Same. Stuck as straw boss for much of my adult life. Peace and quiet are the goal, but the path is through the chaos of people and their personal, professional, and recreational problems.
Taken me 69 years to learn to sit on my hands and not look up least anyone gets any ideas. Even this doesn’t work. Tried not showing up. That failed too. Sigh. Sometimes I don’t have to be the one volunteering. I get nominated volunteered. Voluntold, I think it is called.
During the last 15 years of the Reader’s career, he was often voluntold by senior management to go fix something that, if left to the middle management and its processes, would take too long. The Reader ran one of these with 3 schedules; the one we told the customer, the one he told the senior executive, and the one he executed. Said senior executive was a little surprised when the Reader showed up in his office a few days before Christmas break and informed him it was done.
In some ways, and if they’ve got the right mindset and skillset, introverts as project leads might be the best way to ensure the project gets done quickly and well.
Because the introvert will come at it with the mindset of “the sooner we get this DONE and get it done RIGHT, the sooner I can go back to my nice, quiet(ish) cubical / office and not have to deal with these people for a while.”
Bingo! Like “Let’s put the person who is always worried about things that might not happen in charge of emergency preparedness.” Because when SHTF, he/she/it is prepared and ready to deal with it, having gamed out “What if” in several possible cases. (Or “How to end up in charge of everyone else during a tornado emergency at a University Library one night even though you are not security or an employee.”)
Sounds like “Rah rah ree, Kick ’em in the knee. Rah rah rawls, kick them in the other knee.”
Taking out the main oil export terminal is a nice touch, as is the “Get the leadership together for an emergency meeting, then bomb the shit out of the venue.”
It sounds like the U.S. Cyber Command folks finally got to go fully on the offensive. They were restricted to playing defense-only for a long time, and then offensive efforts were kept small and only allowed under very restricted ROE, so this appears to be the first “yeah, let them loose” western cyber offensive.
The Iranian hostage crisis was among the first pieces of actual news I remember.
Then, they were a trifle wiser in that day. “What’s flat and glows in the dark? Iran, 24 hours after Reagan is inaugurated” — and so they were released hours before.
My drill sergeant at Army basic training, who among other things happened to have a Master’s degree in international politics, called Reagan’s election to a tee and the hostage release scenario almost to the minute.
I’ve fallen down a slight rabbit hole of gossip about Kingdom Hearts IV. Might come out this year, but the information suggesting that is years old, and other anecdotes about indicators suggest probably not before October. You can buy quite a lot of KH content on steam for about a hundred bucks, but if somebody did not already know that they almost certainly do not want to.
Like how there were months of build up, and careful waiting for Maduro? Exactly the same here.
Lot of regime figures concentrated in the intel, then strike. IT will be awhile before mere gossip people like me have reliable sourcing confirming exactly whom.
We have two carriers staged there, and there is almost certainly a longer game in play from here on, but maybe not an occupation.
Maduro and Vennyland had a much longer game that followed with Russian tankers. Iran was supplying drones to Russia, and we probably would not have evacuated our State personal from Israel if we had no concerns about Iranian regional strikes.
Okay, checking the Pizza intel site. Apparently these were Israeli strikes, and Iran has struck back some? It is a joint US-Israel op? Trump is discussing more than one off ramp for the US.
The Aggressor Nation Circle Trigon Party figure Leyton is of course condemning the attacks, as one would expect.
Iranians seem to have hit Dubai, UAE and in Qatar, Doha.
US has confirmed that it committed drones of its own to strikes on/against Iran.
Fairly busy, will take a while to settle out, but maybe following more closely is not going to expose information with additional interesting implications.
Reporting is they changed the timing of the whole shebang to start the festivities in daylight on Shabbat during Ramadan based on humint on who was attending that meeting, to specifically get added to its agenda PowerPoint. Festivities that first day are being reported as ~900 U.S. strikes plus about half again that by the IAF.
