For Ukraine, it's search out the future -- or die

Environmental and climate advocate Bill McKibben points out that the planet-wide shift to harness energy from the sun is not only transforming how we produce heat and power cars. It is also changing how war is waged.

It's hard to drone a solar panel. 

The war in Ukraine may be adding resilience to the list of clean energy's virtues. 

As I write this, the Orsknefteorgsintez refinery in Orsk, Russia is ablaze. It sits 1,400 kilometers from the border with Ukraine—in fact, along the border with Kazakhstan. The refinery has a capacity of 6.6 million tons of oil yearly, and among other things it’s one of two refineries capable of producing the jet fuel used by the country’s strategic bombers.

The best reason for nations to switch to power from the sun and wind is that it will reduce, by some degree, the severity of the climate crisis (and save millions of lives lost each year to pollution). The second best reason is that it’s cheaper than fossil fuel, and any nation who doesn’t shift will be stuck with an economy running on expensive energy. But it seems to me—not a military analyst, but a fairly good tea-leaves reader—that the war in Ukraine may be adding a third to the list: its comparative invulnerability to attack.

As the world has begun to figure out, something important has happened amidst the carnage of Russia’s immoral invasion: warfare has changed forever, with the small drone quickly replacing much of the military hardware we grew accustomed to in the 20th century. 

Drones have been ubiquitous along the front lines, where the no-man’s zone between the armies is lethally patrolled by squadrons of drones able to take out tanks, troop transports, and pretty much anything else—that explains much of the stasis of the last two years; the competing forces are largely pinned down. 

The Russians, of course, have also been using drones to attack civilian assets—every night a new sortie, mixed in with missiles, seems to take out kindergartens, hospitals, and old folks homes. An early target was Ukraine’s energy sources, in an effort to freeze the fight out of the nation. (Currently the Russians seem to be playing dangerous games with the offline nuclear power plants not far from the front lines). But as we head into yet another war of winter, Ukraine hangs on—and more than hangs on. 

Over the course of the war, by sheer necessity, Ukraine has developed a formidable drone industry, and increasingly it is using them against a singular set of targets: the oil refining and transport infrastructure spread out across its sprawling foe. Russia has formidable air defenses, of course—Ukraine couldn’t fly a bomber across 1,400 kilometers of the country’s airspace to bomb a refinery. But the small and comparatively slow drones have proved equal to the task. ...

Russia can, and does, shoot rockets at the centers of Ukrainian civilian life. But Ukrainians, motivated by necessity and determined courage, have found, at least for the moment, an answer that sustains their embattled nation with sun power they have developed themselves. The war is making oil refining and coal burning obsolete and perilous technologies to depend on.

...The general lesson to be drawn from this, it seems to me, is that centralized and complex energy facilities are now sitting ducks for drone attack, and that that will certainly alter military calculations going forward. A refinery, for instance, is one of the most complicated machines humanity has ever constructed, often covering hundreds of acres. It’s filled with highly complex equipment and highly flammable hydrocarbons; hit one corner with a drone and the flames and the damage are likely to spread quickly. Not far behind—as Ukraine has learned to its sadness—are coal and gas-fired power plants—expensive infrastructure that can take months or years to rebuild as your citizens shiver. 

By contrast, solar farms and wind turbines are scattered, which makes them harder to hit, and relatively simple to fix. Silicon doesn’t explode when it’s hit: a drone may take out some panels, but they are easy to switch out for new ones. And individual rooftop installations are too small to be systematically attacked. ...

I'm sure McKibben would agree that it would be far better if Russia hadn't made war on its proud, self-reliant neighbor. But since Russia has, we can marvel at how Ukrainian innovation is showing how a small nation can preserve its independence by adopting the energy source of the future. 

Too often, war midwifes scientific advances that only kill more efficiently. There is so much death in Ukraine, but also so much life. 

Friday cat blogging

Meet Mio the Magnificent. You wouldn't know he is actually a sweet softie, would you? We live with this.

Terror for transpeople

Where decent people saw a frightening political murder, disgusting people saw an opportunity to stir and enlist hatred for political purposes.

Unhappily, it's fair to say that Charlie Kirk's Republican funders and political sponsors (but not the woman who loved him) got one bit of what they'd paid for after his untimely demise: yet another chance to stick it to transfolk and other gender nonconforming people.

Journalist Parker Molloy reports on the terror unleashed. 

... While the Heritage Foundation manufactures fake statistics to paint trans people as violent terrorists, actual terrorism is happening in the real world—and it’s targeting LGBTQ people.

