MrG's Blog & Notes

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

[MON 04 SEP 23] THE WEEK THAT WAS 35

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Fani Willis -- Democrat district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, which includes Atlanta -- made waves recently by indicting former president Donald Trump and 18 Trump accomplices for attempting to steal the 2020 election. Of course, Trump's Republican defenders in Georgia government are not happy with Willis, leading to the creation of the "Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission", which has the power to remove local prosecutors from office.

It was signed into law by Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. The law allows for removing a prosecutor for "willful misconduct" or "conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice which brings the office into disrepute," among other reasons. It is generally believed to target Willis. One of its main backers, Republican Georgia State Senator Colton Moore said a month ago: "I'm not going to sit back and watch as radical Left prosecutors politically target political opponents."

Moore and others have called for Kemp to call a special session of the legislature, clearly to derail Willis. Kemp wouldn't call a special session in December 2020 to help overturn election results, saying he didn't have the authority. This last week he said he wouldn't call a special session now either, again claiming he didn't have the authority, explaining more specifically there was no justification for doing so:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

The governor warned fellow Republicans that a focus on punishing people for, say, refusing to say an election was stolen -- instead of focusing on things like cutting taxes and boosting economic development in the state could lead to a repeat of the party's losses in the January 2021 Senate runoffs, and the 2022 Senate race that helped give Democrats control of the chamber. Of course, offering a grossly unqualified candidate like Herschel Walker for the US Senate didn't help, either.

In any case, Kemp said: "That is the way you win races, that is the way you move forward. Things like cutting taxes, doing $2 billion dollar tax rebates, suspending the gas tax ... not focusing on the past or some grifter scam that somebody's doing to help them raise a few dollars into the campaign account."

It is encouraging to see prominent Republicans defy MAGA and Trump, and hopefully we'll see more of it as Trump's difficulties intensify. It is true that Kemp has not concealed his annoyance with Trump, and has consistently feuded with him -- so Kemp's defiance might be taken with a grain of salt. However, Liz Cheney also said that she would do all in her power to prevent Trump from being the GOP nominee in 2024, and if he was, she wouldn't be a Republican any more. The GOP primary next year will be very interesting. It is hard to see how nominating a convicted felon, as Trump is very likely to be by then, will be a good idea. One way or another, that's just not going to work.

In loosely-related news, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has attempted to push through a redistricting scheme to dilute the power of black voters in the state. Florida Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh has now rejected the new redistricting, saying the lawmakers have to come up with a map that doesn't violate the state constitution. It turns out that in 2010 Florida voters passed the "FairDistricts Amendments" to deal with gerrymandering, which stipulated:

• Districts must not be drawn with intent to favor incumbents or political parties.
  
  
• Districts must not be drawn to diminish voting rights of racial and language voters.
  
  
• Districts must be compact, follow local boundaries and be as equal in population as feasible.

That would seem to be unambiguous: NO GERRYMANDERING. DeSantis has claimed the FairDistricts Amendment violates the Federal Constitution -- "Good luck with that, Ron!" Several other states that have attempted to gerrymander the black vote have been told by the judiciary to try again, with conservative justices joining in the call. It appears the affected legislatures are balking -- "Good luck with that, too." If the legislatures won't change their redistricting plans, the courts may find someone who will.

* Ukraine, having suffered from Russian aerial bombardment from early in the war, is now ramping up its drone attacks on Russia in return. Thomas C. Theiner -- ex-Italian Army artillerist, now a commenter on the war -- outlined the purposes of the drone strikes:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

I'm wondering how much help Ukraine is getting with the drones. Ukraine's allies won't provide weapons for attacks on Russia, but they can provide technical assistance. Presumably, Ukraine gets intelligence on Russia from its allies, with a fair amount of that from "open-source intelligence (OSINT)", as from civilian surveillance satellites.

In the meantime, the ground war plods on. A video that appeared on X/Twitter had a Russian soldier and his squaddies crowing about having captured a Ukrainian Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. The video then transitioned to the same soldier, kneeling with his hands tied behind his back, being asked by his Ukrainian captors: "How old are you?" "I'm 19." It took me a bit to figure out what was going on."

