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EuroBSDCon 2024 [in Dublin, Ireland] has now ended, and slides for many of the OpenBSD developer presentations are now available in the usual place.

Video of the individual presentations can be expected somewhat later. In the meantime, OpenBSD-related presentations [including those from non-developers] can be found in the recordings of the "Foyer B" streams.

In addition, there was a full day PF tutorial with some updates to the publicly available slides.

Our favorite operating system is now changing the default shell (ksh) to enforce not allowing invalid NUL characters in input that will be parsed as parts of the script.

The commit message reads,

List:       openbsd-cvs
Subject:    CVS: cvs.openbsd.org: src
From:       Theo de Raadt <deraadt () cvs ! openbsd ! org>
Date:       2024-09-23 21:18:33

CVSROOT:	/cvs
Module name:	src
Changes by:	deraadt@cvs.openbsd.org	2024/09/23 15:18:33

Modified files:
	bin/ksh        : shf.c 

Log message:
If during parsing lines in the script, ksh finds a NUL byte on the
line, it should abort ("syntax error: NUL byte unexpected").  There
appears to be one piece of software which is misinterpreting guidance
of this, and trying to depend upon embedded NUL.  During research,
every shell we tested has one or more cases where a NUL byte in the
input or inside variable contents will create divergent behaviour from
other shells.  (ie. gets converted to a space, is silently skipped, or
aborts script parsing or later execution).  All the shells are written
in C, and majority of them use C strings for everything, which means
they cannot embed a NUL, so this is not surprising.  It is quite
unbelievable there are people trying to rewrite history on a lark, and
expecting the world to follow alone.

Read more…

Theo de Raadt (deraadt@) updated the version of OpenBSD -current to "7.6-current".

Those running the latest-and-greatest [via a sufficiently new snapshot or built from source] no longer need to use "-D snap" with pkg_add(1) (and pkg_info(1)).

There has been a significant change to the behaviour of sysupgrade(8):

CVSROOT:	/cvs
Module name:	src
Changes by:	florian@cvs.openbsd.org	2024/09/24 01:33:35

Modified files:
	usr.sbin/sysupgrade: sysupgrade.8 sysupgrade.sh 

Log message:
Remove -r toggle and generally be less smart.

The default is to install the next release. Snapshots are only
installed when invoked with -s.

Read more…

The OpenBSD project has announced OpenBSD 7.6, its 57^th release.

The new release contains a number of significant improvements, including but not limited to:

• There is initial support for Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite [arm64] laptops.
• Initial support for Suspend-to-Idle has been added on amd64 and i386, enabling suspend on machines which do not support S3.
• UDP parallel input has been enabled. [See earlier report]
• Libva's VA-API (Video Acceleration API) was imported into xenocara. [See earlier report]
• The default write format for tar(1) has changed to "pax". [See earlier report]
• pfctl(8) and systat(1) now display fragment reassembly statistics. [See earlier report]
• A configurable passphrase timeout for disk decryption at boot (a potential battery lifesaver) has been added. [See earlier report]
• Local-to-anchor tables are now available in pf(4) rules. [See earlier report]
• rport(4), a driver providing point-to-point interfaces for layer 3 connectivity between rdomain(4) instances, has been added.
• dhcp6leased(8), a DHCPv6 client daemon for IPv6 PD has been added. [See earlier report]
• dhclient(8) has been removed (now that dhcpleased(8) is well established). [See earlier report]
• OpenSSH 9.9, featuring:
  • sshd(8) has been split into multiple binaries. [See earlier report]
  • Options to penalize undesirable behavior [See earlier report]
  • support for a new hybrid post-quantum key exchange [See earlier report]

and of course there is the full changelog which details the changes made over this latest six month development cycle.

Installation Guide details how to get the system up and running with a fresh install, while those who already run earlier releases should follow the Upgrade Guide, in most cases using sysupgrade(8) to upgrade their systems.

Now please dive in and enjoy the new release, and while the installer runs, please do donate to the project to support further development and more future goodies for us all!

