British-born Laurence Brown has a YouTube channel dedicated to documenting the differences between Britain and the USA. In the last year, he’s become and American citizen and bought a house in the suburbs (Chicago’s, alas), and has some observations, mostly positive, about American suburbs, including the community of dog owners, immaculate lawns, and America’s love affair with rectangles.
It’s that time of the year again, when local official try to sneak through bond elections when they think taxpayers aren’t paying attention.
The May election in Texas is underway, with polling locations across the state now open to early voters for offices in local political subdivisions.
Early voting in the May 6, 2023 election begins Monday, April 24, and continues through May 2, 2023, with polling locations being open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
According to the Texas Secretary of State, the May election will see a variety of local elected offices on the ballot, including cities, school districts, water boards, and other local special districts.
Here’s a detailed list of those bond elections. Austin-area bond elections include Round Rock (the city, not the ISD), Eanes ISD (three different bond issues), Leander ISD (ditto), Hutto ISD (ditto), Liberty Hill ISD (ditto), Dripping Springs ISD, Coupland ISD and Jarrell ISD.
In Williamson County, you can look to see what you can vote for in your locale here.
Back in November, I put up a post on Ukrainian forces crossing the Dnipro River for a probing raid. Since then I’ve noticed a persistent trickle of hits to the post, presumably off social media posts of further activity. Today came more concrete evidence that Ukrainian troops are landing and operating on the eastern/southern bank of the Dnipro.
Ukrainian soldiers have crossed the Dnipro River for the first time since the early days of the invasion and built positions that could be used to launch attacks deeper into Russian-occupied territory, analysts have said.
The crossing of the Dnipro River, which has marked the front line since Russian forces retreated from Kherson city in November, comes days after reports of a partial Russian retreat in the area.
It comes as Ukraine is widely expected to launch a counteroffensive, which analysts have said may be aimed at pushing 100 miles south of the Dnipro River at least as far as Crimea.
The US-based Institute for the Study of War said that video and photos have generated the first “reliable geolocated imagery of Ukrainian positions” south of the river.
“The extent and intent of these Ukrainian positions remain unclear, as does Ukraine’s ability and willingness to maintain sustained positions in this area,” it said.
Several Russian military bloggers used geolocation techniques to pinpoint Ukrainian military positions around the village of Oleshky, south of the Dnipro River.
Russian military blogger “Thirteenth”, who has more than 100,000 followers, posted a video that he said showed Ukrainian special forces using fast small boats to land on the river bank, where “they have been hanging out for a couple of weeks”.
Another, Rybar, which has links to the Russian security services and has more than 1 million subscribers, posted a lengthy blog on the “foothold” the Ukrainian forces have secured.
Suchomimus has the video and geolocation north of Oleshky, near both Dachy and Dachi (enjoy the confusion) near the Antonovsky bridge.
“Both have little Russian presence in them, with Ukrainian forces now there in some number, with a claim being that Ukrainian troops Advanced alongside the E97 [road] south towards Oleshky.”
These landings have evidently been going on since April 20.
“It’s looking like a decent amount of troops, though most likely without vehicle support, are operating along this area of Kherson along the Dnipro.”
Suchomimus suggests that it may be an attempt to secure both sides of the Antonovsky bridge and repair the dropped spans, but I’m not so sure. Without a sustained effort to push Russian troops out of artillery range, if would be very difficult to repair and maintain the bridge as a crossing point. I also question his assertion that it would be easier to repair those than throw up a pontoon bridge. True, Russia has proved inept at building them quickly (as it has in so many things), but in World War II the U.S. army could throw them up at 50ft an hour or so.
“This could be anything. It could be recon. Could be special forces. Could be a diversion. Could be harassment of Russian forces.” Or a probing raid to map and exploit Russian weaknesses.
It’s unclear how much special forces or infantry could accomplish on their own without vehicle support, but they would have enough artillery (at least initially), drone and possibly air support for a probing raid to cause panic and confusion among Russian forces, especially as part of a broader spring counter-offensive.
Rheinmetall has a new “GameChanger” drone (so they say) with an official “Rheinmetall Combat Drone” moniker that only a German company could love. I don’t see it as an actual gamecharger, but it is pretty interesting: a fixed-wing drone that can drop three other quadcopter drones (or, technically, loitering munitions), each of which can then be guided to the target.
The Rheinmetall Combat Drone is based on the German arms maker’s Luna NG reconnaissance drone and can carry the Hero-R type loitering munition.
“The Rheinmetall Combat Drone is the game changer for protecting your troops and fighting tactically relevant targets,” the company stated.