There are confirmations from multiple continents this afternoon saying the supreme leader is now getting his raisins, along with a bunch of the Iranian chain of command. The Iranians are insisting he’s feeling much better.
And in the other direction various ballistic and shahed-class explody bits made it past SAM layers and scored hits on stuff at U.S. bases in the gulf region, with no word on U.S. casualties. There have been launches towards Israel as well because of course, but I have not seen word on any impacts there.
They got Khamenei, they also got most of the military high command and might have got Khamenei’s son who was the obvious successor. We seem to have bombed Kharg Island, which is a big deal since all their oil exports go through there and everyone’s been careful to leave it alone until now. CHina has to be defecating just about now. First Venezuela no may be Iran. THe geopolitical implications of the US being a net exporter of oil under Trump, not Biden note, continue to play out. WE don’t need the oil to flow, China does. TEe hee.
I saw the Kharg island strike took out is power, so no pumping until that gets repaired. That is a massive income hit, as they can’t play games around sanctions for hard currency if they can’t even pump the oil.
watch the oil price. So far it isn’t moving in the futures much, only up a 2.5% , however, there’s a lot of volume in the options market with strikes over $100 per barrel where they are preparing for possible regime collapse. Speculation and hedging, both,
I still have to, on occasion. Older I get, less I sleep it seems. Thing is, if I leave it for someone else, sure as Himself made little green toads, there will be thrice as much to fix when I return to task again. It ain’t pretty and it sure as sh!t stinks ain’t fun. But it gets the job done.
Less sleep yes. Or rather more, and longer, naps. But I still crash between 9 and midnight. Then I’ll be up every two to three hours. That doesn’t count the micro flip sides. Our son when he was a toddler comes by the toddler top syndrome honestly. I don’t flip head to toe, just from one side to another, back and forth, like he did. (I swear it is amazing how much of the king-size bed an infant and toddler can take up. Worse than the cats or dog.)
I’m defective. I never could pull all-nighters. There isn’t enough coffee, or caffeine (since I’m late to the coffee drinking club). Not gotten better either.
TRagically, the Iranian invasion scheme has aspects too nuanced or uncertain for memeing, so we only have a few memes now, and probably none when the meme post was compiled.
Anyway, the fact that we were again inside internal communications, and again waited until exactly the people we needed were appropriately vulnerable has got to raise fears in the governments of 150 to 200 nations.
Will have a ton of memes for next week, I’m sure.
It is possible for me to have a transwoman Latinx friend who is an officer in CBP. (1) Should we be worried that he might shoot a bunch of people who don’t have it coming to them?
My distant internet contact who was a Republican activist who quit politics, had his book on sale to celebrate the US hockey victory. (It was free through yesterday.) I figure the guy is practically a Democrat, and probably a fairly moderate middle of the road position. So I would consider a diagnostic indicator about how few Americans are having a sad over the men’s hockey team.
Alexandria Cortez is a genius, probably one of the smartest women in the squad. I think she should go get her PhD and try to get a faculty position. Very deserving. Many women’s studies programs would be illuminated by her brilliance.
(In completely unrelated news, I’ve basically become convinced that universities should not exist. My vision is that each academic field has separate schools, and that BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD programs be replaced by alternative credentialing schemes. Letting the Women’s studies programs be independent of the mathematics programs in going bankrupt or staying in business would basically sidestep the question of whether state governments should be firing tenured faculty to salvage the ‘good’ programs.)
(1) (There are a number of jokes to be told about this hypothetical. One is whether I am capable of having friends. :D )
Memes about Iran are already showing up on X. IIRC, one of them was the classic “Average Iranian citizen being told what to think by an American lefty.”
Yes. McCain should be grinning ear to ear. “I told you!!!!” Whether he would have done anything about Iran? IDK OTOH DJT is creating openings, through his team and his military (it sure isn’t Obama or Biden military).
Bonus. Iran is indiscriminate on who is getting hit back. UAE and all that money? Seriously?