Omar Polo (op@) has announced the release of version 7.6.0p0 of OpenSMTPD.

The changes (including the table protocol change on which we reported earlier) are:

 - Introduced a new K_AUTH service to allow offloading the credentials
   to a proc table for non-crypt(3) authentication.  Helps with use
   cases like LDAP or custom auth.

 - Implement report responses for proc-filters too.

 - Changed the table protocol to a simpler text-based one.  Existing
   proc tables needs to be updated since old ones won't work.  The new
   protocol is documented in smtpd-tables(7).

 - Fixed the parsing of IPv6 addresses in file-backed table(5)

 - Document expected MDA behavior and the environment set by OpenSMTPD.

 - Set ORIGINAL_RECIPIENT in the environment of MDA scripts for
   compatibility with postfix.

 - Updated the bundled libtls.

See the release announcement for full details.

The work of improving ssh security by segregating functionality into separate binaries contiues, this time by introducing sshd-auth as a separate binary.

The commit message summarizes why this makes sense,

Splitting this code into a separate binary ensures that the crucial
pre-authentication attack surface has an entirely disjoint address
space from the code used for the rest of the connection. It also
yields a small runtime memory saving as the authentication code will
be unloaded after thhe authentication phase completes.

The code is in snapshots as we type.

Read the whole thing after the fold -

Read more…

The LibreSSL project, a closely associated subproject of the OpenBSD project, has announced the availability of their new stable release, LibreSSL 4.0.0, which comes with a number of improvements and a sprinkling of fixes.

The release announcement reads,

Subject:    LibreSSL 4.0.0 Released
From:       Brent Cook <busterb () gmail ! com>

We have released LibreSSL 4.0.0, which will be arriving in the
LibreSSL directory of your local OpenBSD mirror soon. This is the
first stable release for the 4.0.x branch, also available with OpenBSD 7.6

It includes the following change from LibreSSL 3.9.2:

  * Portable changes
    - Added initial Emscripten support in CMake builds.
    - Removed timegm() compatibility layer since all uses were replaced
      with OPENSSL_timegm(). Cleaned up the corresponding test harness.
    - The mips32 platform is no longer actively supported.
    - Fixed Windows support for dates beyond 2038.

Read more…

Version 0.104 of Game of Trees has been released (and the port updated).

* got 0.104; 2024-10-22
  see git repository history for per-change authorship information
- gotd.conf: document the macro syntax
- tog: prevent a segfault upon unexpected object type in ref list view
- fix pack file creation in the presence of tagged tag objects
- plugged some memory leaks
- fix a crash when unstaging a file which has been removed from disk
- gotwebd: fix out of bounds access while handling the configuration

I recently wrote that Facebook should be regulated like a utility, but maybe social media is more like an addictive, harmful drug than a utility. The companies that push social media on us are like drug dealers. Given my libertarian sympathies, adults should generally be free to use the drugs they want, but society should regulate promotion and distribution of the substance and protect children from being preyed upon by the dealers.

The real problem with Facebook's behavior is the revelation of its rampant institutional lying. In the XCheck story, we learned that after Facebook spent more than $130 million to create an Independent Oversight Board to oversee its content-moderation decisions, Facebook executives routinely lied to that board. Facebook told the Oversight Board that XCheck was only used in "a small number of decisions," even though the program had grown to include 5.8 million users in 2020.

"We're not actually doing what we say we do publicly," and the company's actions constitute a "breach of trust," reads a confidential internal review done by Facebook.
We also learned -- shockingly -- that the CEO and COO of the trillion-dollar behemoth are regularly involved in decisions of what posts to remove when such posts are made by certain people who are exempted from Facebook's community guidelines and content-moderation procedures. This is all while Facebook asserted that it applied the same standards to everyone.

Apparently, XCheck was created to mitigate "p.r. fires" or negative media attentions when Facebook takes the wrong action against a high-profile VIP. Even worse than the existence of the XCheck program was Facebook's dishonesty about it, reflecting the state of mind of a company that knew it was doing something wrong -- and still did it anyway.

