Pres Putin is slowly increasing the intensity of his attacks upon NATO to make it difficult for NATO to say, ~OK, that's an attack upon NATO.~ And NATO would have to retaliate?

More from the article ...

... Just a few months ago, Russia's war was an distant reality for many people in Europe outside of Ukraine. If Russian drones occasionally entered the airspace of countries like Poland or Romania, even official statements seemed strangely dismissive and abstract.

Even after a Russian drone struck a high-rise apartment building in the eastern Romanian city of Galati in late May this year, many EU and NATO representatives hesitated to accuse Russia of intentional action. At most, there was discussion of hybrid warfare.

The situation has changed radically since the summer. Drone overflights have become almost daily in certain parts of central and southeastern Europe, and there have even been crashes and explosions, particularly in countries bordering Ukraine.

Alerts are becoming more frequent, with authorities increasingly having to close airspace or suspend operations at airports, as unauthorized flights are detected. Russia has been bombing border crossings, infrastructure and trains in Ukraine, but very close to other borders. Acts of sabotage are also increasingly common.

For the Baltic states, Poland, Moldova and Romania in particular, the war has long ceased to be "hybrid." More and more, politicians in these countries are saying that Russia is acting deliberately.

Drones violate Moldovan and Romanian airspace

This became evident this week in an unprecedented manner. Moldova recorded four drones entering Moldovan airspace, two of which exploded in Moldovan territory. Wreckage of another was also found. The country's northern airspace was closed temporarily.

Two drones also violated Romanian airspace; with one crashing near the northern town of Solca. A nearby border crossing with Ukraine a few dozen kilometers away was closed as a result. NATO aircraft were scrambled near the Danube Delta. ...

@#2

!!

@#15 ... Checked mine with airmon-ng. No hidden AP, no visible AP from it. It's just connected to the router I use for house stuff. ...

If my range worked like that, I'd have no issue.

I'd just configure kea (an excellent dhcp program) to assign an IP to the MAC address of the stove from the sequence that my outbound firewall blocks.

I've already done that with few other appliances on my network (e.g., the DVD player, so it doesn't report back to Sony every DVD I play).

@#14 ... If it is still running that access point after the initial setup it's time to ron swanson it. ...

Yeah, I had thought about buying a replacement range. But, when I have some time I plan to dig into the innards of it and start unplugging modules, one at a time ...

But, really, I should not have to resort to such extreme actions ...

... Trump Claims Taxpayer-funded 'Love Me' Ad is PSA ...

A PSA or a TSA (Trump Service Ad)?

Pres Trump likely thought he needed to run his ad using taxpayer money because of ...

Another view ...

More from the article ...

... Chinese leader Xi Jinping brought a message of peace to Washington this week, calling on both countries to restrain their competition and, above all, avoid war.

"China and the United States must hold the line of no conflict and no confrontation between us," Mr. Xi said at his arrival ceremony.

Mr. Xi also used his White House stage to try to bolster Americans' improving sentiments toward his country " pledging to invite 100,000 U.S. youth to China for exchanges and study over the next five years. On another positive note, Mr. Xi announced that China is sending two new pandas to a zoo in Atlanta, Georgia. ...

Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi appear to be developing a degree of affinity, their friendly banter and frequent smiles captured on camera during the visit -- though media coverage, at least in the U.S., was initially limited by the White House's ban on several major networks. ...

@#4 ... Trump has to feed the greedy mouths of his oligarchs somehow. Promises were made, gifts were exchanged. ...

That sounds about right.

Pres Trump cuts healthcare for seniors so that he can give tax cuts to his uber-wealthy friends and donors.

@#10 ... Whats happening on the other ships that have been at sea too ...

Is the stress level the same on those other ships?

... Its the military. ...

Yes it is.

And the military should assure that those serving the Country are at their foremost readiness, and not suffering from neglect by a Commander in Chief who does not seem to care about them.

@#2

Yup

@#9 ... And that would've suppressed 185 legitimate, legal votes. In ONE election cycle. ...

imo, I think DHS wants this list, not because of wanting to use it before the election, but more as one of the "tools" DHS may use to show how invalid the think the election was.

... wasted millions on scaled-back and mismanaged projects ...

Mismanaged? By ICE?

I guess that is what occurs when incompetent people are put in charge of things?

More from the article ...

... The charts substantiate a dynamic long suspected: that the Department of Justice (DOJ) would not be able to swiftly replace a crew of veteran attorneys after a wave of firings and resignations.