If this was an intended attack against neighboring countries, then this was a massive miscalculation.
One month ago Saudi Arabia was Iran’s diplomatic shield in the Gulf. The kingdom that brokered the 2023 rapprochement with Tehran. The country that told Washington it would not participate. The monarchy that built its entire post-Vision 2030 foreign policy on balancing between Washington and Tehran without choosing. Iran forced the choice this morning by firing missiles at Riyadh.
The Saudi capital was attacked. The kingdom that spent three years rebuilding ties with Tehran just had Iranian ballistic missiles in its airspace. The country that told America it would stay neutral just watched its sovereignty violated by the same regime it was trying to protect from American strikes.
Those strikes were so bonehead stupid, it makes me wonder if the people who proposed it were a) so confidant and arrogant that their attacks would start WW3 and push Allah into revealing the “hidden iman”, or b) somebody who really wanted to see the mullahs crash and burn pushed this.
I’m leaning more towards Option A. If B is true, our grandchildren might learn about it.
One wonders if any regime survivors (those who aren’t already being hunted down in retaliation) are contemplating the wisdom of telling Allah what to do. The equivalence of God to Allah will be left as an exercise for the reader.
Especially when dealing with enemies who have made the war crime of Perfidy, concealing military assets under civilian locations protected from attack, a central tactic.
Nah, I think it was putting a presence inside the countries that did it. Trump is probably hoping that the Iranian citizens will resolve things themselves once the government has been neutralized. No nation-building needed, and no need for a physical presence inside the country (other than our re-opened embassy, of course).
He’d likely hate it because it’s Trump doing it, sadly.
Also, McCain probably would have wanted to nation build afterwards. I suspect part of the reason Trump is going so far in on this is because he believes boots on the ground won’t be needed. Instead, the hope is that the Iranians themselves (possibly led by the Shan, possibly not) can get their country up and running without requiring a physical US presence in its borders.
Trump’s point is “We cleared out the trash. Now it is your turn. Do not get us wrong. We will take out the trash as many times as we must. We’d prefer one and done. Do not make us come back. You’re Welcome.”
The “one clever trick” that makes this a nonevent in the oil markets compared to what it would have been under Maverick is the ramp in U.S. oil production, even with the pause and decline during the Autopen Interregnum. Note, however, that while oils is sorta fungible, exports from the U.S. to the Middle Kingdom to replace what they were getting through Kharg are not exactly likely.
First thing that came to mind. ‘Sides, I rather like “Barbara Ann”. ‘Twas all over Top 40 radio in the day. Kind of fun to see old hits turned into memes.
(Hmm, I’m not great [Narrator voice–make that not good] at song parody, but I’d like to borrow Jan and Dean’s “Dead Man’s Curve” and see what I can do.)
Fun fact: “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb! Bomb, Bomb Iran!” was first performed in ~1979 by the satirical group “The Capitol Steps” — aired by (and IIRC affiliated with)…
California apparently requires age verification for creating accounts on operating systems.
I wonder if we are about two years out from Preston Byrne representing Linux From Scratch, and getting a federal shield law passed that lets people sue the Californian legislature for infringing speech.
I think the honor system should be sufficient for ensuring compliance with this sort of legislative dictate. I think if a California boy can show me that he can obtain a mail in ballot for the name of Twink McBogusface, that is sufficient for me to consider him an adult with that name for this specific and narrow task. Anyway, it would be sufficient to have a checkbox that indicates ‘if I am a californian, I have used the post office to confirm my age’.
The psychopathic meddlers that go into government will always treat people like property, and fail to recognize people’s rights to their own property and to use it as they please, without permission from the would-be ruling elite.
I really, really hope that Fedora/Red Hat does not cave to this codswallop, but if they do, there are many, many distros out there to choose from.
When they name a rule after you … Or two employee generations later, they still answer questions with, “Let me tell you about Steve, and why we don’t have …”
The Reader once had an internal accounting rule named after him. After the meeting with Accounting, where the Reader was suitably chastised, the Reader’s boss left the meeting with him and said ‘good job’.