These revelations strengthen the case that Facebook likely serves increasingly as the censorship arm of the US government, just as it does for other governments around the world.

That last sentence gets to the heart of the matter, and explains why collective action against social media dealers has been so slow: the elite class wants to control our speech, and is happy to use social media dealers to do it.

Facebook is soma.

What is soma in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley? In the context of the novel, soma is a recreational drug that several of the main characters take throughout the story. The government in Brave New World strongly encourages individuals to take soma as a way to increase the happiness and complacency of the population. Soma can be taken as a pill or as a powder and can also be released as an aerosol. It is freely available to everyone in the novel. Its inclusion in the text is central to the novel's themes of complacency and resistance in society as well as the theme of escapism.

Why did Willie Sutton rob banks? "Because that's where the money is."

Why does the government want to tax your IRA and ROTH retirement savings? Because that's where the money is.

When the income tax first went into effect in 1915, the top rate was a mere 7% and fell only on those making $500,000 a year or more -- that's $13.5 million in today's dollars. The vast majority of Americans paid the lowest 1% rate.

Today, the federal income tax ranges from 10%-37% and that's on top of all the FICA withholding. Today's top rate -- more than five times higher than it was in 1915 -- falls on those making about $500,000.

Which means top rate-payers are paying 5.5 more income tax on about one-thirtieth of the income.

The lowest rate-payers are paying 10 times more on about the same fraction -- and that still doesn't count FICA deductions, which hit the poorest the hardest.

The income tax was sold by early 20th Century progressives as a way to sock it to the rich, but progressives made sure it become a way to sock it to everybody.

You can bet your bottom dollar -- if Congress doesn't confiscate that, too -- that today's "Billionaire Income Tax" is tomorrow's "Tax Your Middle Class Retirement Accounts Before You Even Retire."

Our government is too big, too unaccountable, too incompetent, and entirely dedicated to growing its own power. Anything that can't go on forever, won't.

This is fantastic news that will hopefully turn into a treatment for people with spinal cord injuries and other nerve injuries.

A self-assembling gel injected at the site of spinal cord injuries in paralysed mice has enabled them to walk again after four weeks.

The gel mimics the matrix that is normally found around cells, providing a scaffold that helps cells to grow. It also provides signals that stimulate nerve regeneration.

Samuel Stupp at Northwestern University in Chicago and his colleagues created a material made of protein units, called monomers, that self-assemble into long chains, called supramolecular fibrils, in water.

When they were injected into the spinal cords of mice that were paralysed in the hind legs, these fibrils formed a gel at the injury site.

The researchers injected 76 paralysed mice with either the fibrils or a sham treatment made of salt solution, a day after the initial injury. They found that the gel enabled paralysed mice to walk by four weeks after the injection, whereas mice given the placebo didn't regain the ability to walk.

The team found that the gel helped regenerate the severed ends of neurons and reduced the amount of scar tissue at the injury site, which usually forms a barrier to regeneration. The gel also enhanced blood vessel growth, which provided more nutrients to the spinal cord cells.

I'm a big supporter of public education -- I went to public school and university for my entire education. Despite my libertarian leanings, I think taxpayer-funded, locally-directed public education can be a very valuable governmental function. However, I'm not a fan of the grift and graft that engulfs public education, for example the money laundering between teachers' unions and the Democrat party. I'm also not fond of the ideological indoctrination that many of the grifters seek to impose on American children, without the consent of the parents.

So I think it's great that the "get woke, go broke" trend is finally hitting the public education grift infrastructure.

Seventeen NSBA affiliates have cut ties with the NSBA over their coordination with the White House and Department of Justice in casting parental complaints over curricula "domestic terrorism." And as Axios reports, they're taking their checkbooks with them -- accounting for a 40% loss in revenue at the NSBA:

The National School Boards Association has since apologized, but the fallout could be seven figures in annual funding. At least 17 state affiliates have severed ties with the group -- and some are even considering establishing a competitor.