Stacey Young, who founded the DOJ alumni group Justice Connection, described the staff turnover as a "massive exodus."

"The workload has skyrocketed, particularly in the civil division offices that have lost the most lawyers. So what we're seeing is that the lawyers who are left are overworked, stressed out, many have lost those who led their office because they were pushed out by this administration. And because of the difficult circumstances under which they're working, I expect that the rate of departures won't slow down anytime soon," she told The Hill.

"Putting out this data seems to me like a desperate cry for help. It seems like the civil division knows how badly it needs more funds to hire more lawyers to make up for the purge of longstanding experts that they caused." ...

@#10 ... no wifi connection on the stove ...

The problem is that I cannot turn off the WiFi access point that is in the range, yes, the range broadcasts its own SSID.

And that with that access point in the range, someone may be able to hack into it and maybe even turn it on remotely.

More from the article ...

... The rest of the money sat with the firm for months after ICE abandoned the warehouse plan. In July and August, ICE moved $2.2 billion from Chicago Title to purchase four detention facilities from CoreCivic, a private prison company it separately pays to continue operating them.

In its rush to expand detention capacity, ICE wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, the Government Accountability Office found in a report released Thursday. The agency failed to account for long-term costs in acquiring detention centers and lost $20 million in unrecoverable costs purchasing the warehouses it no longer plans to use, the review found. Even more could be lost if ICE sells the warehouses for less than what it paid for them, the GAO report said.

Barring any undisclosed purchases, $1.55 billion still sits with Chicago Title Insurance for acquiring detention centers as ICE continues its push to double the number of detention beds in service of the president's mass deportation agenda. Just this week, ICE awarded several companies contracts that could reach a combined $10 billion to expand and construct new facilities. ...

Tangentially related ...

More from the article ...

... In January, the Trump administration rolled out a pilot program that uses artificial intelligence to authorize or deny certain types of care for patients with Medicare -- a federal healthcare program for seniors that previously hasn't required doctors to get any such pre-approval, called prior authorization.

Not long after, media outlets began relaying the disastrous outcomes: technical difficulties, long delays in decisions and care, puzzling denials, frustrated doctors, and patients suffering in pain. Those reports were largely confirmed earlier this month when the Electronic Frontier Foundation released a tranche of federal documents about the program, called WISeR, that the group obtained amid litigation.

The documents included feedback from healthcare providers, including one who called the program "a disgrace to the human race" and reported seeing patients crying in pain as they waited for care.

Amid the worrying reports, lawmakers have been trying to get answers and shut the program down. Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office determined in May that Trump officials did not follow proper procedure in setting up the program, calling its legality into question. Still, it appears to be moving ahead unabated, with plans to expand in the years to come.

Last week, Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) called a committee vote to try to get the Trump administration to release more documents about WISeR, but Republicans voted the effort down. ...

@#10

@#1 ... "That was a turning point for me. I realized this wasn't about public safety -- it was about liability," ...

Oh, this could get interesting.

Or not ...

More from the article ...

... Peggy Dixon is a former environmental tester turned whistleblower with the Government Accountability Project.

She worked on the cleanup of the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, train wreck. Twenty of the affected train cars contained materials the Environmental Protection Agency deemed hazardous, including vinyl chloride, ethylene glycol, ethylhexyl acrylate, butyl acrylate and isobutylene.

Now, in the affidavit, Dixon says the company that hired her was Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health (now known as Onterris).

Norfolk Southern contracted the company, and Dixon writes they both worked to hide how bad the contamination really was.

"That was a turning point for me. I realized this wasn't about public safety -- it was about liability," Dixon said. She was part of the response teams in the weeks after the derailment, in the excavation work in 2024 and last year's work to close the site.

According to the affidavit, Dixon said project managers emphasized to field staff they needed "zeroes" " results indicating things were safe -- or they would be presumed incompetent and sent home.

The former tester also said EPA and Ohio agencies went along with it.

"These actions, which I personally observed, were part of a coordinated effort by government and corporate entities to conceal the true environmental and public health impacts of the derailment and open burn of five vinyl chloride train cars," Dixon said.

Dixon worked with Onterris for five years as a rapid responder and environmental scientist with degrees in biology and chemistry plus certifications in rail safety and hazardous waste response, and she passed a federal background check, according to the affidavit.

Norfolk Southern, the EPA and Onterris have not responded to requests for comment as of publishing. ...

&NBSP

@#4

... wish I had said that ...

Oh, wait, I did ...

;)