Weekend Data Dump

Oh good grief. If men don't want to raise boys because they "fear" raising them, I think it speaks more about the so-called men than who boys are. For the record I have a great son and a great daughter. The only thing I have ever feared is letting them down.

The idea that Trump's complaints that the election is "rigged" amount to an assault on our democracy is just ridiculous. Clearly, there is some voter fraud and illegal voting that always seems to tilt in favor of Democrats; and there is media bias that overwhelmingly favors Democrats on both the writing of stories and the choice of stories covered or ignored. And these two factors converge with media efforts to portray efforts to ensure that only legal votes are cast (why this is controversial whether fraud is large or small is beyond me) as "voter suppression." This is not a conspiracy against Trump. It is the environment Republicans operate in--although to be fair, that now involves government-sponsored voter suppression. Trump has been a far more potent thorn in his own side than this dual problem. Trump would be advised to refer to this election as being "tilted" rather than "rigged." But coming from the side that screamed "selected not elected" and "Diebold!" after two Bush 43 elections, this complaint about an assault on our democracy is pretty funny. Vote counting will be legitimate regardless of who wins, in a "good enough for government" sort of way. UPDATE: Huh. And in bonus territory, candidate Obama used my preferred term, although as a euphemism.

America will rotate 300 Marines through Norway, where we have a brigade's worth of equipment stored. Which is nice given that Norway's security may not be as up to snuff in peacetime as I'd like.

The Obama administration wants the glorious international community to pressure Syria to get rid of chemical weapons. Given the glorious deal we made with the Russians that the administration claimed rid Syria of chemical weapons already, I have to ask how many chemical weapons deals are necessary to empty Syria of chemical weapons?

American air strikes were hitting ISIL in Libya pretty hard this last week, prior to the big offensive in Iraq.

Russian propaganda has been aimed at Finland, even questioning Finland's 99 years of independence from Russia. Russia's firehose of falsehood has many targets for reuniting with Russia, and not just Ukraine. UPDATE: Strategypage discusses Russia's revived Soviet playbook for information warfare.

Ponder the wisdom and leadership qualities of someone who alienated her own security detail.

Strategypage takes a tour of that broken state Yemen, including the ramp up of Iranian support enabled by the nuclear deal's cash infusion and the missile attacks on our ships in the Red Sea.

Whether it is seeing how Hillary Clinton is covering up email security crimes or how her campaign conducts dirty tricks against opponents (and one man at least is no low-level flunky), it becomes clearer that Clinton's time on the Watergate Committee was not a lesson to her on the importance of honest government, but a debriefing on how to avoid the mistakes of Nixon in getting away with committing crimes and dirty tricks.

If ISIL's response to the Mosul offensive remains as weak as a platoon-sized attack on Kirkuk, the Iraqis will win this campaign no problem.

A basket full of stupid? A woman berates a meeting and smears peanut butter on participants' cars, in the belief that she is striking a blow against Donald Trump. Sadly for her brave stand, she did not understand the difference between a "conservative" group and a "conservation" group.