"Last year, by some estimates, Ukraine’s factories turned out more than three million drones...."

"The drones that I examined were remarkably simple: a lightweight square frame, four propellers, a video camera, a battery-powered motor, and room for a bomb. The attack drones, known as F.P.V.s, for 'first-person view,' are guided by an operator watching a video screen that shows what the drone is seeing; other members of the unit monitor feeds from reconnaissance drones.... The Russians are terrorizing the Ukrainians with drone attacks of their own. Towns and hamlets have been largely pulverized along the front lines and for miles beyond; even American air defenses are mostly useless, because setting them up invites an immediate Russian attack. Iranian-made Shahed drones, capable of carrying large warheads long distances, have pummelled Kyiv and other cities with hundreds of strikes. Under the constant threat of attack, the Ukrainians have found it difficult to supply their front lines, and evacuation is sometimes impossible. The prevalence of drones appears to have given the advantage to the defense. Along the seven-hundred-mile front, soldiers on both sides are huddled in fortified trenches, separated by a no man’s land known as the 'gray zone.' With drones circling day and night, surprise attack is impossible, movement suicidal. If soldiers venture out, they are attacked immediately by drones or artillery...."

Writes Dexter Filkins, in "Is the U.S. Ready for the Next War With global conflicts increasingly shaped by drones and A.I., the American military risks losing its dominance" (The New Yorker).

"For 35 years, Bill Dilworth tended a Manhattan loft filled with dirt, otherwise known as 'The New York Earth Room,' a monumental artwork by Walter De Maria.... 280,000 pounds of dark, chocolaty soil, about two feet deep..."

"... on the second floor of an early artists’ co-op in a former manufacturing building on Wooster Street, in the heart of SoHo. It was installed in 1977, in what used to be the Heiner Friedrich Gallery, and it was intended to be temporary, a three-month-long exhibit.... [T]he artists who colonized the building and the area have mostly moved on, and the neighborhood, like the city itself, has evolved. 'That’s what makes the Earth Room so radical,' Mr. Dilworth said.... 'It’s here, and it remains the same.'... He watered and raked the soil, plucking the odd weed or mushroom. (The mushrooms were edible, and delicious, by Mr. Dilworth’s account.)... 'I found the art world to be something that doesn’t appeal to me.... This is about as close as I’m comfortable getting to it. But making art has been vital to me always. So how do you make art and not be in the art world? This job allows me to stay tuned to my own art-making — just by the freedom of thought and all that.'"

From "Bill Dilworth, Caretaker of ‘The New York Earth Room,’ Is Dead at 70/For decades, he tended a SoHo loft filled with dirt, made by the conceptual artist Walter De Maria. People made pilgrimages to see it — and Mr. Dilworth, its magnetic steward" (NYT).

"I made every decision," says Joe Biden, but how would he know, and how could his statement ease our doubts?

The NYT reports on its 10-minute interview with Biden and tells us that "Mr. Biden said that he had orally granted all the pardons and commutations issued at the end of his term, calling President Trump and other Republicans 'liars' for claiming his aides had used an autopen to do so without his authorization."

So he's using the word "liars" without knowing if people are lying. It makes me want to just call him a liar and be done with it. If the aides were using the autopen somewhere outside of his presence, how would he necessarily know what they were doing? He's saying trust me — trust me or else I'll call you a liar.

The article continues: "'I made every decision,' Mr. Biden said in a phone interview on Thursday, asserting that he had his staff use an autopen replicating his signature on the clemency warrants because 'we’re talking about a whole lot of people.'"

How does he know he made every decision? We're not liars if we simply doubt that he had the mental capacity to know what was going on. What sort of decision-making was it? Am I a liar if I presume he did nothing more than rubber-stamp whatever was recommended by the staff?

"I think it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up."

Said — guess who? — Barack Obama.

This is another one of those statements to fundraisers that you weren't supposed to hear, but they manage to leak out somehow.

In this case, the statement was "exclusively obtained by CNN."

The reputedly amiable but often crabby ex-President also said: "You know, don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something. Don’t say that you care deeply about free speech and then you’re quiet. No, you stand up for free speech when it’s hard. When somebody says something that you don’t like, but you still say, 'You know what, that person has the right to speak.' … What’s needed now is courage."

What have they got that I ain't got? 