In the week following Charlie Kirk’s death, there have been at least two attempted terrorist attacks explicitly planned as “revenge” against the LGBTQ community. Not revenge against any actual suspect or accomplice. Not revenge based on any evidence. Just revenge against random gay and trans people for something they had nothing to do with.

In Phoenix, a 49-year-old named Treven Gokey was arrested after threatening to shoot up a gay bar. He told police he wanted to be “a martyr for Charlie Kirk” and that “radical left violence breeds a far-right response.” When officers asked him about recent violence, he said it made him want to “harm others” to send a message. He’s now sitting in jail on a $250,000 bond, charged with making terroristic threats.

Meanwhile in Texas, Joshua Cole posted on Facebook about an upcoming Pride parade in Abilene: “fk their parade, I say we lock and load and pay them back for taking out Charlie Kirk.” He added, “theres only like 30 of em we can send a clear message to the rest of them,” before suggesting they go “hunting fairies.” The FBI arrested him the day before the parade. During questioning, he admitted he “did not believe that the gay pride event should be allowed.”

... Heritage claims — based on absolutely nothing — that “transgender ideology” drives violence. But in the real world, it’s anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that’s inspiring actual terrorist threats. These men didn’t need evidence that LGBTQ people were involved in Kirk’s death. They didn’t need facts. All they needed was the permission structure that years of demonization had already built.

And that permission structure got reinforced immediately after Kirk’s death. Conservative media blamed “the left” before anyone even knew who the shooter was. The day after the assassination, bomb threats forced evacuations at the DNC headquarters and multiple HBCUs. The apparatus of rage was already primed and ready — it just needed an excuse.

Cole, by the way, had already been arrested for making terroristic threats back in 2019. The court noted his “prior criminal history” and said his release would pose a “serious danger to any person or the community.” But sure, let’s create a new terrorism category for trans people who, according to actual data, commit less than 0.1% of mass shootings. ...

Meanwhile we're in a "government shutdown" because Republicans refuse to present a budget that enough Democratic senators will vote for to overcome a filibuster. The media mostly focuses on the vicious cuts that Republicans are trying to make to health care, cuts which Democrats reject.

But the Republican plan also includes poison pills designed to erase and even destroy trans lives and life. Erin In The Morning reports:

... There is one promising sign for LGBTQ+ people in all this: Democrats, by refusing to cave to Republican demands on both the full-year appropriations bills and the continuing resolution, have shown a degree of backbone critics often accuse them of lacking. ... When talks eventually turn back to funding the government for the full year, there’s hope that Republicans may steer clear of poison pills like the anti-LGBTQ+ riders that risk blowing up the process altogether. 

... Still, there’s reason for concern that the pressure of a shutdown could push Democrats to cave on key constituencies—LGBTQ+ people chief among them. The memory of last year looms large. When Republicans laced the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act with anti-trans riders, Democrats in the Senate, having control of that chamber at the time, had the chance to strip them out. Instead, leadership folded: they refused to allow a vote to remove the provisions and passed the bill intact, cutting off TRICARE coverage for gender-affirming care for the children of servicemembers. For many trans advocates, it was a stinging betrayal. 

Now the fear is of a repeat—only worse. This year’s House NDAA goes even further, piling on a military bathroom ban, a sports ban, a coverage ban, and more, and the same fears hold true for negotiations over the bills funding the federal government for the next year.

... Republicans—Trump chief among them—have made clear that anti-trans provisions are on the table for the full-year appropriations fight. In recent days, Trump used both a Truth Social post and a grotesquely offensive deepfake video of Chuck Schumer to hammer Democrats, accusing them of protecting transgender people in the shutdown fight and vowing to walk away from negotiations unless they conceded ground. On Capitol Hill, several Republican members echoed the line, blasting Democrats for supposedly backing “taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries” in the federal budget—a talking point pulled straight from the party’s broader anti-trans playbook.

But backlash can go either direction. This report continues:

At least one source told Erin In The Morning that congressional offices were inundated with calls from LGBTQ+ constituents on Tuesday demanding that their rights not be bargained away in the final FY26 appropriations deal. ... 

... call your congressmembers and demand that any negotiations over funding the government for the next year must not include anti-LGBTQ+ provisions pushed by Republicans in power.

Republicans needed a scapegoat to blame for the vicious harm they want to inflict on us all; trans people have been drafted to serve that function. They can't really be so afraid of such a tiny, less than 1 percent fraction of the 330 million of us, can they? Oh gosh, apparently they can and want everyone to share their fears. And beat up on the bogey, metaphorically and sometimes actually.