Long before I started working at the Concord Pavilion, headliner Whitney Houston cancelled her show, the day of.
We had a radio call, “Code Whitney” for such events. Our radios did not use earpieces, so all communications were audible to nearby patrons.
Similarly, when we had snakes in the restrooms, the radio call was for ‘puppies’. One of our supervisors had been a vet tech, and knew how to handle them.
For the second on “if nobody could lie,” I would put “journalism” as a potential first collapsing industry as well.
Incidentally, for “what superpower would you like?” I have the simple but complicated-sounding “Making people incapable of deception towards or about those to whom they have no empathy.” You can lie with the truth. And if you have empathy towards someone, a little kind deception can go a long way. (“You got this!” when said person is a trembling nervous wreck, for example.)
Most people say “but that’s so boring!” and it’s really, really not. Imagine the press conferences.
That one about introverts hurts, man. I want to help (and I write things down as I learn them,) and so somehow I’ve been shanghaied into being the instructor for my martial arts class (my Sensei just got out of the hospital – and he almost didn’t make it). Now, I guess I’M the Sensei. Bleah. Indeed, I could be described as ‘introvirtuous’.
The Reader strongly identifies with introvirtuous.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Same. Stuck as straw boss for much of my adult life. Peace and quiet are the goal, but the path is through the chaos of people and their personal, professional, and recreational problems.
LikeLike
Yep, on more than one occasion. Served as president of a club when the founder rage quit. Did way too much for a church that was on life support.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“I volunteered for WHAT?!?!?” should be a meme.
Taken me 69 years to learn to sit on my hands and not look up least anyone gets any ideas. Even this doesn’t work. Tried not showing up. That failed too. Sigh. Sometimes I don’t have to be the one volunteering. I get nominated volunteered. Voluntold, I think it is called.
LikeLiked by 1 person
During the last 15 years of the Reader’s career, he was often voluntold by senior management to go fix something that, if left to the middle management and its processes, would take too long. The Reader ran one of these with 3 schedules; the one we told the customer, the one he told the senior executive, and the one he executed. Said senior executive was a little surprised when the Reader showed up in his office a few days before Christmas break and informed him it was done.
LikeLike
Had a thought on this one…
In some ways, and if they’ve got the right mindset and skillset, introverts as project leads might be the best way to ensure the project gets done quickly and well.
Because the introvert will come at it with the mindset of “the sooner we get this DONE and get it done RIGHT, the sooner I can go back to my nice, quiet(ish) cubical / office and not have to deal with these people for a while.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bingo! Like “Let’s put the person who is always worried about things that might not happen in charge of emergency preparedness.” Because when SHTF, he/she/it is prepared and ready to deal with it, having gamed out “What if” in several possible cases. (Or “How to end up in charge of everyone else during a tornado emergency at a University Library one night even though you are not security or an employee.”)
LikeLiked by 3 people
Funny you should mention a large chunk of my IT career…..
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh yes, me too. “The sooner this is taken care of, the sooner I can go back to hiding in my nice, quiet, solitary place, doing my thing.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kee-RIMINY! Sorry, Sarah! I tried! WPDEEEEEEEEEEE!
LikeLike
No kidding. That meme NAILED it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
FYI the balloon has gone up re Iran.
LikeLike
So folks have had enough of their crap and are flushing the ayatoilets?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds like “Rah rah ree, Kick ’em in the knee. Rah rah rawls, kick them in the other knee.”
Taking out the main oil export terminal is a nice touch, as is the “Get the leadership together for an emergency meeting, then bomb the shit out of the venue.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
It sounds like the U.S. Cyber Command folks finally got to go fully on the offensive. They were restricted to playing defense-only for a long time, and then offensive efforts were kept small and only allowed under very restricted ROE, so this appears to be the first “yeah, let them loose” western cyber offensive.