“Effectors as payloads transform the multipurpose drone from a sensor-to-shooter system into a highly efficient means of reconnaissance with com/network relay and SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) capabilities.”
The NG is the latest in the Luna family of reconnaissance drones, with an endurance of 12 hours and a data link range of 100 kilometers (62 miles). Satellite Communication would provide it with increased range.
The robust fiberglass composite drone has a take-off weight of 40 kilograms (88 pounds) and a service ceiling of 5,000 meters (16,404 feet).
The runway-independent vehicle can be launched with a rope hoist catapult and landed with a parachute and has stealth features with low acoustic, thermal, and radar signatures.
There’s an official video, but Rheinmetall has disabled embedding. So here’s a random Ukrainian guy (judged entirely from the trident on his hat) who’s evidently offering commentary on the drone, and has thus embedded most of the Rheinmetall video into his own. The relevant portion starts around 1:42 in.
Rheinmetall is a very solid MilTech company, but they tend to publicize things well in advance of commercial availability. (They’re hardly alone in this.) As such, I wouldn’t expect released versions to show up in the Russo-Ukrainian War. But they might send a few there for field testing.
I can see use cases for this weapon, especially for hunting down high value targets deep behind enemy lines. But this is sort of like the Cadillac Escalade of drones, while Ukraine’s flying yeet of death is more like an electric scooter: much shorter range, much more annoying, and much more cost effective for their intended task.
The Russo-Ukrainian War is probably cramming decades of drone development into white hot years of combat evolution (as wars tend to do), and every world military needs to be paying attention.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has laid out the devastating results of runaway government spending on the middle class and why it’s so important to claw back lost ground for the average American, who has “received a pay cut for 24 consecutive months … as inflation has persisted.”
He also noted the average American family has lost the equivalent of more than $7,000 in annual income.
There is a direct link between spending, borrowing and printing trillions of dollars, and these disastrous results for Americans.
President Biden has spent trillions of dollars the nation didn’t have.
These unchecked costs drove the deficit to record highs and pushed the debt over $31 trillion.
A former Connecticut Planned Parenthood honcho took his own life days after police failed to arrest him on child pornography charges — botching the raid by knocking down the door of the suspect’s New Haven neighbor.
Tim Yergeau, 36, the former director of strategic communications at the Southern New England branch of Planned Parenthood, died by suicide on Tuesday amid a child pornography investigation in Connecticut last week.
The Biden administration on Thursday unveiled a proposal that would prohibit schools from instituting policies that “categorically ban transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.” The policy would allow schools to implement certain limitations in the interest of fairness or safety, however.
The proposed rule, which would impact any school or college that receives federal funding, would expand Title IX protections to include gender identity. Under the proposal, a “one-size-fits-all” ban on transgender athletes playing on teams that match their stated gender identity would be a violation of Title IX. The rule, which is likely to face challenges, will face a lengthy approval process.
This is, in fact, the exact opposite of the text of Title IX, which provides special protection for biological women, not men pretending to be women.
Under the radar, a package of bills is ramming through sweeping changes that will reorient our public schools around a new paradigm — subordinating academic basics to an obsessive, politicized preoccupation with race and social justice activism.
“Critical Social Justice” ideology (CSJ) — the vehicle for manipulating our young people into adopting this worldview — is laced strategically through a variety of bills, including “ethnic studies” (HF 1502), “Teachers of Color” (HF 320) and now the House and Senate omnibus education bills (HF 2497/SF 2684).
Taken together, this legislation will inject reductive, racialized thinking into every classroom in Minnesota’s approximately 500 school districts and charter schools; change the fundamental mechanics of education in our state; and give the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and the Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) broad new powers that amount to an end-run around our state’s hallowed tradition of local control.
Here’s a story I missed earlier: “Kazakhstan Impounds Property of Roscosmos Subsidiary.” That’s the Russian company that’s the main operator of Baikonur spaceport. Haven’t seen any resolution to this, mainly because Russia is so broke thanks to mismanagement, sanctions, and an illegal war of territorial aggression.
Jay Leno drives the 1,025 horsepower 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170. I have an irrational desire to own something with a Hellcat engine, which I need like I need a hole in my head. Plus I like the look of the Shelby GT-500 Mustang better, and I’m not buying one of those either.
“Disney has proudly employed sex predators for years, and this act of aggression by DeSantis will force thousands of our proud pedo-American workers to leave the park to stay outside the 1,000-foot radius required by law,” said Disney CEO Bob Iger. “This is tyranny!”