The unsettling context for that video was that it was likely some of his squaddies were no longer among the living. Some of the Ukraine War videos on X/Twitter are ghastly: one taken by a drone graphically showed Ukrainian troops methodically gunning down Russian defenders in close-quarters trench fighting. Another video showed a young Russian in despair over being sent into combat with inadequate weaponry and no support. I had to reply: "Just surrender, Ivan! Please! You don't need to die. We don't want you to die."

I'm not overly worried about the slow pace of the Ukrainian offensive myself. The Russians are being pressured all along the line, they're on the defensive, and sooner or later they will break. Not everyone is so patient, with complaints about America's "failure" to support Ukraine, and claims that the two countries are at odds over the war. I'm vocal on X/Twitter about alleged quarrels between the two countries, saying: "There is no daylight between the USA and Ukraine on the war." They may have energetic discussions, but they will always come to an agreement. I have a strong suspicion that those playing up alleged disagreements are working for Putin, or at least are foolish tools.

* As discussed in an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("Sun-Powered Water Splitter Produces Unprecedented Levels Of Green Energy" by Robert F. Service, 4 January 2022), there's been a lot of work on "solar-to-fuel (S2F)" technologies as of late.

There has been a lot of work on S2F, but developing a practical way of doing it has proven troublesome. In S2F, traditionally the high-energy end of the solar spectrum has been used to do the work of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. The difficulty is that the lower end of the spectrum in the infrared can't do the job, meaning about half of the sunlight is useless. Solar water splitters try to get around the problem in two ways:

• Photoelectrochemical cell (PEC): An electrolytic cell, with two anodes immersed in an electrolyte. One electrode absorbs sunlight, using the energy to split water molecules via a catalytic surface, with hydrogen gas produced at one electrode and oxygen produced at the other.
  
  
• Monolithic photocatalytic cell (MPC): A single photosensitive semiconductor plate in water, with the plate absorbing sunlight, and splitting water molecules via a semiconductor coating.

PECs can convert up to a quarter of sunlight's energy into hydrogen fuel, but the corrosive electrolyte tends to degrade the electrodes. MPCs are only about 3% efficient, since the hydrogen and oxygen is generated in the same place, meaning it is inclined to recombine. More could be produced with a larger semiconductor plate, but the plate is expensive.

Researchers led by Zetian Mi, a chemist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, came up with an improved photocatalytic arrangement. They obtained a flat fresnel lens the size of a house window to focus sunlight on their water-splitting semiconductor element. The intense sunlight then generated electrical charges in the semiconductor that were passed to nanosize metal catalysts peppered on top, which then carried out the water-splitting reactions.

Mi's team also raised the temperature of the water being split to 70 Celsius (160 degrees Fahrenheit). The combined changes allowed the researchers to convert 9.2% of the Sun's energy into hydrogen fuel, about three times more than had been obtained previously.

Todd Deutsch, a water-splitting expert at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, says that the efficiency is now within striking distance of the 10% target likely needed to make these devices commercially viable. However, Deutsch points out that more work needs to be done, in particular devising a practical scheme to separate out the oxygen and hydrogen -- complicated by the fact that, in large volumes, the two gases together form an explosion hazard. Mi is optimistic about the potential of the effort, and adds that the scheme works with seawater, if not quite as efficiently, meaning water supply is unlikely to be an issue.

* ARSTECHNICA.com had an article by one Beth Mole, concerning vaccine paranoia among dog-owners -- with a poll showing over half distrusted vaccines, and well over a third thought they caused "dog autism". Mole replied: "For the bazillionth time, vaccines do not cause autism, and dog autism is not a thing." Dogs can have behavioral problems -- I've run into a few who clearly weren't wired right -- but nobody has ever clinically defined "dog autism". This led to the following exchange on Xitter:

Bill Beatty / @mistabill: Vaccines cause Pawtism?

Wily_Coyote (MrG) / @gv_goebel: That's so bad -- it's good!

Also in the domain of the absurd, "right-to-repair (RTR)" laws are all the rage these days. RTR is about pressuring manufacturers, notably Apple, to allow customers to repair their products, instead of forcing the customers to either have the manufacturer do the repairs, or to buy a new product. Manufacturers are grudgingly caving in -- but the Church of Scientology (COS) has protested, claiming that RTR shouldn't apply to devices that require special training and qualification to use.

