GftNC
So much is happening in the world, and with (as Tina Brown called him) a berserk brontosaurus in the White House, the topics of possible interest seem endless. The Florida election after which Mar-a-Lago and Trump are now represented by a Democrat? The insider betting on the timing of US military (and PR) actions? The incomprehensible (/s) fact that the state most benefitting from the current situation is Putin’s Russia?
Open Thread, as I mentioned
Not excluding, of course, anything non-political or (unlikely but desirable) joy inducing…
Granddaughters #2 and #3 slept over Sunday night and we did odd things on Monday.
Tuesday I got a bicycle ride in before it got too hot. It’s March and I’m at the north end of the Colorado Front Range urban corridor. Writing that first sentence just seems so wrong. My endurance held up better this time out. It takes me a disturbingly long time to grow replacement red blood cells after a donation these days.
At Polymarket you can buy a $1 payout on a yes answer to the question “Will the US officially declare war on Iran by Dec 31, 2026?” for nine cents. The resolution explanation states that they mean Congress passes a declaration of war. People are apparently ignorant of history: the last time Congress officially declared war was in 1942.
The USS Tripoli and her 2,500 marines ought to be getting close to the Persian Gulf about now.
Then there’s massive trades in things like oil futures. One was made 15 minutes before a Trump announcement on the war, which substantially moved the markets. I doubt the administration will allow an investigation into which insider made the $500,000,000+ profit. But that it was insider trading seems fairly certain.
Bing Videos Pritzker’s commencement speech during which he explains contemporary Republicanism as the primitive cave person part of the brain–the fear/distrust of the unfamiliar–and advocates for the more advanced part of the brain where curiosity, empathy, and tolerance reside. Main points: Don’t be stupid. Don’t be cruel. The kindest person in the room is usually the smartest. Actively develop your capacity to overcome distrust and engage in life from the standpoint of empathy and curiosity. I think it’s the best analysis of our current state of political life that I have heard.
And more good news for Big Oil
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-admin-using-tax-dollars-to-pay-foreign-company-to-scrap-u-s-wind-farm-projects
Now Americans can also get their cancer again from traditional sources, not the woke new one from creaking windmills.
Michael Cain – Tuesday I got a bicycle ride in before it got too hot. It’s March and I’m at the north end of the Colorado Front Range urban corridor. Writing that first sentence just seems so wrong. My endurance held up better this time out. It takes me a disturbingly long time to grow replacement red blood cells after a donation these days.
Oh, lord. The conditions for spring/summer are looking more than a bit dire at the moment for a lot of the US West. The Colorado River is in serious danger.
We’ve been keeping an eye on the Colorado Springs and Denver housing markets in case we have to relocate to help care for my wife’s elderly parents. It looks to me like the economic chaos being sown by King Leer has prices coming down a bit. I would not be surprised to see another bubble pop in the near future. That might open up some possibilities for us.
Even so, though, I worry about the state of the climate and the drought and wildfire risk. The flash fire in Superior a couple years back really gave me pause.
…but since you mention bicycles… I’ve put just under 2k miles on my eMTB since getting it, and it was a good purchase. This is one of those light eMTBs – pedal assist only, motor cuts out at 20 mph, and it’s just enough assist the way that I run it to allow me to get a little more riding in each morning before I have to teach. The extra really does make a difference. I’ve recently completed a trail on my amish bike that I could never get more than a couple hundred yards up the main 1.25 mile climb before the eMTB. Made it the whole way this last time with only two short hike-a-bike sections of about 15 meters where the trail was too washed out to get any traction. Feeling pretty good about that.
You might someday see robot bikes on your trails.
“Experienced human cyclists can perform a wide range of maneuvers and acrobatics while riding their bicycle, from balancing in place to riding on a single wheel or hopping over obstacles. Reproducing these agile maneuvers in two-wheeled robots could open new opportunities both for entertainment or robot sports and for the completion of complex missions in rough terrain.”
A bicycle robot that can drive fast and jump over obstacles
Thanks for posting the open thread, When I first went to Vietnam, I was very worried about how I, first as an American and then as a Japanese American, would be viewed, but I was pretty surprised at how well I was received. Part of it was a generational shift, but another part was that Vietnamese felt they won the war and didn’t think rubbing anyone’s nose in it would be valuable. With Iran, it seems clear that Iran has won, but unfortunately they are not going to be as magnanimous in victory.
cf https://www.npr.org/2026/03/25/nx-s1-5760675/iran-war-military-deployment
Iranian officials have insisted they are not negotiating with the U.S., saying the countries have only exchanged messages via regional intermediaries.
Iranian military spokesperson Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari suggested “Have your internal conflicts reached the point of you negotiating with yourselves?”
Ouch!
Jamelle Bouie in today’s NYT, headlined Trump Cannot See the Opposition is Real:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/opinion/trump-iran-opposition-solipsism.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WFA.6jZA.46RuWWcq2VFn&smid=url-share
You can tell it’s coming to the end of the month and I still have gift articles to share! An interesting piece on how justifying a war against Muslim nations often involves rationales that it will improve the lives and rights of women. I have confessed here before that this was one of the reasons that I supported the war in Afghanistan after 9/11, in addition to the fact that the laws of war permitted it because Mullah Omar was sheltering Osama Bin Laden. By the time Bush et al moved on to Iraq, I had learnt better:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/opinion/iranian-women-america-israel-bombing.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WFA.7zW-.hZBPL8bbEZu4&smid=url-share
Why would anyone bother to negotiate with someone who has repeatedly demonstrated that he will renege on any and every agreement? The only reason I can think of is to stall and buy time. (Rather like Ukraine finds itself forced to do.)