That’s the assertion of Reporting from Ukraine, who says that the counterattack is happening in Zaporizhzhia:
Reporting from Ukraine is pretty rah-rah for Ukraine, always putting a positive spin on things (“Ukrainian troops successfully withdrew from northern Bakhmut”), but he’s good on reporting the nitty gritty details of tactical movement and seems to have direct sources in the Ukrainian military.
Takeaways:
He’s seeing Ukrainian forces advance all across the Zaporizhzhia front.
“The freshest reports suggest that Ukrainians breached the Russian defense in the trenches in front of Novodanylivka and got closer to Nesterianka and Kopani from the east.”
“Ukrainian presence was also noted in the southern part of Kamianske, which means that Russians highly likely abandoned Piatykhatky as well.”
“Ukrainian Head of Melitopol reported that Russians announced an urgent evacuation from all settlements between Vasylivka and Tokmak, in fear that this may very soon become the most active battleground.”
“In order to prevent the accumulation of a critical amount of heavy equipment in the region, Russian forces started to actively use guided air bombs. These bombs weigh from 500 to 1500 kilograms and have a range of up to 40 kilometers, which poses a significant threat to Ukrainian plans. The craters from the explosions are enormous and can reach up to 50 meters in diameter.” I’m guessing these might be KAB-1500Ls.
“Ukrainians are trying to reciprocate the damage and are also identifying and destroying Russian warehouses with ammunition and equipment.”
“It looks like the same action is going to take place very soon in the Orikhiv direction because Russian reconnaissance recently reported that Ukrainians are actively demining significant clusters of land. Another indicator of the imminent Ukrainian offensive actions here is the fact that certain elements of the 71st Jager Brigade and 46th Assault Brigade recently arrived at Orikhiv, according Russian sources.”
“[The] Ukrainian 72nd Mechanized Brigade conducted a series of assaults in the vicinity of Vuhledar.”
“The intensification of fighting along the whole southern line has been noted by many analysts, but today, the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense finally confirmed that the counteroffensive operation has started.”
Well, sort of: “She stated that it is incorrect to wait for a specific date because counteroffensive is a long process and it is only the culmination that happens quickly, but no one can predict when the culmination will happen, as it depends on the conditions on the ground.”
“Right now, Ukrainians are testing Russian defenses, letting the newly formed assault units gain combat experience and, for the most part, follow the path of lowest resistance – meaning they push where they can, leaving the strongest positions for later. Russian analysts are predicting that Ukrainians will make at least two huge attacks during the last week of April to test new tactics and then launch a full-scale counteroffensive during the first half of May.” Sounds like probing attacks for now, but I can see Ukraine moving quickly to exploit any gaps or pushing hard if there’s a sudden Russian line collapse.
Institute for the Study of War also has a similar confirmation-that’s-not-quite-a-confirmation: “Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar reported on April 19 that Ukrainian forces are already conducting some counteroffensive actions. Malyar stated that Ukrainian forces will never preemptively announce when the counteroffensive starts and reiterated that Ukrainian forces aim to liberate all Ukrainian territory.”
Deep State shows some small recent-ish Ukrainian gains there:
— Geoff' The Frenchy Fella – War News 🇺🇦 (@Geoff_WarNews) April 20, 2023
So it’s hard to say for sure that this push is the much-anticipated Big Spring Counteroffensive. It could be a probing raid, or it could be a faint, with the main blow scheduled to fall elsewhere. Certainly Zaporizhzhia is the front section that has the most promise to split Russian forces in half and cut Russian forces in Kherson and Crimea off from resupply. Russia has to know this, and has been extending defense trenches throughout the area, but continues to throw troops into the Bakhmut meat-grinder rather than (as far as observers can tell) seriously reinforcing the area. Maybe Russia has reinforced it more than we know, but maybe not. It would be very far from the first time Russia made a stupid, obvious mistake in this war.
Maybe it’s more accurate to say that a counteroffensive is underway.
You know that “creating more public roads just creates more traffic” talking point trotted out by people who want to ban your car?
Yeah, not so much.
The first two thirds of the video covers other topics, like how economies of scale don’t necessarily drive down prices uniformly, and as you scale, you incur new costs that might make a product less profitable. (One example is China’s overbuilt high speed rail network.)
The last portion deals with the “roads create traffic” myth, directly delving into the study the anti-road types cite:
“What [building new highways[ doesn’t do is create entirely new demand.”
“New roadways, especially interstates, tend to be more direct, and can take a larger volume of traffic than alternative routes through urban areas.”
“The study itself has also been widely criticized for making assumptions that other economists were not able to replicate in follow-up studies.”