It doesn't take too much thought to figure out where the COS is coming from. "$cientology" claims to train people, through expensive courses, to reach a higher state of mental acuity known as "clear". How do people know if they are "clear"? Why, through an (expensive) device known as an "E-Meter", which shows how "clear" they are. What is "clear" is that the COS does not want anyone getting inside an E-Meter, since the contents may prove a disappointment.

[MON 11 SEP 23] THE WEEK THAT WAS 36

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Back on 18 August, US President Joe Biden hosted a summit meeting at Camp David with Japan's prime minister, Kishida Fumio, and South Korea's president, Yoon Suk-yeol, as a piece of America's Indo-Pacific strategy. There actually never has been a summit of the leaders of these three countries before, one issue being that South Koreans still hold a grudge against Japan from the days of being a Japanese colony, and don't perceive the Japanese as exerting themselves to be apologetic over the matter. However, Japan and South Korea are both confronted with a belligerent North Korea and Chinese bullying -- with the Russian invasion of Ukraine enhancing the perceived threat of war. Both countries increasingly have a shared strategic vision with the USA.

South Korea and Japan have been drawing closer together. Under Moon Jae-in, Yoon's Left-wing predecessor, security co-operation stalled and intelligence sharing dried up as Japan and South Korea bickered over Japan's colonial-era misconduct -- much to the pleasure of the Chinese and North Koreans. However, since Yoon took office in 2022, South Korea has downplayed old grudges and sought cooperation. In May 2023, Kishida made the first official visit by a Japanese leader to Seoul, in more than a decade.

The three countries' armed forces are working together again; American, Japanese and South Korean defense ministers met in June and pledged to begin sharing intelligence about North Korean missile launches in real time. Trilateral discussions have broad scope, covering security issues across East Asia, and likely beyond: neither Japan nor South Korea are supplying arms to Ukraine, but they are sympathetic, and South Korea is helping drive a massive arms buildup in Poland, clearly meant to counter Russia.

Chinese officials have been pushing to restart high-level trilateral talks between China, Japan, and South Korea, which have withered in recent years. Rahm Emanuel, America's ambassador to Japan, says: "This is what summit envy looks like." Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, attending a recent forum in Qingdao, petulantly told Japanese and South Koreans there: "No matter how blond you dye your hair, how sharp you shape your nose, you can never become a European or American."

There are clearly limits to cooperation: Japan and South Korea have a lot of toxic baggage in their historical relationship that can't be just wished away. When a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer visited a South Korean port, there were complaints that it was flying the old "rising sun" flag as in World War II, though that's normal for the JMSDF. There are also differences in strategic vision:

• South Korea is focused on North Korea as an adversary, while Japan sees China as the most significant threat.
  
  
• South Korea does not want to antagonize China and is not comfortable with Japan's overt backing of Taiwan.

There are also differences of opinion relative to America's nuclear umbrella. Nonetheless, for now the relationship between the two countries is deepening, with the Biden Administration working to see that it continues to.

Incidentally, not surprisingly young South Koreans don't worry as much about old grudges as their elders. A Korean comedian named Kim Kyung Wook has a stage alter-ego named "Tanaka-san" who has gone viral there, being an "ambassador" of sorts for Japan, playing up Japanese pop culture, singing Japanese pop tunes -- often speaking "Japanrean", a mix of Japanese and Korean. He's got hundreds of thousands of followers on YouTube, and apparently sings with prominent K-pop groups at times. Also incidentally, there isn't a more stereotypical Japanese name than "Tanaka".

* In closely related news, on 10 September Joe Biden went on a state visit to Hanoi. That in itself is not such news; five US presidents have gone to Vietnam, starting with Bill Clinton in 2000, when Clinton re-established diplomatic ties.

However, the two countries' relationship has been defined to this time as a "comprehensive partnership". Biden's meeting with Nguyen Phu Trong, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, resulted in an upgrade, to a "comprehensive strategic partnership". Of course the target of the partnership is China, with Biden attempting to set up security initiatives around China's periphery -- and Vietnam trying to push back against Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, as well as harassment of fishing boats and oil-and-gas exploration vessels in Vietnamese waters. America lifted a ban on arms sales to Vietnam in 2016, and has since sold it two patrol cutters; more defense initiatives may come out of this trip. After also strengthening its military relationship with the Philippines, the USA may be planning to challenge China more vigorously in the South China Sea.