It's on all of us to ensure that MAGA can't pick off one tiny segment of our American body on the way to injuring all of us. 

There's life in the old republic yet

Too tired today to write a think piece, so I'll just pass along a couple of recent found-images in completely different resistance styles.

I'd call this "assertive patriotism".

This one is more a vigorous "urban outburst".

In both cases, they embody hope for this tired old republic: that we the people will assert ourselves as the legitimate rulers of ourselves, not subject to whims of a doddering old phony and his rich and craven sycophants. 

That is all.

Update from a National Park Service gift shop

Last July, I explored the NPS gift store near Civil War-era Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge. I wanted to see whether the Trump regime's attempt to whiten and sanitize American history had yet determined what was offered to the public.

The Warming Hut then boasted a full wall bookcase with an attractive display of hardcover historical books, including plenty that highlighted slavery in the early American life of the Golden State and the fate of local indigenous residents. 

The good news: the Trump regime has not completely displaced serious historical materials with snow globes and commemorative mugs for tourists. The bad news: the effort to offer meaty historical books is much diminished.

A lone shelf in a corner still held books unlikely to please a MAGA culture warrior. There's still history as we know it today here, but it has been pushed to the edges. Some of the previous shelf space has been filled with natural histories and state guide books.

The true delight to me on my previous visit had been the broad collection of children's books at the site. (My inheritance from my childrens' librarian mother is showing.) What survives is still impressive:

 But again, much of the display now centered natural history and marine life curiosities. So much safer:

Click on any of these pictures to see the titles in larger size.

The National Park staff here seem to be trying to retain their integrity as educators of the public -- and hanging on, carefully. I fear for what the coming government shut down will do to this historical park. 

For these awesome days, a denunciation and a prayer

Days of Judgement by Peter Beinart

I Pray there will be a Reckoning for the Cowardice and Evil that has Overtaken Our Country

Read on Substack

[The text which follows is a transcription of Beinart's video.]

So, at the heart of this period in the Jewish year, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, what we call the Yamim Noraim, is the basic idea that human beings are judged, that we don’t know how that judgment manifests itself in the world, but there’s a faith, a fundamental belief that there is some kind of accounting, there is some kind of reckoning, ultimately. And that notion fills me this year with a sense of really tremendous fear because I know that I have been inadequate to the monstrous evil of this period: the genocide in Gaza and the destruction of liberal democracy in the United States. 

There are so many times when I’ve just decided to turn away because it was easier to not look at the images, or to not participate in actions of protest that I could have done, just because I had other things that I wanted to do more, that were easier for me, that were more fun for me, so I really tremble at my own accountability for this. But I guess I also take some kind of comfort in the notion that there may be some collective accounting, some collective reckoning.

Again, many of the prayers that we say during these High Holidays are in the plural. And when I think about collectively, in the Jewish community, and more generally in the United States, I do take some kind of comfort in the sense that there will be some kind of accounting, because the level of cowardice that we see around us is just beyond my wildest imagination. It’s beyond my wildest imagination. 

I mean, Donald Trump is a fundamentally kind of deranged and deformed person, someone who just doesn’t seem, I think, to really, really understand very basic ideas like the rule of law, right? But many, many other people around him do. I mean, we know this because many of the people who are his most fanatical supporters now—J.D. Vance, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio—they said earlier on, when they weren’t so afraid of him, they said, this man is a pathological liar, this man wants to be a dictator. We know that they believe these things. We know that they can see these things. These things are obvious, right? They’re not subtle. 

I mean, I almost chuckle now at the idea that Donald Trump was really concerned about antisemitism when he used antisemitism as the pretext to try to cripple the independence of American universities. Because we now see that Donald Trump doesn’t need any pretext at all. I mean, when he says that we should shut down television networks just because they criticize him, or that the Justice Department should investigate people just because they’re his political opponents, he doesn’t even need any pretext, right? It’s just the fact that they are limiting his power, and he wants dictatorial powers. That’s really all he needs. 

And when I see virtually the entirety of the Republican Party going along with this—you know, the Republican Party has always, you know, for as long as I can remember, liked to talk about appeasement, liked to talk about cowardice, always imagining themselves as the kind of the Churchills, the manly men, the people who could be counted on in the moment of peril to stand up to the forces of evil. You know, I mean, what an utter irony that has turned to be, right? 