The 17 state affiliates accounted for more than 40% of annual dues paid to NSBA by its state association members in 2019, according to Axios' analysis of documents detailing those contributions.

Officials fear upheaval at the organization -- the nation's leading trade group representing U.S. public schools -- will handicap it just as national debates over school curricula and COVID-19 mitigation measures dominate the political conversation.

Good.

President Eisenhower famously warned America about the risk of the military-industrial complex, but he also foresaw the risk that public policy would be captured by a scientific-technological elite.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

(HT: American Experiment and Victory Girls.)

What else needs to be said? Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia gets straight to the point. When there is no fear of God, everything is permitted.

It's a complete mystery why anyone would bribe Hunter Biden. Maybe it's because of his artistic talent.

But how about the question of how this investigation, and Hunter's underlying conduct, relate to President Biden himself? To read the Times and the WaPo, you would think that that whole question is somehow out of line. The Times's piece doesn't even discuss Joe's role or involvement, although it does include this bizarre line:

It is not clear whether the criminal probe is focused solely on Hunter Biden, or if he is among a group of individuals and companies being scrutinized.

As if anyone, let alone China or Burisma, would pay Hunter Biden millions of dollars without an expectation that it would influence his father. Over in the WaPo, in the context of paragraphs relating to Hunter's dealings with Chinese government-controlled energy company CEFC, we have this:

The Post did not find evidence that Joe Biden personally benefited from or knew details about the transactions with CEFC. . . .

The funny thing is that outside the sole exception of the Biden family, large payments to the children of powerful government officials by those with interests potentially affected by those officials' actions are universally understood to be corrupt efforts to influence the officials. In cases involving people other than the Bidens, whether the official/parent "personally benefited" from the payments or "knew details" of the transactions are considered completely irrelevant.

I guess we'll never know.

In this new era of stagflation it's important to remember that inflation is caused by expectations as much as by reality. If people and companies expect prices to go up, they'll start charging more for their products and services -- which is inflation. Inflation will only abate when expectations change.

So when we see a chart like this one it's not only that President Biden's policies created inflationary conditions, his policies also created the self-fulfilling expectation of inflation.

Presidents Obama and Trump spent boatloads of borrowed money and ran up the deficit, but something about President Biden (and, of course, the global environment) really spooked people.

Bank runs are bad. They're bad enough to bring down governments. There's been a slow-motion bank run in rural China for several months, and people are starting to get concerned that the "contagion" could spread.

In the anatomy of an economic crisis, a bank run is the point of no return.

Bank runs occur when people scramble to withdraw cash from banks in fear of collapse. In the worst cases, banks' liquid cash reserves are exhausted, not everyone gets their money and the bank defaults. ...

In recent years it has become clear the Chinese people are losing faith in their financial institutions. There's been anger over harsh COVID lockdowns in Shanghai recently, while the collapse of China Evergrande saw rare public demonstrations as residents faced the prospect of losing their life savings used as deposits for housing. ...

Multiple sources contacted by Asia Markets, have confirmed deposits at the following six banks have been frozen since mid-April.

• Yuzhou Xinminsheng Village Bank (located in Xuchang City, Henan Province)
• Zhecheng Huanghuai Bank (City of Shangqui, Henan Province)
• Shangcai Huimin Rural Bank (Zhumadian City, Henan Province)
• New Oriental Village Bank (City of Kaifeng, Henan Province)
• Huaihe River Village Bank (Bengbu City, Anhui Province)
• Yixian County Village Bank (Huangshan City, Anhui Province)

It's understood the banks with branches across the Henan and Anhui Provinces successively issued announcements in April, stating they would suspend online banking and mobile banking services due to a system upgrade.

At the same time, clients reported their electronic deposits in online accounts, mobile apps and third-party platforms could not be withdrawn.

This led to depositors rushing to local bank branches, only to be told they were unable to withdraw funds.

It looks like the bank failures are due to fraud and corruption -- bank managers simply stole the money. Hopefully this corruption isn't widespread and the problem can be contained.