The USA is, along parallel lines, also interested in nurturing economic ties with Vietnam, as part of the move towards "de-risking" foreign trade, meaning seeking alternatives to China. Vietnam has become a linchpin in global supply chains, and the USA is its biggest export market. Vietnam has a growing production base with a bright, young workforce, making it a prime candidate for "friendshoring", which means American investment. Chipmaker Intel has poured over $1.5 billion USD into Vietnam.

America also has plenty of green tech to offer, and Vietnam wants it -- having ambitious climate goals, plus an interest in getting away from labor- or resource-intensive industries. In addition, Vietnam would like alternatives to Russian weapons the country has traditionally obtained, which have become hard to get as Russia flounders in Ukraine; not only does Vietnam want weapons from the USA and America's allies, it also wants to build up its domestic arms industry.

There's only so far that US-Vietnam collaboration can go. Vietnam has a poor human-rights record, and the Americans will feel compelled to protest, if quietly, when abuses occur. The Vietnamese are also reluctant to antagonize China, since the two countries are major trading partners. Of course, China has complained bitterly about American overtures to Vietnam, but Chinese and Vietnamese have always been inclined to feud, the Vietnamese are used to it. The Vietnamese want to balance between the two camps -- or even, possibly, become intermediaries, reducing frictions between China and the USA.

* Donald Trump is attempting to run for President of the United States, with the tacit campaign pitch of: VOTE FOR ME TO KEEP ME OUT OF JAIL. That's not very persuasive, and as of late it's running into an obstacle: the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

The three "Reconstruction Amendments" -- the 13th, 14th, and 15th -- respectively banned slavery; guaranteed voting rights of adult males; and banned racial considerations in voting rights. The 14th Amendment also has an interesting clause that denies the right of those guilty of insurrection against the US government to hold public office.

There's been interest in using the 14th Amendment to keep Trump off the ballot in 2024 ever since his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Nothing much has come of efforts to that end so far, with a Federal judge in Florida recently rejecting a lawsuit along those lines, citing lack of standing by the plaintiffs.

A case filed in Colorado state court by the "Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington (CREW)" seems to have better chances. The plaintiffs are six Republican and unaffiliated voters who say they want to protect the rights of voters "to fully participate in the upcoming primary election by ensuring that votes cast will be for those constitutionally qualified to hold office."

It appears that standing isn't a problem with this lawsuit -- but will it pass muster in the courts? The problem is that there is so little precedent to say how the courts will judge. It doesn't seem that Trump needs to be convicted of insurrection: the goal of that clause in the 14th Amendment was to prevent ex-Confederate officials from regaining US offices, and none of them had been convicted of insurrection. The 14th Amendment gambit seems like a long shot, but not as much as it did. We'll just wait and see what happens.

[ED: The lawsuit failed in SCOTUS, for the simple reason that a state cannot strike a national candidate from a state ballot. SCOTUS ruled unaminimously on that. Makes sense; Red states would otherwise scramble to kick Joe Biden off the ballot on various pretexts.]

* As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("Ukraine's Latest Weapons In Its War With Russia: 3D-Printed Bombs", 1 August 2023), it is well-known that Ukraine's attack drones often carry small munitions -- early on, often based on 40-millimeter projectile grenades, with a plastic tailkit. A munitions-maker in Kyiv, a fellow who goes by the name of "Lyosha", says they left much to be desired. The grenades were lethal enough when fired in dense volleys, but had to be very well targeted when used singly.

In the spring of 2023, Lyosha and a group of friends, working in their homes, designed an improved small munition, over twice as big, which they called "Zaychyk (Rabbit)". The Zaychyk's casing is 3D-printed, to then be filled with C4 plastic explosive and steel shrapnel. Lyosha says it could cut through wooden planks "like butter".

There's a lot of similar warlike experimentation in Ukraine. Trying to maintain a flow of factory-made munitions is troublesome -- and they don't tend to be "right-sized" for drones, either too small or too big. Any means of increasing the supply of munitions, and tailoring them for drones, is welcome.

