If this report by Bojan Pancevski in the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, the mystery of who sabotaged the Nord Stream pipeline has been solved:

In May of 2022, a handful of senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen had gathered to toast their country’s remarkable success in halting the Russian invasion. Buoyed by alcohol and patriotic fervor, somebody suggested a radical next step: destroying Nord Stream.

After all, the twin natural-gas pipelines that carried Russian gas to Europe were providing billions to the Kremlin war machine. What better way to make Vladimir Putin pay for his aggression?

Just over four months later, in the small hours of Sept. 26, Scandinavian seismologists picked up signals indicating an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption hundreds of miles away, near the Danish island of Bornholm. They were caused by three powerful explosions and the largest-ever recorded release of natural gas, equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of Denmark.

One of the most audacious acts of sabotage in modern history, the operation worsened an energy crisis in Europe—an assault on critical infrastructure that could be considered an act of war under international law. Theories swirled about who was responsible. Was it the CIA? Could Putin himself have set the plan in motion?

Now, for the first time, the outlines of the real story can be told. The Ukrainian operation cost around $300,000, according to people who participated in it. It involved a small rented yacht with a six-member crew, including trained civilian divers. One was a woman, whose presence helped create the illusion they were a group of friends on a pleasure cruise.

“I always laugh when I read media speculation about some huge operation involving secret services, submarines, drones and satellites,” one officer who was involved in the plot said. “The whole thing was born out of a night of heavy boozing and the iron determination of a handful of people who had the guts to risk their lives for their country.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan, according to one officer who participated and three people familiar with it. But later, when the CIA learned of it and asked the Ukrainian president to pull the plug, he ordered a halt, those people said.

Zelensky’s commander in chief, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, who was leading the effort, nonetheless forged ahead.

If true, this raises a number of issues. For one thing it illustrates the increase in personal empowerment that modern technology and increasing wealth have produced, a subject I’ve posted on here from time to time. What might have taken a whole navy to do can now be done by a handful of rich guys. That makes the world an increasingly dangerous place. That’s a jinn that cannot be put back into the bottle.

But also the sabotage was an act of war by Ukraine against a NATO country. That’s food for thought.

Meanwhile in his Wall Street Journal op-ed Karl Rove makes a point I wish that both candidates would take to heart:

Every successful modern presidential candidate for change decried the country’s shortcomings while offering a heavy dose of optimism and cheerfulness. From John F. Kennedy (“We stand today on the edge of a new frontier”) to Ronald Reagan (“The American spirit is still there, ready to blaze into life”), the victors’ tones weren’t dystopian but hopeful, uplifting and inviting. The candidate who gets that right this year will look like the true candidate of change. And may well win.

That point is not original to Mr. Rove. I think I first heard it articulated by a prominent Democratic political analyst a couple of decades ago but I suspect the idea goes back much farther than that.

Presently, Vice President Harris’s campaign is being perceived as one of joy. I have seen contradictions, contraindications, and outright refutations of that but the nonetheless that’s how it is being perceived and in politics perceptions are reality.

Today I have seen a number of observations about things pushing in Vice President Kamala Harris’s favor. Those observations are coming from pundits of varying ideologies and political parties. In one of them I think that Ginny Harris, writing at The Nation, has made a very interesting point:

These days, everything Kamala Harris does turns into a meme: her call to ask Tim Walz to join her ticket, an exasperated look at her husband, a past conversation with Mindy Kaling. While the best memes originate with quick-to-the-news and quick-witted Internet users, they wouldn’t stick the way they are if it weren’t for the candidates embracing them. The day Biden dropped out of the election and endorsed Harris, Charli XCX posted “Kamala IS brat” on X, formerly Twitter. The tweet didn’t just go viral—Harris’s team capitalized on the cultural touchpoint. The official KamalaHQ X account used the “BRAT” font in its cover photo and changed its description to “providing context” in an explicit reference to the “coconut tree” meme. Harris’s willingness to embrace memes suggests that she is perhaps as devoted to Gen Z voters as she claims she is. We choose politicians based not only on who we like but also on who we think likes us, so Harris is wise to show admiration for the youth, who in past elections have turned out at varying rates: in 1996, only 39.6 percent of voters aged 18–29 voted, but that figure was 55 percent in 2020. The broad range suggests there’s an opportunity: Young people could turn out, but it’s by no means guaranteed that they will. And while I’m impressed with the Harris campaign, I also recognize that lightheartedness is her only option. As a Black woman, she doesn’t have the luxury of displaying extreme public anger unless she wants to get tagged with racist, sexist labels like “Angry Black Woman” or “shrill.” But luckily, she has a warm laugh, a talent for striking the right tone at her rallies, and a skilled social media team.

While political campaigns are nearly always superficial to date the 2024 campaigns have seemed more facile to me than usual. I’ve posted on it in the past. The 2024 campaign may, indeed, be the “meme election”.

Not too long ago I wrote a lament for the restaurants from which I order that have closed recently, noting that the restaurant business is volatile. Here’s an example of the volatility.

This evening I got carry-out from a new restaurant in Edgebrook, Curry Kitchen. Their website looks nice but is buggy. I suspect they’ll get their act together in time. Maybe not.

We found the food very tasty. We ordered samosas, chicken tikka masala, a vegetable curry, and naan. Our order was correct. The staff was pleasant if flustered and were (to my eyes) eager young people. It was not cheap. Medium priced I would say.

We’ll go back.

I strongly recommend that you read CDR Salamander’s post on why we cannot go to war with China. The title is “You Can’t go to War With Your Factory” and the graphics tell the story.