LikeLike
Teach me to go to bed and get sleep in to 7 AM. I mean really. Doesn’t DJT ever sleep?
(JIC) sarcasm
LikeLiked by 1 person
Run for president, and then you, too, can be briefed on when the fun stuff starts!
LikeLike
I learned it as “Rah rah ree, kick ‘em in the knee. Rah rah rass, kick ‘em in the other knee!” Probably a regional dialect thing. ;)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your version is what I knew in college, but I couldn’t resist. [VBEG]
LikeLike
47 years ago: Teh f#cking around starts.
Sometime around last night: The finding out starts.
LikeLiked by 3 people
The Iranian hostage crisis was among the first pieces of actual news I remember.
Then, they were a trifle wiser in that day. “What’s flat and glows in the dark? Iran, 24 hours after Reagan is inaugurated” — and so they were released hours before.
Ah, well. Doing it now is well.
LikeLike
My drill sergeant at Army basic training, who among other things happened to have a Master’s degree in international politics, called Reagan’s election to a tee and the hostage release scenario almost to the minute.
LikeLike
I’m at a con. You must say more.
LikeLike
I’ve fallen down a slight rabbit hole of gossip about Kingdom Hearts IV. Might come out this year, but the information suggesting that is years old, and other anecdotes about indicators suggest probably not before October. You can buy quite a lot of KH content on steam for about a hundred bucks, but if somebody did not already know that they almost certainly do not want to.
Like how there were months of build up, and careful waiting for Maduro? Exactly the same here.
Lot of regime figures concentrated in the intel, then strike. IT will be awhile before mere gossip people like me have reliable sourcing confirming exactly whom.
We have two carriers staged there, and there is almost certainly a longer game in play from here on, but maybe not an occupation.
Maduro and Vennyland had a much longer game that followed with Russian tankers. Iran was supplying drones to Russia, and we probably would not have evacuated our State personal from Israel if we had no concerns about Iranian regional strikes.
Okay, checking the Pizza intel site. Apparently these were Israeli strikes, and Iran has struck back some? It is a joint US-Israel op? Trump is discussing more than one off ramp for the US.
The Aggressor Nation Circle Trigon Party figure Leyton is of course condemning the attacks, as one would expect.
In general, too soon to tell.
LikeLike
Iranians seem to have hit Dubai, UAE and in Qatar, Doha.
US has confirmed that it committed drones of its own to strikes on/against Iran.
Fairly busy, will take a while to settle out, but maybe following more closely is not going to expose information with additional interesting implications.
LikeLike
We and the Israelis just blew up the Ayatolla and his senior minions. BOOM! Precision strike on a one-time big “secret meeting”.
He is now field testing the Eternal Barbeque Grill.
POP! Go the weasels.
A crapload of folks were just avenged.
(double Tallman salute)
“Can you hear us now?
“Yippie Kai Yay, (mumblesomething).”
LikeLike
Reporting is they changed the timing of the whole shebang to start the festivities in daylight on Shabbat during Ramadan based on humint on who was attending that meeting, to specifically get added to its agenda PowerPoint. Festivities that first day are being reported as ~900 U.S. strikes plus about half again that by the IAF.
There are confirmations from multiple continents this afternoon saying the supreme leader is now getting his raisins, along with a bunch of the Iranian chain of command. The Iranians are insisting he’s feeling much better.
And in the other direction various ballistic and shahed-class explody bits made it past SAM layers and scored hits on stuff at U.S. bases in the gulf region, with no word on U.S. casualties. There have been launches towards Israel as well because of course, but I have not seen word on any impacts there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They got Khamenei, they also got most of the military high command and might have got Khamenei’s son who was the obvious successor. We seem to have bombed Kharg Island, which is a big deal since all their oil exports go through there and everyone’s been careful to leave it alone until now. CHina has to be defecating just about now. First Venezuela no may be Iran. THe geopolitical implications of the US being a net exporter of oil under Trump, not Biden note, continue to play out. WE don’t need the oil to flow, China does. TEe hee.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I saw the Kharg island strike took out is power, so no pumping until that gets repaired. That is a massive income hit, as they can’t play games around sanctions for hard currency if they can’t even pump the oil.