There's no shortage of explosive filler, and 3D printers are readily available. Lyosha and his friends print the casings of about 1,000 "candy bombs," as these improvised explosive devices have been called, a week -- but the military wants them to make 1,500 a day. Another group, the "Druk (Print) Army", made more than 30,000 candy bombs in four months; their leader, "Swat", says production is increasing.

It's not just Ukrainians making candy bombs either, with a network named "Wild Bees" operating in other countries. Janis Ozols, the founder of the Latvia chapter of the Wild Bees, estimates that at least 65,000 bomb casings have been shipped from Europe since November 2022. Ukrainian customs waves the components through, registering them as "children's toys" or suchlike.

Along with being available and tailored for drones, the candy bombs are cheap. Emanuel Zmudzinski, a Wild Bees volunteer in Lodz, Poland, makes the components -- nose cone, body, and tail fin -- for a 27-centimeter / 10-inch model called the "Big Egg" for less than the equivalent of $4 USD. 3D printing also allows candy bombs to be produced in a range of sizes, fitting the drones that will carry them.

The candy-bomb makers have learned how to make their munitions more lethal. They tried using small nails for shrapnel, but the blast tended to vaporize the nails. They tried using scrap metal, but the scrap pieces would often fly up or into the ground. Using ball bearings was optimum, since they were blasted out in a ring around the candy bomb, though ball bearings are relatively hard to get. "Diuk", a Ukrainian serviceman on the front lines, says 5-kilogram (11-pound) candy bombs can take down exposed infantry 20 meters (65 feet) from where they land. Some of the candy-bomb makers have developed simulation software to help determine the effectiveness of the munitions, and use ChatGPT to find engineering hints.

Some of the candy bombs can be used against armored vehicles. A metal cone is inserted into the front of a bomb to form a "hollow charge", in which the explosion is focused forward in a jet that punches through armor. Even munitions weighing about half a kilo (a pound) can be effective if dropped onto the top of a vehicle, where the armor is thin.

Diuk, the Ukrainian soldier, estimates that there's about 200 different sorts of candy bombs in service. The lack of standardization is a nuisance, Ozols of the Wild Bees saying that the groups are in communication to standardize their work.

[ED: As of late, videos show that Ukrainian drone-dropped bombs pack a bigger punch than those based on 40-millimeter grenades, which were the norm early on. The large number of candy bombs made leads to the question of where the Ukrainians are getting enough drones to carry them. Could Taiwan be supplying them? If so, it's being kept very secret.

Incidentally, larger Ukrainian drones can carry warheads from the classic Russian rocket-propelled grenade (RPG), with the warhead screwed onto a tailkit instead of a rocket. The RPG bombs are murderously effective against armor. Also incidentally, not all the candy bombs are printed. There was a video of a drone dropping a set of candy bombs on an abandoned Russian tank. The Ukrainians will recover damaged Russian combat vehicles if they can -- but if they can't, they destroy it so the Russians can't recover it either. In any case, a keen-eyed watcher focused the video on one of the candy bombs, to show that it was a plastic Coca-Cola bottle, it seems loaded with some incendiary liquid, with fins glued on plus some sort of fuzing mechanism.]

* I have by-month archives of my blog postings going back almost 20 years, and every month I skim through four archives -- correcting spelling mistakes and such, making (very) minor changes when seems necessary, occasionally cutting some text that no longer makes sense, and sometimes adding update notes to articles.

The most important part of the task, however, is just to refresh my memory. It's interesting to see what was going on, and then see what happened later. I was going through early 2014 early this month, and came across comments on one Ian Doescher of Portland, Oregon, who made a splash at the time by writing up the original STAR WARS trilogy as Shakespeare plays. I got to wondering what Doescher had been up to since then; on checking Amazon, it turns out he's not only covered later STAR WARS movies, but diversified in his Shakespeare adaptations as well:

• William Shakespeare's AVENGERS
  
  
• Horror Collection: FRANKENSTEIN, JEKYLL & HYDE, DRACULA
  
  
• William Shakespeare's CHRISTMAS CAROL
  
  
• Get Thee BACK TO THE FUTURE!
  
  
• Much Ado about MEAN GIRLS
  
  
• The Taming Of The CLUELESS

I was a little surprised that Doescher could keep on with "retro-Shakespeare" and not run out of steam. He didn't; it's nice to see someone doing what he obviously likes doing, and making a go of it. Incidentally, he also wrote the first volume of a series titled MACTRUMP, published in 2019. He hasn't written later volumes; either it fizzled, or Doescher is waiting for the rest of the story to play out to the end. Aren't we all?

Also incidentally, one of the lessons discovered in going back through old blog archives is that the USA took a sharp turn in 2016, with the landscape shifting dramatically. Life since then is clearly not the same as it was before.

[MON 18 SEP 23] THE WEEK THAT WAS 37

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: While the grind of the Ukraine War continues, Armed Forces Ukraine scored a spectacular win this last week with a strike on the Russian Navy base at Sevastopol in Crimea, hitting a landing ship and a KILO-class submarine with cruise missiles. The soundtrack of a video taken by a citizen had the missiles hissing in at high speed, their flight ending with thunderous explosions. Other videos showed the warships burning through the night. Assessments suggest they are out of action for a long time, possibly permanently; they were both in drydock, and the drydocks were presumably badly damaged as well.

AFU media releases hint that the attack on the two vessels was directed by Ukrainian special operations forces, who swam into the area. It is thought that the strike was performed by air-launched British Storm Shadow missiles, but it may have been Ukrainian Neptune missiles. They've already been used on two Russian S400 Triumf surface-to-air missile sites in Crimea to good effect. Apparently there's three more S400 sites in Crimea waiting for their turn.

The Neptune uses Global Positioning System / Inertial Navigation System (GPS-INS) guidance for its cruise flight. GPS is easily jammed and the backup INS isn't accurate enough for targeting, but the antiship version of the Neptune uses a radar seeker for precision terminal attack, while the surface-attack version uses an infrared imaging seeker with target recognition capabilities.

The attacks on Russian assets in Crimea seem to be escalating. Images appeared of a Russian missile ship under tow -- which is not in itself strange, since warships are often hauled around harbors by tugs, but the missile ship's stern had settled and clearly had taken on water. The excitement is only getting started. That may be true for the war in general, with AFU ground forces ramping up the push against Russian lines in hopes of making a breakthrough before the muddy season sets in. Even if that doesn't happen, will the fighting even really down through the winter? Mobility will be limited of course, but given more long-range weapons, the hammering of the Russians will continue without a letup.

* Donald Trump is facing four separate trials, the most serious one being for his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. As always, Trump has loudly protested against the legal action against him and denounced everyone associated with it -- with the result that people like Judge Tanya Chutkan, in charge of the trial, needs security protection. Special Counsel Jack Smith of the DOJ, who is driving the prosecution of Trump, has submitted a filing to Judge Chutkan accusing Trump of witness intimidation -- which, incidentally, carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

As the saying goes: "Trump has the right to remain silent, but not the ability." He's been warned. What happens next? Does Judge Chutkan slap a gag order on Trump? Seems likely. Will he comply? Probably not. What then? Does he go to jail? He may want to in order to throw out appeals to delay his trial. That, however, may be overestimating Trump, who is incapable of thinking things out. He just likes to make a mess of things, all the time. It's worked for him before. It doesn't seem to be working for him now.

* Victor Shi, a politically-active senior-class student at UCLA, has become something of an advocate of young "Generation Z" voters. In a recent essay on MSNBC.com ("Kamala Harris Could Be Biden's Secret 2024 Weapon", 16 September 2023), Shi suggested that the conventional wisdom on Vice President Kamala Harris -- that she's a liability to the Biden Administration -- should be and can be turned on its head.

It's not surprising that Harris has a bad rep, since she's so heavily targeted by the Right. The smears could, possibly, be from the fact that the fact she's an Indo-Jamaican female -- though the Right will say it's because she's a "socialist", or something equally nonsensical. However, there are calls elsewhere for Biden to drop Harris from the 2024 election ticket. Of course, that's just not going to happen. As Shi says:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Biden's advanced age gives his vice-presidential pick particular importance; in a sense, the Democrats are offering two presidents for the price of one. I never saw her as my first pick, but I have no problems with the idea of President Kamala. As has been said, the worst potential Democratic presidential candidate is far better than the best Republican one. I definitely like the idea of taking all the Right's hating on Kamala and turning it back on them.

