Like, A Real Trojan Horse

Ukraine's Drones, CBO Score, & Light Has Dawned

Dear Friends,

Whew! I have finally come up for air. I finished writing a lengthy somewhat academic essay relating to Cornelius Van Til’s apologetic method and, finding that it is Quarter Inch day, I am looking around trying to figure out what is going on in the world and whether I have any comment. I’ll let you know when or where or how that essay is going to be published, but for now I suspect today’s missive will be on the brief side.

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One of the few things that has broken through my media blackout is the news that Ukraine’s intelligence services pulled off one of the most stunning Trojan Horse attacks of all time. No, by “Trojan Horse” attack I do not mean a cyberattack using computer viruses called Trojan Horses. I mean a literal Trojan Horse attack—as in, Troy, Battle of; Iliad, Homer.

They built shipping containers with automatic roofs that would open remotely. They put into these containers 117 specialized drones they had developed. They “mailed” this containers into Russia, some thousands of miles away. Presumably these containers were on the back of Russian trucks and driven by Russian drivers. The containers made their way to the vicinity of a number of air bases housing Russia’s long-range strategic bombers. One of these bases borders Finland; another is in Siberia. This audacious plan covered the Asian continent, essentially.

On the signal, the roofs opened, the drones fired up, and over a hundred Ukrainian “pilots” in VR goggles played a first-person video game; they flew the drones to the bases, found the strategic bombers, aimed for the vital spot, and kamikaze’d their way to destroying them.

Reports are that Russia lost 41 of their long-range strategic bombers—the loss of the TU-95 aircraft represents a 34% loss of the entire fleet. Of note: these bombers are critical to Russia’s own nuclear deterrent and these bombers are no longer manufactured and cannot be easily replaced.

People keep saying Ukraine cannot “win,” but they keep on anyway. And have, ever since those same people said it on Day 1 of this three-year war. They have certainly demonstrated that with assistance of materiel and expertise, they can keep taking it to their invaders with remarkable sophistication and courage. There is literally no reason to just allow Vladimir Putin a victory as long as these people are willing to keep fighting him.

Apparently, Volodomyr Zelenskyy did have some “cards” to play.

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The Congressional Budget Office has finally scored the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” It adds only $2.4 Trillion to the debt. Glad we’ve finally got that under control. If you are interested in real ideas about what to do about government spending and debt, I commend to you David Bahnsen’s Dividend Cafe last Friday. He shares everything he would do in “Dave Land,” and it is lamentable that, for now, it remains Fantasy Land.

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I plan to write something soon, maybe even Friday, on Artificial Intelligence, as my research assistant “Claude” has been making the news. His latest update makes him very scary, if reports are to be believed. But here’s just a little bit of how helpful Claude can be.

I was using a quote from Clement of Alexandria that I just love: