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Latest drama, seems more plausible this time but still file in “believe it when we see it”: Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday said he planned this week to advance a long-stalled national security spending package to aid Israel, Ukraine and other American allies, along with a separate bill aimed at...

Russia losing more top brass: This would be excellent if it somehow pans out:

Wonder if a couple hundred drones (many dummies would do just fine) to saturate the flight path towards Crimean bridge followed/interspersed with a few of these could take the bridge out. Should also work well with many Russian military targets including dual duty infrastructure such as further...

Sadly, Israel has plenty more just cause for retribution against Iran. Here's another: A high court in Argentina ruled on Thursday that Iran was the mastermind of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, potentially paving the way for relatives of...

A matter of perspective some would argue. Killing Iranian generals at an embassy is usually an international no-no, but so is when the same country most proximally facilitated the death of ~1200 Israelis and over 200 hostages taken. It is thus some who would call the embassy incident justice...

OPEC+ is the rate limiting arbiter of oil/gasoline prices, not currently Ukraine's disruption of Russian oil/refineries. OPEC+ as of this quarter has voluntarily cut oil output 2.2 million barrels per day. This is another layer of politics impacting US elections and elsewhere, and the Saudis...

It’s working, Ukraine - keep it up:

New Ukrainian manufactured drone reported to be ready for deployment with impressive 2,050 miles range and 660 lbs payload. Not noted here, but purportedly also uses AI to counter Russian EW defenses:

Ukraine’s continuing hits on Russian oil refineries and depots seem to be working. Global oil prices continue to creep up since this started. Higher oil/refined product prices do not help Russian finances as this is offset much more by their reduced sales volume availability. It’s also bad for...

...engineers at Evolve Dynamics are working on technology that could help keep Ukraine's reconnaissance drones in the sky even after Russia tries to jam them electronically. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/uk-firm-supports-ukrainian-armed-forces-drone-tech-race-2024-03-27/

Russia has increased gasoline imports from neighbouring Belarus in March to tackle the risk of shortages in its domestic market because of unscheduled repairs at Russian refineries after drone attacks, four industry and trade sources said on Wednesday. Usually Russia is a net exporter of fuel...

The ISIS sub-group that claimed responsibility was ISIS-K (Islamic State affiliate in Khorasan) - this is apparently an old term for the region that includes parts of Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Apparently ISIS-K has a particular axe to grind against Putin and accuses him of atrocities...

This appears to have gotten no media coverage, but ISIS also just did this to the Taliban the other day:

Hamas months ago purposefully stepped into a delicate geostrategic balance/shift to disrupt it. Now ISIS in Russia - this one does not appear so far to break anything that was not already broken.

Apparently ISIS has claimed responsibility:

Bret Stephens makes a well reasoned argument for why the best and most workable path forward might be an "Arab Mandate for Palestine"...

Ukraine does not but NATO is in the air intensively with their AWACS planes on the eastern frontier looking into Russia, and in particular these days along their lines with Ukraine. Secretive Surveillance Flights Circle Above Russian Activity

Gasoline futures price rise appears to correlate with Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries:

NATO matching the Russian menace, will enhance defense in the Black Sea theater:

Tsar Putin going for a record:

Having become nearly a daily occurrence, today's Russian refinery hit is again brought to us by the drones of Ukraine:

Didn’t take very long, here’s the next Russian oil refinery ablaze:

To any “pundits” out there still claiming a stalemate, the latest developments on why they are still wrong: Putin has massacred a few hundred thousand Russian men with meat-wave attacks and has relatively little terrestrial gain to show for it. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s more recent achievements...

There’s excess refining capacity throughout the world, so such a strategy would make sense. Still, it would be imaginable for Ukraine to take out some Russian oil production since the core of OPEC is holding back a significant amount of production trying to prop up global prices.

Another oil refinery:

NREL Heat Pump Study: Ultimately, they found that heat pumps are a cost-effective choice in roughly 65 million U.S. homes, or about 60% of the country — and that’s before taking into account available subsidies….

Unclear but timing in uncanny. Perhaps he was tasked with protecting the refineries, or was not but someone had to take a ?literal fall, maybe he blamed the Kremlin for failure to protect the asset, etc…who knows. He’s the 4th Lukoil senior executive to have died since Russia’s full scale...

One of his Lukoil’s refineries was hit by Ukrainian drones a couple days ago and now:

The Kremlin has fired its top naval commander, the biggest fallout yet from a series of devastating attacks by Ukraine on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, according to a Ukrainian and a Western official…. …U.S. officials have assessed that while Kyiv’s counteroffensive last year in eastern and...

Ukraine clears Black Sea for almost a week now, more ATACMS en route, drone attacks = more Russian oil refineries burn...

One can see which European countries are currently taking this most seriously and based on that, who they consider the neighborhood menace to be:

Steam generation will still decrease over time as this system is still extracting/transferring heat. The thermosiphon they use is just a passive closed loop system (so no pump). Because it is closed loop, it should lose heat less readily. The article mentions "there is no need for an...

Since the beginning of its full scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has restricted much access to statistical data (ignoring how credible published data may be). Seems they may have learned a few things from China:

Hard to say Russians are fine with everything. Accurate statistical sampling is impossible in Russia. For example, if a non-response rate is 75% and the 25% who did respond say the majority support the war, that does not mean the majority of Russians support the war. Many analysts suppose...

If one is to have an academic discussion, it would be as poorly advised to cite the Jewish Bible (the Tanach), the New Testament, Quran, Book of Mormon, etc. as it would be the mythologies of Ancient Greece or elsewhere as reliable sources of history. Otherwise, speaking of biblical Joshua, one...

U.S. going after top Austrian bank: The US has threatened Austria's top bank with sanctions for doing business in Russia, following earlier briefings with German lenders.

I listened to that podcast as well. Klein and Haass seemed to agree on most of what they discussed. It was disappointing to hear most of their discussion - they painted Ukraine in a substantially weaker position than they actually are and invoked some unfortunate straw man fallacies. But the...

A large percent of our State is subjugated by the investor owned utilities (the largest: PG&E, SoCal Edison, and SDG&E). This is out of control and as we have discussed endlessly, our Governor is a cornerstone enabler of their corruption. It seems like an astute candidate for the 2026 election...

France recently has become more vocal and active in support of the Eastern European countries partially occupied by Russia. Good to see deeper cooperation and security development of Moldova.

I put the NATO flag up in the front of our house yesterday and will fly it for a few more days on this occasion. Flew it last time for Finland's accession. I don't know if this is mostly a U.S. thing, but some folks put up flags on their houses at different times for all sorts of reasons -...

Only US intelligence would have live satellite and radar maps currently shared with Ukrainian military leadership but not available to the public. Russian warships keep their transponders off so there are no civilian sites to track them. Still evidence is plenty. There have been no Russian...

With continued Ukrainian progress pushing Russia out of the Black Sea, Zelenskyy declares:

Sweden will officially be a NATO member in “a matter of days" according to Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson. This follows Hungary's President Tamas Sulyok today having signed the bill that approved Sweden's accession to NATO. Sweden will become the 32nd NATO member after completion of the...

Worrisome that Putin allowed enough funeral visitors, not only concerning for surveillance with Russia's police state facial recognition system and later planning to imprison them but also that they may be personally selected to conscript to war against Ukraine.

...In 2023 heat pumps outsold gas furnaces in the United States for the second year running, a climate win. Electrical heat pumps are the cheapest and most energy efficient ways to heat and cool homes, and they do not emit the carbon pollution that is overheating the planet. No state has...

Seems there are plenty of Russian spies in the West. Just arresting a few and the West would have bargaining chips for the hostages Russia continues holding.

No reconciliation was done - I brought this to their attention about 2 to 4 months after their phony billing. Our PG&E meters are instantaneously read, wirelessly. The customer, as I did, can look at granular detailed billing hours, down to the very hour. For the hours we lost power, it showed...

I’ve been charged in the past during a power outage with “estimated usage”. Had to call them; the process wasn’t quick. How convenient for them - the vast majority of folks probably won’t look nor bother follow-up, so it’s free stolen money.

California being once Russian is more than a bit of exaggeration. Here is a brief history: Early California: pre-1769–1840s: Russian Presence | Picture This

Might argue this is at least equally good news for residential and grid level battery storage growth.