* As discussed in an article from JANES.com "IDET 2023: Inflatable Leopard 2A4 decoys sent to Ukraine" by Nicholas Fiorenza, 26 May 2023), the Ukrainians have been enthusiastic about the use of decoys to successfully confuse Russian invaders. The Ukrainians don't say much about the decoys, but the "International Defense & Security Technology Fair (IDET) 2023" -- held in Brno, Czech Republic, in late May 2023 -- did feature inflatable decoys from the Czech firm Inflatech.

Two such decoys were displayed, including one of a German Leopard 2A4 tank and of a Czech STARKOM communication jammer system -- STARKOM being a module typically mounted on a 8x8 truck. Inflatable decoys of tanks and such are absolutely nothing new, going back to at least World War II, but modern decoys are much more sophisticated. The resolution of these decoys at optical wavelengths is 20 centimeters (8 inches); an optical imager that can pick up better detail than that will see through the decoys. Their thermal infrared resolution is 60 centimeters (2 feet), and their radar resolution is 4 meters (13.1 feet). An ordinary tactical drone will not be able to distinguish them from the real thing at a range of more than 1,500 meters (almost a mile). They are inflated by a power inflator, and take two people 10 minutes to deploy or pack. They won't blow away except in the strongest winds.

[MON 25 SEP 23] THE WEEK THAT WAS 38

* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the USA this last week, addressing Congress and United Nations General Assembly. The speeches contained no real surprises, but afterwards there were interesting announcements about shipping a relatively small quantity of American ATACMS missiles to Ukraine, and about collaborations between US and Ukrainian defense industries.

More interesting was an interview by the magazine THE DRIVE / WAR ZONE -- an automotive publication with a secondary miltech focus -- with Ukrainian General Kyrylo Budanov, the intelligence chief. Budanov demurred when asked about offensive operations in the Donbas Region, but brightened up relative to Crimea:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

WZ asked if drone attacks on Moscow were part of the overall strategy to stretch Russian air defenses thin. Budanov, laughing, said Ukraine has never acknowledged any attacks on Moscow, and then basically answered YES:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

WZ went on to ask about sabotage groups operating in Russia. Budanov said Ukraine was assisting them, but declined to give specifics, then made an observation:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Budanov said the FSB, the Russian security service, was under the gun for failing to stop the sabotage attacks. WZ asked him: "Do you think they have a dart board with your face on it in FSB headquarters?" He laughed and replied: "I don't know, I haven't been there."

Ukrainian sabotage operations are completely mysterious. There may not be very much to them -- but as Budanov understands, they don't have to do much damage to ruin Putin's day. WZ went on to ask about the coming of winter and its impact on Ukrainian offensive operations:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

In other words, this isn't a tank war: it's an infantry, drone, artillery, and missile war. Since Russia has much more manpower than Ukraine, Ukraine needs more drones, artillery, and missiles. However, otherwise Ukraine has the initiative on the battlefield, with the Russians on the defensive:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

As far as the vital Kerch Strait Bridge, which links Crimea to Russia, Budanov was direct:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

As far as the weapons being used, Budanov said:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Neptune is based on the old Soviet Kh-35 cruise missile and has been used since the beginning of the war, though the land-attack version is new. The Ukrainians have plenty of experience in building missiles, and so it is puzzling they would be stalled indefinitely. I suspect we're going to see the use of Neptunes ramp up considerably in the not-too-distant future. [ED: Ukraine later stated that work was being done on a long-range version of the Neptune.]

Rumors having been going around Elon Musk shutting off Starlink satellite communications service to Ukraine during the middle of an operation, Budanov was careful to say that was not really true -- that there had been a shutdown for a month, but otherwise Starlink had proven very valuable to Ukraine. Budanov closed out the interview with appropriately tactful remarks:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Budanov's comments cut into a meme that's been going around recently: "Ukraine isn't being grateful enough for allied help!" To which I think: "News to me, the leadership is always careful to thank Ukraine's allies." There is some grumbling with Ukrainian rank-&-file that aid isn't arriving fast enough -- which is true in the sense that Ukraine needed everything yesterday. However, they can't get everything, and they can't get it yesterday.

