis -- who sent out a campaign fundraising email to claim McMorrow wanted to "groom and sexualize kindergartners." On 19 April, McMorrow took the floor to respond, saying to Theis:

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Democratic strategist James Carville -- well-known for his acid criticisms of the poor messaging by Democrats -- was impressed by McMorrow's response, saying: "Enormously effective piece of communication. There's really no comeback to it."

McMorrow didn't come on as defensive, or try to reply with hairsplitting fact-checks -- she didn't let Theis frame the debate. Instead, McMorrow laid out her fundamental deepest convictions and explained how they lead her to her positions on gay and trans rights, and why simple decency demands them. McMorrow wasn't the one with the problem: it was Theis.

Carville said: "She spoke English. She wasn't defensive at all." She simply said "what every Democrat believes." The nutjob Right has adopted the posture that all those to the Left of them -- that is, the substantial majority of Americans -- are indistinguisable crazy Leftist radicals. On the contrary, what the Right denounces as "extreme Left" is actually the American mainstream, which supports gay rights, abortion tolerance, environmental action and in general, sanity. It is the Right that is in the weak position.

* This was underlined this last week by a flurry of absurdities on the Right. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pushed a bill through the legislature, stripping Disney World of its self-governing status, in retaliation for Disney's withdrawing political support after the legislature passed an anti-gay-rights bill. The attack on Disney seems very poorly thought out, and is likely to backfire.

In addition, conspirobot Alex Jones was contacted by the Justice Department, who wants to ask him some questions about the 6-1-21 Capitol riot and his role in it. Jones all but demanded immunity; he won't get it. Finally, Right-wing troll Representative Marjorie Taylor-Greene found herself the subject of a hearing in Georgia, to decide if she should be denied the right to run for office because she advocated insurrection.

The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution disallows those who advocate insurrection from running for office. MTG's entire testimony amounted to: "I don't recall." The prosecution kept running video clips of her advocating revolution in response. Even if she dodges the bullet, the hearing has greatly undermined her credibility, and is useful to that end. Presumably, other subversive Members of Congress can expect the same treatment.

* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Submersible Snake-Inspired Robot Can Inspect Ships And Infrastructure" by Nick Lavars, 13 April 2021), Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh PA has long been a hotspot for robotics innovation. In recent years, researchers there have been working on "snake" robots that can crawl through pipes, or into other tight places. They have featured elements such as force-sensing feet, tank-style treads, cameras to investigate pipes in nuclear power plants, and surgical tools to grasp and cut tissue in human patients.

Now CMU has developed the "Hardened Underwater Modular Robot Snake (HUMRS)". As its name implies, it introduces underwater capability into the series, and features a modular, reconfigurable design. Elements include thrusters, buoyancy control systems, rotary articulation devices, inspection sensors, and manipulation grippers.

Howie Choset, CMU professor of robotics, says: "We can go places that other robots cannot. [HUMRS] can snake around and squeeze into hard-to-reach underwater spaces." The researchers see one of the prime applications of HUMRs as carrying out inspections of navy ships out at sea. Currently, if one of these vessels is damaged, a diver has to be dispatched to inspect the damage; using a robot would be far more efficient.

Project team member Matt Fischer, who served in the Navy for three years, says: "If they can get that information before the ship comes into a home port or a dry dock, that saves weeks or months of time in a maintenance schedule. And in turn, that saves money." Other potential applications include inspecting underwater pipes or tanks, or offshore oil rigs.