Because it turned out that there is no greater group of appeasers, no greater group of cowards, than the people in the modern Republican Party today, who, because they’re afraid of Donald Trump, afraid that he could get them to lose their job, or afraid that he might go after them personally. Because, after all, Donald Trump goes after Republicans too, right? He’s going after John Bolton because John Bolton had the temerity to criticize him. These people who constantly talk about how tough they are and how manly they are, how they hate appeasement, and how they accuse their opponents of appeasement because they support diplomatic deals with Iran or other countries, now actually turn out to be willing to appease Donald Trump, even when he’s systematically moving to destroy equality under the law, which is the foundation of a free society, right, by basically just using the organs of the state in whatever ways he can to punish his political opponents, to prevent the possibility that people will be able to openly criticize him, and that the other party might be able to beat him in an election. 

And beyond that, I look at the organized American Jewish community. I mean, just go to the websites of the most powerful American Jewish organizations: AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations. Would you realize that American democracy is in peril? Would you realize that the Trump administration is trying to create an authoritarian state? No, you would see virtually nothing of that because these organizations care really only about one thing: about maintaining unconditional U.S. support for Israel. It’s much more important to them that America maintains unconditional support for Israel than that America remains a liberal democracy. They would actually prefer an authoritarian America that supports Israel unconditionally than a liberal democratic America that changes its policy on Israel. 

And the evidence is right in front of you. Just look at what outrages them. Look at what they focus their political attention on. It’s about maintaining unconditional support for Israel. It’s not fighting for liberal democracy. It’s not opposing Donald Trump’s obviously, nakedly obvious efforts at creating an authoritarian, tyrannical state. I take some comfort in the notion that those leaders in our community, as well as those Republicans in Congress, as well as those business leaders, and people in industry, and some of these university presidents, that all of them will be judged. 

I think we’re already in terrible, terrible times, and probably heading for worse. And so, I think there is a Jewish tradition, in moments of great pain and trauma, of taking refuge in the idea that we believe in a God who judges, and that there is some kind of cosmic justice, even if we can’t understand it, even if we may not live to see it. And from the depths of my being, I hope that there is an accounting, that there is a reckoning, there is a judgment for the profound moral cowardice that is allowing the evil that is taking place, both in the destruction of Palestinians in the genocide in Gaza, and the destruction of the basic principles of liberal democracy in the United States. 

And I feel grateful that I have some modicum of faith because it’s that faith that gives me the belief that there will be a judgment and also reminds me that I need to redouble my efforts. 

I need to make a much, much more concerted effort to be part of the struggle against these forms of evil, both in Israel and Palestine that my government is complicit in, and the evils that my government is complicit in in the United States. 

That, all of us need not give in to despair, to not look away, to look this in the eye, and do whatever possibly we can to fight against this evil, which most Americans don’t want. Most Americans don’t want. And just say to ourselves, are we really a country that could allow the likes of Donald Trump to destroy all the things that are most precious in the country, really? Are we that kind of people? I would think that we’re better than that. 

And it’s my hope that one day we will be worthy of having said that in this moment, conscious of the accounting and the reckoning that we believe will come, that we tried to acquit ourselves better in the year to come.

Remembering the Reverend Dr. Vicki Gray: a ministry of presence

Yesterday St. Aidan's Episcopal Church in San Francisco hosted a memorial Eucharist for Vicki, one of the most versatile humans I've ever encountered. From the Naval Academy at Annapolis, through service in Vietnam, later in the US Foreign Service, then a transition, and finally the Episcopal Diaconate and building Transepiscopal, she was one caring, funny, brilliant and humane woman. 

As those who frequent this blog know, I make a practice of photographing little public political demonstrations whenever I can. I literally know of no one who I encountered more regularly at these events over the last 15 years in the San Francisco Bay Area than Vicki. Like me, even though the particular cause might seem hopeless, she believed in showing up, in witnessing, never knowing exactly what might come of it.

Here are few of these:

In 2010, standing with the hotel workers of Local 2 UniteHERE

 

At an interfaith gathering in Berkeley in 2010 on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks

 

On Vicki's home turf in the North Bay in 2015, speaking out against a risky plan to move crude oil by train through the 'hood.

Reminding the Bay Area of the needs of unhoused people as San Francisco upended itself for the Super Bowl in 2016.

Calling out Israeli atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza -- in 2018

 

There have been few like her.

Bad faith Republican politics

Stuart Stevens was a career Republican political strategist, the capstone of whose work was serving in a leading role in George Romney's 2012 campaign against Barack Obama.  In this 2021 book, he looks back at that campaign, and his lifelong political orientation and concludes It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump.