“Its methodology was also questionable. It measured interstate kilometers traveled. Building out more interstates might make people use those roads more, but that doesn’t mean that there are more cars overall, because a lot of that traffic would have been taken away from non-interstate roads, which were not measured in the study.”
“More roads won’t create more congestion unless they are designed very poorly, and reducing the supply of roads won’t ease congestion, either.”
The original study authors didn’t even suggest reducing roads; they were in favor of congestion charges.
Another lunatic leftwing California ecowarrior directive bites the dust.
A federal appeals court on Monday overturned a California city’s first-in-the-nation ban on natural gas hookups in new buildings, saying it violates federal law.
The three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal sided with a coalition of California restaurants, who argued that the City of Berkeley’s ordinance essentially bans gas appliances in violation of a 1975 directive that gives Congress control over restrictions on appliances. The unanimous ruling is a major blow to California Democrats’ green energy push, and could clear the way for legal challenges to similar bans around the country.
Democrats have increasingly moved to ban gas stoves while attempting to downplay their efforts. New York is poised to become the first state to ban gas stoves, and California is working towards a statewide ban of its own. The White House has denied that President Joe Biden supports banning gas stoves while the Energy Department works to restrict their sale. Blue state attorneys general and environmental groups lined up to support the ban in court, in a sign of the case’s national implications.
The California Restaurant Association claimed Berkeley’s ban violated the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act , which gives the federal government final say over restrictions on energy appliances.
Judge Patrick Bumatay wrote that even though Berkeley lawmakers didn’t specifically ban the use of natural gas appliances, they reached the same result “circuitously” by changing their building code to ban gas piping—a policy that renders “the gas appliances useless,” he said.
This preemption would apply to state policies as well, he added.
“States and localities can’t skirt [federal preemption] by doing indirectly what Congress says they can’t do directly,” he wrote.
There’s simply no end to the things ordinary people enjoy that radical environmentalists are willing to ban. Fortunately, there’s still some semblance of the rule of law to at least temporarily keep them in check…
Here’s a video where Ex-LA Sheriff Alex Villanueva discusses how the Homeless Industrial Complex racket works there.
Five people a day die on the streets of LA in the gutter like a dog. Five a day. Like, five on drugs from overdosing overdosing on drugs, from illnesses that are treatable. But if you’re not being treated, like, for example, you’re insulin dependent type one [diabetes]. Without insulin you die. That’s what happens, because these are people are not in a state of mind to actually accept and seek medical care for a problem, so it goes untreated they die, or they overdose and they die, or they do both and they die. I think in 2020-2021, they registered, I think, over 1,800 deaths of that type on the street, which is mind-boggling, but it’s consistent.
“If you don’t pay attention, people are going to die. So the people, the activists, they want to get in the way. ‘Don’t touch them, you’re criminalizing poverty!’ or this or that. Yet they have no answer. And their solution is just to let people die on the street. That’s not a solution.”
“The [homeless] count is getting bigger, not smaller.”
“There’s a perception in the entire nation that, if you’re homeless and you like to use drugs, go to LA. Until that train stops, it doesn’t matter what you do locally in LA. You can’t defeat 49 other states sending all their homeless their derelicts their drug addicts to LA.” I don’t know, a lot still seem to be going to San Francisco. And we need to do more to spread the word to Austin’s drug addicted transients in hopes they move there.
When he started trying to clean things up, he got immediate pushback from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. They had “no desire whatsoever” to work with him.
“They’re not doing anything about it because the homeless industrial complex is alive and well. Look at the career arc of Holly Mitchell, supervisor. Karen Bass, mayor. Community organizers. Now they’re running non-profits. Now they’re receiving contracts from the county, from the city. Now they’re in public office. Those two in particular prime example of it, and that’s the wave of the future.”
“You’ve got a whole community of people that are in the 501c3s, the non-profits, and uh Boards of Directors, CEOs. The amount of money is pouring into the nonprofits is just incredible. There’s no governance, there’s no oversigh, there’s no accountability on the results. They just keep shoveling money at them, and the problem keeps getting worse and worse.”
“This has become a system for people to to get in and get involved, and actually build a career and build a path to politics. The top 10 CEOs of non-profits eight hundred thousand dollar a year. They were making more than twice what I was making as sheriff, and the size of my operation dwarfed all of them probably combined. But that tells you the influence the money involved.”
“From 2011 to 2021, L.A. County spent 6.5 billion dollars on homeless initiatives. The homeless count went from 39,000 to over 80,000. it doubled in size.”
“It’s engulfing every corner of life in L.A County.”