Many people I talk to are eager for "prices to get back to normal", but that's not how inflation works. Medora Lee does a good job reminding us of that.

When talking about inflation, it's important to remember that inflation is a rate that measures how fast prices are rising. If the consumer inflation rate drops from its 40-year high of 8.6% in May, prices are still rising - just not as fast.

Consumers won't feel immediate relief even as the inflation rate slows because many of those elevated prices are likely here to stay, said Michael Ashton, managing principal at Enduring Investments in Morristown, NJ.

"The price level has permanently changed," said Ashton. "Until your wages catch up (to inflation), it will continue to hurt."

Even when inflation returns to target 2% levels, prices won't return to "normal" 2019 levels. Prices will continue to grow, but at a slower and more predictable rate.

"Once core prices go up, generally they don't come down," Roussanov said. "In the last 40 to 50 years, we've never seen deflation in core goods. Most durable goods and services don't really come down in price."

And deflation is more dangerous than inflation because it can lead to a total economic collapse. When people believe that their money will buy more in a year than it will now, they stop consuming and just wait.

Additionally, modest, predictable inflation is seen as a sign of a growing economy. It incentivizes people to spend money now rather than waiting, allows wages to increase either in line or above inflation to boost the standard of living and makes it easier for businesses to plan, according to the Federal Reserve and IMF.

Ross Douthat says that this fact is the heart of the abortion issue, and I agree. Our tolerance, acceptance, and promotion of at-will abortion is a shame and humiliation for our generation and civilization. Our descendants will look back on this era with horror and disgust, much like we view slavery and the Holocaust. They will ask, how could any people kill a million of their own children every year? How did they talk themselves into accepting the slaughter of the weakest and most vulnerable among them? How did they dehumanize the unborn, to be exterminated like insect infestations?

As is often the case, the solution to abortion -- and the general mistreatment of children and other vulnerable people -- won't be found in laws or courts. The solution is for each of us to honor the divine spark in each other. To recognize that we are each made in God's image, and each uniquely valuable because of that likeness.

Deuteronomy 27:19 -- 'Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.' And all the people shall say, 'Amen.'

Exodus 22:22 -- You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.

Psalm 68:5 -- Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation.

Self-identified liberals outnumber conservatives among Harvard faculty by 82-1.

More than 80 percent of Harvard faculty respondents characterized their political leanings as "liberal" or "very liberal," according to The Crimson's annual survey of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in April.

A little over 37 percent of faculty respondents identified as "very liberal"-- a nearly 8 percent jump from last year. Only 1 percent of respondents stated they are "conservative," and no respondents identified as "very conservative."

Academics usually explain this uniformity by asserting that liberals are smarter than conservatives and thus better suited for faculty positions in higher education -- particularly in self-identified elite universities. This explanation is relatively simple to assess by considering whether or not these same academics would entertain a similar explanation for a lack of sex or racial diversity in other institutions, such as corporate leadership or government. If one were to claim that "there are more male CEOs because men are smarter than women" that claim would be rightly dismissed.

(HT: Campus Reform and Instapundit.)

Louise Perry writes that she was betrayed by the lies of the sexual revolution. As a father of daughters this is heartbreaking to read.

It's precisely because I'm a feminist that I've changed my mind on sexual liberalism. It's an ideology premised on the false belief that the physical and psychological differences between men and women are trivial, and that any restrictions placed on sexual behavior must therefore have been motivated by malice, stupidity or ignorance.

The problem is the differences aren't trivial. Sexual asymmetry is profoundly important: One half of the population is smaller and weaker than the other half, making it much more vulnerable to violence. This half of the population also carries all of the risks associated with pregnancy. It is also much less interested in enjoying all of the delights now on offer in the post-sexual revolution era. ...

The new sexual culture isn't so much about the liberation of women, as so many feminists would have us believe, but the adaptation of women to the expectations of a familiar character: Don Juan, Casanova, or, more recently, Hugh Hefner.

It's almost as if our ancestors were wiser than we realized.

This is quality.