He's unsparing about this conclusion; his early campaign work in the South taught him that race was the substrate of all US politics:

[I learned] a truth as basic and immutable as the fact that water freezes below thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit: race was the key in which much of American politics and certainly all southern politics was played. It was really very simple: the Democratic candidate needed 90-plus percent of black votes to win. ... Since [the 1964 Civil Rights Act] no Republican candidate has broken 17 percent with African American voters, and by 2016 only 3 percent considered themselves Republicans. ... 

... the Nixon White House had laid out the path to electoral success by maximizing white grievance and suppressing the African American vote through a combination of manipulation, lies and legal challenges. It was the road that the Republican Party took in the Trump White House. ... Race has defined the modern Republican Party.

Since the 2024 presidential election, many pundits have attempted to muddy the question of whether the Republican Party is still the overwhelmingly racist formation that Stevens describes, but the best data we have suggests that little has changed despite whatever gestures Trump and his crew make. (Take a look at the cabinet, for example; bet you can't name his HUD appointee, the usual Black slot ...)

Beyond issues of race, Stevens has plenty to denounce in the moral foundations of his former party:

• "Family values" was never a set of morals and values that the Republican Party really desired to live by ... it was just another weapon to portray those on the other side as being out of the mythical American mainstream. ...

• The professional politicization of Christianity as a right-wing force was always more about the acquisition of power than a commitment to Christianity. It was where the commercialization of Christianity meets the politicization of Christianity. ...

• The Republican Party is held aloft by a large, powerful, and ever growing industry of deceit. The purpose of much of conservative media is to lie to their audience. ...

• The most distinguishing characteristic of the current national Republican Party is cowardice. The base price of admission is a willingness to accept that an unstable pathological liar leads it and pretend otherwise. ...

All, I think, commonplace understandings four years on from the publication of this book and among the folks to whom I relate personally here on the Left Coast.

What I found more interesting in this book than Stevens' denunciation of Republican orthodoxies were the moments when he delves into the contradictions that can be experienced by a political consultant or advisor. This is something of which I have some 30 years experience in and around campaigns, some of which I had some influence in. In such a position, your job is to win ... not necessarily to be onboard with all the policy implications. 

For example, Stevens writes:

When [Republican Pennsylvania Congressman] Tom Ridge [on the eve of his campaign for governor] was facing a decision on how to vote on the 1994 assault weapons ban, I'd like to say I urged him to vote for the ban ... I didn't, nor did I advise him to vote against it. I never thought my role was to remind clients of deeply held beliefs. ... I cared about one thing -- winning -- and had every reason to believe it would mean we'd lose.

I get this. I can't say I ever differed from a plausible candidate I was working for on a matter of such consequence, though I'm not sure about that. But I certainly worked at least one campaign without any belief that my candidate would be a net gain to city and society if we won; I wanted the experience of working in a well-funded operation of a particular sort in order to increase my campaign skills, win or lose. That campaign work was about me, not the candidate. Such is extremely common among political operatives, however little we admit this to ourselves.

Stevens' book retained its interest to me, even though in the current Trump regime, it reads a little dated. If interested in what a good man learned that led him away from his previous political positioning, I highly recommend this one.

Friday cat blogging

In the competition for seating space on the couch, Mio gets his share ... and more. And he's not even the fierce one in the household.

Reality animates fury ...

Erudite Partner's latest article for TomDispatch is online today.

Going Backwards on Rights with Trump
Or Just Around in Circles? 

Warning: dangers in the mirror are often closer than they may appear. In other words, the next few paragraphs may seem to be hyperbole but are, in fact, expressions of reality (animated by a cold fury).

On September 8, 2025, the Supreme Court did its best to murder what’s left of civil rights in this country. As Charlie Savage of the New York Times reported, in an unsigned 6-3 ruling, it overturned a lower court’s order forbidding ICE and the Border Patrol in Los Angeles from stopping, interrogating, and detaining people based on any of four factors: “apparent race or ethnicity; the fact that they speak English with an accent or speak Spanish; their presence at particular locations like farms or pickup sites for day laborers; and the type of work they do.”

Those six conservative justices might as well have stood in front of the court and set fire to the 1964 Civil Rights Act ...

Martin Luther King looks on as President Lyndon Johnson signs the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

At one point in her youth, the E.P. thought about becoming a lawyer. She decided she had better things to do with her life, but she did, much later, become a genuine expert on the development of the international law which outlaws torture. And she knows whereof she speaks when she eviscerates the lawlessness of the Trump regime. 

Read it all here.