I suppose it’s a variant of getting paid upfront. Which is, and always has been, the only way to do business with Trump or any organization that he runs. Including, these days, the United States of America. Alas.
Here’s what I think is a cogent summary of where Trump’s War in Iran is.
https://acoup.blog/2026/03/25/miscellanea-the-war-in-iran/
A particularly noteworthy (hardly novel, but noteworthy nonetheless) line: it is not possible for both sides in a war to win. But it is entirely possible for both sides to lose.
Which looks to be where we are now. And working hard to increase the size of the loss. For ourselves.
Also, one should keep in mind that the Iranians and the US were sitting at the negotiating table in Geneva when Trump decided to attack them jointly with Israel. According to the Omani foreign minister, who doesn’t have any interest in spinning things either way, they were close to reaching a deal. That was less than a month ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/19/us-lost-control-of-its-own-foreign-policy-oman-foreign-minister
With Iran, Trump is in an escalation trap. Next, boots on the ground.
It is not possible for both sides in a war to win. But it is entirely possible for both sides to lose.
It’s normal for both sides to lose. The only proper reason to have a war is that the alternative is worse.
Democracies get into wars much more often than they should, because their leaders suppose, with some reason, that it will boost their popularity.
Frederick the Great stated that a war should be conducted in a way that the subjects do not even notice that their sovereign is at war.
Not that he himself achieved that most of the time, although he came close with the so-called potato war that saw not a single battle, only maneuver, and ended with the status quo ante (which from his POV was a victory since that had been his goal).
The essence of the trap is, militarily, he can’t succeed. (And he’s burned all the bridges that might have led to a diplomatic solution.) But psychologically, he can’t accept failure.
So the question becomes: how far will he have escalated by the time he leaves office? Even
ifwhen the economy has tanked to the point that his toadies can no longer hide the evidence from him, will he stop digging?Sorry, I posted this on the wrong thread:
Bette Midler adapts Woody Guthrie to meet the present moment
https://x.com/meidastouch/status/2036946219101307129?s=43&t=MgL1AWYxk0jrswEhQ3Zjxg
How far?
Our imaginations are not capacious enough to reckon with these genocidal conservative movement MAGA Christian all-American bacteria.
All of his enemies, domestic and abroad, are being offered the same “Deal”: Asslicking obeisance or the genocidal boot of savage violence, ordained by their vermin End-Times God.
Civil War across the “Homeland” and Nuclear War across the globe.
He wants his “Brand” on all of it and his mug appearing in every nuclear mushroom cloud.
The Civil War here will include nuclear strikes on blue states and cities by our Department of War Worldwide Wrestling Federation freaks.
These monsters are not just fucking around.
I’m trying to think of more joyful offerings but all I can come up with is that Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, genocide sweepstakes winners like Genghis Khan, and the trenches at Verdun and Gettysburg will appear as meager historical curiosities when these subhumans get done with us.
The Iranian Mullahs and our own Christian mullahs, and now Israeli leadership, live by the worst murderous passages of their respective holy books.
They smile like manic sadistic ax-murdering realtors as they tell us daily our bloody fates.
nous — The Colorado River is in serious danger.
This month the Bureau of Reclamation issued a new forecast for the water level at the Glen Canyon Dam. Under the “most probable” scenario the level drops below minimum power pool in December. Under the “minimum probable” scenario it reaches that level in August. For the last couple of years, reality has tracked closer to the minimum probable scenario. If the water level is below minimum power pool, the dam can’t generate electricity. Glen Canyon isn’t an enormous source of power. Its face plate capacity is 1.3 GW, but it’s utility factor is only 41%. OTOH, it is a large part of the regional grid’s spinning reserve, and provides a lot of frequency control fine tuning.
The USS Tripoli and her 2,500 marines ought to be getting close to the Persian Gulf about now.
As of Monday, Chinese commercial satellite images showed the Tripoli moored at Diego Garcia. Amateur analysts suggest the reason is likely to top off fuel and food supplies before heading towards the Hormuz area.
I’m trying to think of more joyful offerings but all I can come up with is that Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, genocide sweepstakes winners like Genghis Khan, and the trenches at Verdun and Gettysburg will appear as meager historical curiosities when these subhumans get done with us.
nooneithinkisinmytree, you are the master of understatement. And I thought MAGA was a mind virus, not a bacteria?
Pritzker’s commencement speech during which he explains contemporary Republicanism as the primitive cave person part of the brain . . . Don’t be stupid. Don’t be cruel. The kindest person in the room is usually the smartest .. .
Wonkie, I’m not sure self-congratulatory descriptions like this help much. Just sayin.’
wjca, I appreciated the article. More balanced than the author’s politics suggest. Some wrong-headed thinking in several places, IMHO, but lots there to check my own opinions. I don’t think presenting an existential threat to the country is the measure of taking military action. I’m good if it’s existential to enough of us. Enough enhanced uranium for 11 bombs is sufficient. Also, makes more sense to me to wait for the original planned five weeks before saying it’s all a failure. We are getting close to that, but still. I do have concerns as the author does (and CharlesWT) that we are in an escalation trap.
bc, serious question: what do you think MAGA is?