Later that week, the Ukrainians blasted the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol with at least two British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles. A local started taking a video after the first hit; the video then showed the second missile, perfectly recognizable, screaming in and then producing a thunderous explosion. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the strike was timed to take place during a meeting of senior officers, many of them being injured or killed. Russian reports mention 34 casualties. It was a little surprising that the Russians hadn't abandoned such a visible target.

* In US news, this last week Project Veritas -- a Rightist propaganda operation that tried to "sting" liberal organizations -- has suspended operations. PV had been founded by one James O'Keefe in 2010, and specialized in "ambush" videos where the victims were asked trap questions, with the answers cherry-picked to prove anything O'Keefe wanted to prove. PV also like to infiltrate and subvert target organizations, though that approach got less effective as the notoriety of PV grew.

PV's smear videos resulted in defamation suits against the group, and also court orders to limit the group's intrusive and often fraudulent activities. PV was supported by contributions from Rightist sources; somehow unsurprisingly, O'Keefe lived the high life, with his treatment of PV staff said by them to resemble that of a "power-drunk tyrant". He was dismissed early this year, with the operation living on as a shell, to finally collapse.

It will not be missed. The fall of Project Veritas is another example of the accelerating disintegration of the Right.

* The first Sunday in August, I did something clueless and fell, badly bruising my right hip. That posed a problem in that I couldn't walk, and in fact trying to get around was painful. I could only get around on all fours the rest of the day.

On Monday, I tried to get around with a cane I had on hand and leveraging off tabletops, but I concluded it was no good. Tuesday morning, first thing I did was get on Amazon and look up crutches -- I couldn't drive, so I had to get them shipped to me. I was wondering if I should get tall crutches or elbow crutches, then concluded I should get tall crutches since I was more certain they would do the job. I found crutches that were tall enough for me and got good reviews, so I ordered them.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't get them earlier than Friday morning, so what to do in the meantime? I'd had a brainstorm during the night, thinking that I could use a kitchen stepladder as a walker. I tried a 3-step folding ladder and it worked effectively, though it was laborious, and I couldn't go out of the house with it. I was glad when the crutches arrived Friday morning, since they greatly improved my mobility. I hadn't gone to the supermarket on Tuesday as usual, so I threw the crutches in the car and drove over. While shopping, I put the crutches in the shopping cart and used it as a walker.

That weekend, I got to thinking I should get elbow crutches too, as something of an experiment; they were cheap, and they might be preferable once I was better mended. I ordered them from Amazon and got them on Monday. The tall crutches worked a lot better at the time, but the elbow crutches weren't so troublesome to put in the car, so I used them when I went to the supermarket on Tuesday.

Over the next two weeks, I gradually transitioned from the tall crutches to the elbow crutches. Once I could start putting weight on my right leg, the elbow crutches worked fine and were more convenient than the tall crutches. In the meantime, having been forced to give up my regular exercise schedule, I started doing calisthenics on a pivoting stool for five minutes six times a day.

From that time on, it was incremental improvement. I got to needing only a single crutch; originally, I used it with my right arm, but then counter-intuitively I found it worked better with my left, since it allowed me to lean to the left and better take the load off from my right leg. Gradually, I didn't need the crutch at all, limping slightly but no worries, and got back to a proper exercise schedule. I stayed with calisthenics six times a day, doing a 15-minute session after I got up, five-minute sessions the rest of the day. That was well more than what I started with. In any case, I figure I should be back to normal by early October. If I have leg problems again -- now I've got two sets of crutches on hand.

* In trivial news last week, Mexican police in the city of Monclova arrested a man named "Carlos N" for shaking down people with a knife. Carlos N also had a "Chucky" doll -- from the long-running CHUCKY horror movie series, which has had eight installments since 1988 -- and used the doll as a prop to intimidate his victims. The cops found that amusing, and so one of them was videoed taking Chucky into custody in cuffs, giving him a mug shot, and booking him. She was later reprimanded by her superiors for clowning around. I hope they weren't too harsh with her.