Obama's remarks made me think of this "printed, foldable card that can fit right into your ID badge holder" given out by the UW School of Medicine and Public Health, developed by the Office of Social Impact and Belonging:

"Camp Mystic’s leader got a ‘life threatening’ flood alert. They evacuated an hour later."

"Much of what made the camp special also put it at heightened risk as the river rose to record levels, a [Washington] Post investigation found."

That's a free-access link.

Excerpt: "As the water encroached, the teenage counselors, cut off from others, were left to make frantic life-and-death decisions. They began rousting girls from their cabins, the younger campers screaming or crying as they waited for help or were ushered to higher ground. Dick Eastland, 70, and other staffers eventually realized that the Bubble Inn and Twins cabins, which held the littlest girls — some as young as 8 — were in the most danger, Eastland Jr. said. A swirling eddy of water had formed from two directions...."

"Kids: They’re pint-size spies. They’re little data processors, soaking things up and spitting them back, until one day they’ve grokked enough to knock you into the gutter."

Writes Dwight Garner, in "The Future Looks Dark, but Familiar, in Gary Shteyngart’s New Book/'Vera, or Faith' follows a 10-year-old girl navigating family drama and a dystopian America" (NYT).

1. Garner, the name, is not a "garner (the word!)" spotting, within the logic of the Althouse blog.

2. "One day they’ve grokked enough" might be one of the last appearances of "grok," the verb, in this Musk-permeated word.

3. I just finished reading "Vera, or Faith" last night. That's why I'm reading a review of it this morning. The quote I pulled from the review was chosen because of that "grokked."

4. About that dystopia — to quote the book — "[T]he states are having their constitutional conventions. And these conventions will decide whether to give an 'enhanced vote'... counting for five-thirds of a regular vote to so-called 'exceptional Americans,' those who landed on the shores of our continent before or during the Revolutionary War but were exceptional enough not to arrive in chains."

5. Lots of novels use that child as pint-size spy idea, don't they? I think of "What Maisie Knew" and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time." You can think of more. Or ask Grok. But whether the character is a child or not, many novels make their plot out a character gradually putting clues together and figuring something out. The thing to be figured out may not be an interesting story at all — who killed X, who is X's father/mother, why did X leave town all these many years ago. The story is the unlocking of the mystery. But to make the central character a child is to blend this mystery-solving with the mystery-solving that is every child's life: What do words mean? What are adults doing? Where do I fit into all this?

6. "Vera, or Faith" (commission earned).

Sunrise — 5:25, 6:02.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments, and please consider supporting the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"The Secret Service failed to prevent the assassination attempt against Donald Trump last year at his Pennsylvania campaign rally, according to a Senate committe[e] report..."

"... which accuses the agency of a botched operation snarled by communication fumbles and the repeated denial of extra security assets at a time when the former president faced heightened threats on his life.... The report shed no new light about the assailant’s motives — which remain a mystery to investigators one year on — but painted a picture of an expansive security detail that was erroneously left in the dark as an assassination attempt unfolded. The committee identified several Secret Service failures to properly disseminate information about a suspicious person — later determined to be Crooks — and his whereabouts. Its investigation also uncovered conflicting reports about who knew what, and when...."

From "Secret Service failed to stop Trump assassination attempt, Senate report says/The report from the Homeland Security Committee accuses the Secret Service of fumbling communications and denying extra security at the Pennsylvania rally last year" (WaPo).

I clicked into the comments...

"When Donald Trump’s megabill passed the Senate, consummating nearly a half-year of aggressively reactionary policymaking by the 47th president, a colleague commented that 'it’s like the Biden presidency never happened.'"

"That’s true in the sense that between Trump’s executive orders and the megabill, it’s hard to find a single stone unmoved from where he found it when he took office in January. But on reflection, it might be quite literally true. The country, and even the Democratic Party, would very likely have been in better condition today had Trump been reelected in 2020 over Joe Biden...."

Writes Ed Kilgore, in "America Would Be Better Off If Trump Won in 2020" (Intelligencer).

How many of you are getting ready to comment: What do you mean if?!

Anyway... Kilgore plunges into his fantasy. Excerpt:

Sunrise — 5:29.

Talk about whatever you like in the comments EXCEPT Jeffrey Epstein. Go one post down for that. I just put up a new post on that topic, so for the sake of good order, keep the Epstein material out of this blissfully Epstein-free overnight café.