As John Hinderaker helpfully explains, The "Green Revolution" Is Impossible due to constraints on input materials (among other reasons). Courtesy of Professor Simon Michaux:

The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels, is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls.

All this posturing is about control, not the environment or the earth. The long-term future of energy is space-based solar and nuclear.

(HT: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

Italy's new prime minister Giorgia Meloni explains why so many people are afraid of her victory. American newspapers categorize her as "far-right", but Italian newspapers call her "center-right". Let's see what she does.

The new Prime Minister of Italy.

Wow. pic.twitter.com/fkKTM8I9Fs

— Aaron Ginn (@aginnt) September 26, 2022

This seems insane. Why create a more transmissable and lethal version of COVID?

DailyMail.com revealed the team had made a hybrid virus -- combining Omicron and the original Wuhan strain -- that killed 80 per cent of mice in a study.

The revelation exposes how dangerous virus manipulation research continues to go on even in the US, despite fears similar practices may have started the pandemic.

Professor Shmuel Shapira, a leading scientist in the Israeli Government, said: 'This should be totally forbidden, it's playing with fire.'

Gain of function research - when viruses are purposefully manipulated to be more infectious or deadly - is thought to be at the center of Covid's origin.

We may never know the origin of COVID-19 with certainty, but gain-of-function research needs to stop.

I don't have a lot to say about the recent midterm election results.

• I was surprised by how poorly the Republicans did
• The American right needs to think long and hard about its political positions -- what they are, and how to communicate them to Americans in a persuasive way
• Candidate quality matters, and Trump has terrible judgement on this
• It's embarrassing that the results of the election aren't fully known almost a week later.

It seems like elections should be a lot easier. We've made them harder than they need to be.

• In-person voting on a single day, except for deployed military or invalids.
• Paper ballots, counted at the precinct. Properly maintain chain-of-custody records for ballots.
• Show identification to vote.
• Dip your thumb in purple ink after you've voted.

This isn't rocket science. All the fancy machines and alternate voting methods have made elections too complicated to administer in a transparent and credible manner.

Alice Evans writes that working-age men in America aren't working.

7 million men aged 25-54 in the USA are not working

What are they doing?

Volunteering? Worship? Care-work?

"Playing Call of Duty stoned"

They report 2000 hours a year of screen time (w/ pain meds)

This phenomenon is far less severe in Western Europe

She has many charts and graphs that dig into the details.

My opinion is that we're beginning to see human workers displaced by automation in a way that doesn't create new jobs for the displaced humans. Men are more affected than women because women dominate "caring professions" that are harder to automate.

Many people say that the Republican infighting over Kevin McCarthy's election as Speaker of the House is embarrassing and demonstrates a lack of governing ability. I say: more squabbling please!

The House should be raucous. Why should everything be politely settled behind closed doors? No! We need more public fighting among our elected officials, not less. Americans have major disagreements with each other, and the best way to sort them out is through politics. Let's have them yell and scream and argue with each other in public until someone wins.

(I posted this to the DnD subreddit also: link.)

The Open Gaming License fiasco with Dungeons & Dragons producer Wizards of the Coast is a symptom of a larger problem: our insane Intellectual Property system that currently protects material for the life of the author plus 70 years. As a comparison, patents generally only protect inventions for 20 years.

The purpose of intellectual property laws is to balance public and private interests. IP law is an agreement between society and creators: the creator is guaranteed an exclusive right to their creation for a period of time, and in exchange the public gets rights to the creation afterwards. It's intended to be a balance of interests, but the balance has gotten completely out of whack thanks to (obviously) lobbying throughout the 20th century by major copyright holders like Disney.

In my opinion, the current copyright term, life of the author plus 70 years, is grossly unfair to the public. I believe that the internet era has demonstrated that creators would be incentivized to create even without such a long period of exclusivity. Think about it: would you create less stuff if your great-grandkids didn't get exclusive rights? I doubt it.

Listen: creators should be able to make money from their work. I don't think copyright should go to zero, but why not bring it in line with patent protection with a 20-year term?