I’ve have been saying this for years. I have very strong feelings about the people who put us in this situation but I will just repeat: read the post.

I found this promising. At Foreign Policy Paul Musgrave reports on Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz’s views on the U. S. relationship with China:

Walz’s record is that of a measured critic of the Chinese Communist Party—prone neither to exaggeration nor accommodation. Nor is this a pose cooked up by spin doctors in the past few weeks. Small-town Nebraska newspaper articles—published well before Walz had any political ambitions—demonstrate that his professed affection for the Chinese people and culture has been matched by a longstanding criticism of the country’s rulers.

Consider this:

The problem with China, Walz observed, wasn’t its people but the government. “If they had the proper leadership, there are no limits on what [Chinese people] could accomplish,” he told the Record. “They are such kind, generous, capable people. They just gave and gave and gave to me. Going there was one of the best things I have ever done.”

Walz viewed China’s population as eager to leave its Communist-run society. “Many of the students want to come to America to study,” he told the Record. “They don’t feel there is much opportunity for them in China.” He mentioned that during one of his trips to nearby Macau, then still a Portuguese colony, the government granted amnesty to Chinese immigrants living in the colony illegally, triggering a stampede by tens of thousands of Chinese who wanted residency in the West.

There’s both good and bad there. If the part of the interview quoted continues to represent his views, I think it’s quite naïve. It echoes a common American misperception. IMO the views of Chinese people are quite instrumental, practical. They’ll support whatever works. Unfortunately, in the final analysis it doesn’t really matter what the Chinese people believe. China is still not a liberal democracy. The only beliefs that really matter are those of about 10,000 Chinese Communist Party members and their families.

Mr. Musgrave concludes:

People change, and seeking clues to how a potential Vice President Walz would act based on how high school teacher Walz approached his lessons is clearly perilous. Still, it seems clear that Walz values facts, and in particular experience, rather than theory or ideology; that he has deeply held core beliefs about China’s people and government set in the era of Tiananmen; and that his commitment to promoting human rights—and U.S. economic interests in trade negotiations—is longstanding.

With that background, leavened by subsequent experience on China issues as a member of Congress, it seems more likely than not that Walz would be neither inflexibly hostile nor naïve about relations with Beijing.

Sadly, I don’t think that Mr. Musgrave is well enough informed to recognize naïveté when he encounters it. An essential question is whether Gov. Walz would be willing to support policies that hurt ordinary Chinese people? And, of course, the fundamental question: even if elected how much influence would Gov. Walz’s views actually have in a prospective Harris Administration?

I thought you’d find Stephen Bryen’s piece at Asia Times, comparing Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk Oblast to the Battle of the Bulge near the end of World War II interesting:

Some Weapons and Strategy readers say that there is a strong resemblance between the current Kursk battle and the Battle of the Bulge, which raged in December 1944 and January 1945. It is a topic worth exploring.

Consistent with the advice of one of my college professors, here is the first “however”:

The Kursk offensive is quite tiny when compared with the massed armies in the Battle of the Bulge. At the start of Kursk the Ukrainians committed perhaps 1,000 troops and a modest complement of armor and artillery. Ukraine also used air defenses, including mobile patriot batteries, electronic warfare assets and a large number of drones.

Likewise, on the Russian side, there were only territorial units that did not have armor and lacked modern anti-tank weapons. As this is written the Russians have brought up Chechens and Wagnerites (now part of the regular Russian army). There are reports that larger forces are also on their way to Kursk, drawn from reserves and not from units fighting elsewhere in Ukraine.
As of August 11, most of the incursion has been “stabilized” meaning that, for the most part, Ukrainian assaults are being countered successfully.

The current battle scene in Kursk does not resemble the Bulge. The Nazi aim was to break the US and British armies, to split them, and drive to the sea. The Ukrainian aim is to hold Russian territory for as long as possible. In both cases the aim was negotiations, but the Nazis hoped to defeat the Allies while the Ukrainians have no such hope regarding the Russians.

We do not yet know if Ukraine will be able to sustain the Kursk attack. If the country throws in more forces it will not have the advantage it enjoyed in the first phase of the battle. So the Ukrainian gamble is just that and carries strategic and political risk. In that sense, the Battle of the Bulge and Kursk share a common theme.

I have no idea what the strategic significance on Ukraine’s incursion into Russian territory is and I doubt that Dr. Bryen does, either. Maybe it is, as he says, to bring Russia to the bargaining table. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s to encourage the West to provide more military and other assistance to Ukraine.

My concern with it is the possibility that the strategic intent is to draw NATO forces directly into Ukraine’s war with Russia on Ukraine’s behalf, presumably in response to a brutal counter-attack by Russia.

Update

Here are some of the possible objectives of the invasion I’m reading about:

• disrupt supplies to Donbas
• impel the Russians to redeploy force from elsewhere to Kursk
• open attack routes for drones
• test new tactics

in addition to the two mentioned above.

In the last few months quite a number of restaurants near here including several from which we have ordered regularly have closed. I was shocked to learn that an Indian restaurant three blocks from here from which we ordered at least once a month closed last week.

Restaurants tend to be fairly volatile, i.e. they open and close frequently, but these were well-established restaurants that had survived the lockdowns and to all appearances were doing as much business as they ever had. I honestly have no idea why so many are closing.

In the history of the Academy Awards only fifteen motion pictures have received nominations for all of the competitive acting awards (Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor). None of those has been graced with all four but two have received three (A Streetcar Named Desire and Network).

For Streetcar Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter all received awards.

The very first movie in which actors were nominated in all categories was My Man Godfrey. It won nothing include Best Picture for which it was also nominated. Sunset Boulevard and American Hustle got shut out, too.