And, if you would please consider supporting the Althouse blog by doing your Amazon shopping going in through the Althouse Amazon link.

"Let’s... not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about."

Writes Donald Trump, at the end of this long post at Truth Social:

What’s going on with my “boys” and, in some cases, “gals?” They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening. We have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and “selfish people” are trying to hurt it, all over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein. For years, it’s Epstein, over and over again.

"A divided federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Friday tossed out an agreement that would have allowed 9/11 terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plead guilty...."

"The 2-1 D.C. Circuit appeals court decision upheld then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to undo the plea deal approved by military lawyers and senior Pentagon staff. The deal would have carried life without parole sentences for Mohammed and two co-defendants, potentially taking capital punishment off the table.... [L]egal concerns stemmed from whether the original plea deal was legally binding and whether Austin waited too long to get it dismissed. The court found Austin indisputably had legal authority to withdraw from the agreements because the promises made in the deal had not yet been fulfilled, and the government had no adequate alternative remedies...."

The NY Post reports.

"The U.S. government posted a surplus in June as tariffs gave an extra bump to a sharp increase in receipts, the Treasury Department said Friday."

"With government red ink swelling throughout the year, last month saw a surplus of just over $27 billion, following a $316 billion deficit in May...."

CNBC reports.

Meanwhile, WaPo explains "Why Wall Street is brushing off Trump’s escalating tariff threats/President Donald Trump’s escalating tariff threats have not deterred Wall Street, with the stock market continuing to rise despite trade policy uncertainty" (free access link): "Investors feel free to continue bidding up stock prices because they assume Trump will always back down from his most costly tariff plans, market analysts said. But the president views stocks’ steady rise as a license to intensify his trade threats, acting out the economic policy equivalent of his 2016 quip that he could 'stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody' without paying a price."

President Trump threatens Rosie O'Donnell with loss of American citizenship.

At Truth Social an hour ago: "Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!"

If it's a joke, he shouldn't be making that joke. He has too much power. If it's not a joke, it's terrible. I know he's much more confident — to the point of overreaching as political theater — the second time around and after his 4 years in the wilderness, but he needs to channel himself toward true greatness, not get entangled in this kind of smallness.

"I view Stanford and MIT as mainly political lobbying operations fighting American innovation at this point...."

"The combination of DEI and immigration is politically lethal. When these two forms of discrimination combine, as they have for the last 60 years and on hyperdrive for the last decade, they systematically cut most of the children of the Trump voter base out of any realistic prospect of access to higher education and corporate America.... So of course you have to go overseas to get qualified PhD candidates, most of the native born kids who could have been in that pipeline were cut out of it.... I was born in 1971 in Iowa and grew up in Wisconsin. My cohort of citizens was told that we just had to put up with this as a cost of prior American bigotry even though the discrimination was now aimed at us. And for the most part we did. But the insanity of the last 8 years and in particular the summer of 2020 totally shredded that complacency. And so now my people are furious and not going to take it anymore. The universities are at ground zero of the counterattack since they are BOTH actively discriminating against us AND primary origin points and propagation vectors.... They declared war on 70% of the country and now they’re going to pay the price...."

Wrote Marc Andreessen in a group chat with White House officials and technology leaders.

Quoted in "Tech billionaire Trump adviser Marc Andreesen says universities will ‘pay the price’ for DEI/The investor in a private group chat also criticized Stanford and said colleges are biased against Trump voters: 'My people are furious'" (WaPo).

My prompts to Grok were "What does Marc Andreessen mean by 'my people'?" And then: "That's going to be seen as racist by a lot of people. Why wasn't he smart enough to use different words? One answer would be that he meant to signal to white people that they need to come together and fight for their own interests." Answers: here.

"Even if the family occasionally finds evidence that mountain goats have been in the kitchen, being so connected to the land is worth it."

"'The intensity of the light, the smells of the plants, the noise of the cicadas — it’s like everything is turned up to 11,' he said. 'There’s something completely cathartic about being there.'"

From "He Built a House With No Doors and Windows You Can’t Close/Inspired by homes open to their natural settings, an architect designed a house on the Greek island of Corfu with minimal barriers from the 'wild landscape'" (NYT)(free-access link).

Makes me think of that Paul Mazursky movie "Tempest," with John Cassavetes as an architect who's fed up with New York City and relocates — with adolescent daughter Molly Ringwald in tow — to a Greek island....