Disney, DnD, and many other creations are part of our generation's cultural legacy, part of a 10,000+ year inheritance that has been handed down through time to our grandparents, our parents, and now us. It's morally wrong for our ancestors and corporations to lock our inheritance away from us.

Copyright protections must be re-balanced to protect both creators and the public. This problem with WotC shouldn't be just about a license, it should be about the IP laws that grant them exclusive rights to creations that are over 50 years old. Our generation should re-open these negotiations and come up with a fair copyright term.

On Wednesday Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio, to support the people affected by the train derailment while Biden visited Kyiv to support Ukraine's fight against Russia.

Trump:

Trump visited East Palestine to show support for a community afflicted by the toxic train derailment as President Joe Biden, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and other administration officials have come under scrutiny for the federal response to the disaster.

"Get over here," was Trump's terse, three-word response to a reporter's question about what he would tell Biden.

The Buckeye State blitz wasn't perfect, with a strange self-promotional reference to Trump water.

But it was otherwise a vintage Trump performance the 2024 candidate should like to bottle.

Biden:

President Biden paid an unannounced visit Monday to Ukraine's capital, offering a huge show of support for the country the U.S. and its allies have helped to hold out during Russia's nearly-year-long, unprovoked invasion. Mr. Biden spent about six hours in Kyiv, much of it with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he promised unwavering backing and another tranche of American weapons.

"You know, one year later, Kyiv stands. Ukraine stands," Mr. Biden said while there. "Democracy stands. America stands with you and the world stands with you. Kyiv has captured a part of my heart."

At the most basic political level, which trip wins more votes? In my opinion, Trump's visit to Ohio is better politics. But on the other hand, only the sitting President can demonstrate American commitment with a foreign visit like Biden's, which highlights his stature.

It seems that most conservatives are calling the new Bank Term Funding Program a "bailout" for the rich, but as far as I can tell preventing a contagious bank-run is good for everyone. Shareholders and bondholders of any failed banks are not being guaranteed in anyway, only depositors (i.e., bank customers).

The additional funding will be made available through the creation of a new Bank Term Funding Program (BTFP), offering loans of up to one year in length to banks, savings associations, credit unions, and other eligible depository institutions pledging U.S. Treasuries, agency debt and mortgage-backed securities, and other qualifying assets as collateral. These assets will be valued at par. The BTFP will be an additional source of liquidity against high-quality securities, eliminating an institution's need to quickly sell those securities in times of stress.

Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank are being "resolved" and shareholders are being wiped out. Bondholders will probably get some of their money back, but they won't be made whole. Depositors will be fully protected. Bank runs are caused by depositors panicking and withdrawing their money, so the BTFP should be sufficient to forestall that catastrophe without "bailing out" banks using taxpayer dollars. I guess we'll find out.

David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey explain why it's impossible for the United States to default on its debts.

Those who warn of default confuse debt payments with other spending obligations. "A failure on the part of the United States to meet any obligation, whether it's to debt holders, to members of our military or to Social Security recipients, is effectively a default," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in January.

That's nonsense. Authorized and even appropriated spending isn't "the public debt." For constitutional purposes, promised benefits from Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements aren't even property, as the Supreme Court held in Flemming v. Nestor (1960), and Congress has as much authority to reduce them as to increase them. When lawmakers were drafting the 14th Amendment, they revised Section 4's language to replace the term "obligations" with "debts." If the Treasury ran out of money, the constitutional obligation to pay bondholders would trump all statutory obligations to spend.

Ms. Yellen also said that "Treasury's systems have all been built to pay all of our bills when they're due and on time, and not to prioritize one form of spending over another." But as the Journal has reported, department officials conceded in 2011 that the government's fiscal machinery certainly could prioritize payments to bondholders, and the Federal Reserve prepared for such a contingency. There's no question enough money would be available: The government collects roughly $450 billion a month in tax revenue, more than enough to cover the $55 billion or so in monthly debt service.

We've got plenty of money to make debt payments, but we may need to cut other spending to do it -- which we would be Constitutionally required to do.

(HT: Instapundit.)

Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott at the London Times provide the most comprehensive collection of evidence to-date describing how COVID-19 was intentionally created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as part of a bioweapon program run by the Chinese military and funded by American taxpayers.

Scientists in Wuhan working alongside the Chinese military were combining the world's most deadly coronaviruses to create a new mutant virus just as the pandemic began.

Investigators who scrutinised top-secret intercepted communications and scientific research believe Chinese scientists were running a covert project of dangerous experiments, which caused a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and started the Covid-19 outbreak.

The US investigators say one of the reasons there is no published information on the work is because it was done in collaboration with researchers from the Chinese military, which was funding it and which, they say, was pursuing bioweapons.

With millions of dollars in funding from American taxpayers.

Its work protecting pets and endangered species did not attract substantial funding. But after the September 11 terror attacks and the Sars outbreak, the US began to see the importance of funding work combatting bioterrorism and pandemics. The trust began to focus on how viruses might cross from animals to people and spark a pandemic.

Shi's team provided the fieldwork for the trust's campaign and the laboratories to test and experiment on the viruses. In 2009, the trust was given $18 million over five years from a new programme, called Predict, to identify pandemic viruses. Shortly afterwards, the trust was rebranded as the EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak assumed the role of president. The Chinese collaborators who helped put him on the map were also rewarded: $1 million of the Predict grant was redirected to the Wuhan institute.

The article has a lot more information that is all very compelling. At this point I think it's virtually certain that the lab-leak hypothesis is true, and that it's very likely that COVID-19 was developed as part of a bioweapon program.

(HT: Powerline Blog and Instapundit.)

I've been wondering for a long time why we haven't seen anything like this: X PRIZE Healthspan.

The XPRIZE Foundation is proud to announce its newest competition, XPRIZE Healthspan. XPRIZE Healthspan is a 7-year, $101 million global competition to revolutionize the way we approach human aging.

Modern medicine focuses on treating symptoms of injury, illness, or disease once they develop. This reactive system extends life, but doesn't proactively improve health, leaving millions grappling with poor quality of life and related economic challenges in their later years.

Success from XPRIZE Healthspan would profoundly change our approach to aging and positively affect quality-of-life and healthcare costs. Working across all sectors, we can democratize health and create a future where aging is full of potential.

The thing is... if I found a way to reverse aging I could probably make more than $101m selling it.

Korzystając z zainfekowanych telefonów, przestępcy rozsyłają wiadomości SMS z informacją o konieczności podjęcia działań wraz z linkiem do złośliwej strony. Jeśli użytkownik zgodzi sie na pobranie i zainstalowanie aplikacji to po uzyskaniu odpowiednich uprawnień przejmuje ona kontrolę nad urządzeniem i wykradać dane z telefonu.

Reklamy opisują platformy inwestycyjne za pomocą których można rzekomo inwestować w kryptowaluty lub akcje firm. Po podaniu wymaganych danych kontaktowych, przedstawiciel firmy oferującej te fałszywe inwestycje kontaktuje się telefonicznie z zainteresowanym i nakłania do zainwestowania przez wykonanie przelewu.

Przestępcy wykorzystują kilka metod propagowania oszustwa oraz zachęcania potencjalnej ofiary do podania poufnych danych związanych z portalem Facebook. Konta te też są wykorzystywane do wyłudzania środków finansowych od osób będących w kręgu znajomych przejętego konta.

Przestępcy przeszukują portale z ogłoszeniami, aby znaleźć potencjalne ofiary oszustwa. Oszust informuje, że jest chętny na zakup przedmiotu i że już za niego zapłacił, a sprzedający musi tylko odebrać środki na własne konto poprzez specjalną stronę. Oszut wysyła link do fałszywej bramki płatności. Podając na niej dane ofiara daje dostęp do konta przestępcom.

Głównym celem tego oszustwa jest zachęcenie potencjalnej ofiary do podania danych logowania do swojego konta bankowości internetowej, aby następnie wyłudzić przechowywane pieniądze.