LikeLike
watch the oil price. So far it isn’t moving in the futures much, only up a 2.5% , however, there’s a lot of volume in the options market with strikes over $100 per barrel where they are preparing for possible regime collapse. Speculation and hedging, both,
LikeLike
Need more coffee. ☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕☕
LikeLiked by 1 person
I need to stop sleeping. I’ll miss too many things otherwise.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lay in sufficient caffeine reserves and one can do amazing things.
LikeLike
As I get older I find I can’t pull the all-nighters I used to. Bummer.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I still have to, on occasion. Older I get, less I sleep it seems. Thing is, if I leave it for someone else, sure as Himself made little green toads, there will be thrice as much to fix when I return to task again. It ain’t pretty and it sure as sh!t stinks ain’t fun. But it gets the job done.
LikeLike
Less sleep yes. Or rather more, and longer, naps. But I still crash between 9 and midnight. Then I’ll be up every two to three hours. That doesn’t count the micro flip sides. Our son when he was a toddler comes by the toddler top syndrome honestly. I don’t flip head to toe, just from one side to another, back and forth, like he did. (I swear it is amazing how much of the king-size bed an infant and toddler can take up. Worse than the cats or dog.)
LikeLike
I’m defective. I never could pull all-nighters. There isn’t enough coffee, or caffeine (since I’m late to the coffee drinking club). Not gotten better either.
LikeLike
TRagically, the Iranian invasion scheme has aspects too nuanced or uncertain for memeing, so we only have a few memes now, and probably none when the meme post was compiled.
Anyway, the fact that we were again inside internal communications, and again waited until exactly the people we needed were appropriately vulnerable has got to raise fears in the governments of 150 to 200 nations.
Will have a ton of memes for next week, I’m sure.
It is possible for me to have a transwoman Latinx friend who is an officer in CBP. (1) Should we be worried that he might shoot a bunch of people who don’t have it coming to them?
My distant internet contact who was a Republican activist who quit politics, had his book on sale to celebrate the US hockey victory. (It was free through yesterday.) I figure the guy is practically a Democrat, and probably a fairly moderate middle of the road position. So I would consider a diagnostic indicator about how few Americans are having a sad over the men’s hockey team.
Alexandria Cortez is a genius, probably one of the smartest women in the squad. I think she should go get her PhD and try to get a faculty position. Very deserving. Many women’s studies programs would be illuminated by her brilliance.
(In completely unrelated news, I’ve basically become convinced that universities should not exist. My vision is that each academic field has separate schools, and that BA/BS, MA/MS, and PhD programs be replaced by alternative credentialing schemes. Letting the Women’s studies programs be independent of the mathematics programs in going bankrupt or staying in business would basically sidestep the question of whether state governments should be firing tenured faculty to salvage the ‘good’ programs.)
(1) (There are a number of jokes to be told about this hypothetical. One is whether I am capable of having friends. :D )
LikeLiked by 1 person
Memes about Iran are already showing up on X. IIRC, one of them was the classic “Average Iranian citizen being told what to think by an American lefty.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
I rather ,like Eric Erickson’s response to someone screaming about “This blatantly illegal war!”
“Actually, it’s not illegal, it’s only undocumented.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
LikeLiked by 1 person
I need a meme post just for the Iran strikes.
LikeLike
The ghost of John McCain smiles (from where ever he ended up).
LikeLiked by 1 person
I clicked, thought, oh yeah, I remember that spoof, and then I took a look at who had posted it.
Oh. I see.
LikeLiked by 1 person
First item I checked.
Also remember the spoof.
Yes. McCain should be grinning ear to ear. “I told you!!!!” Whether he would have done anything about Iran? IDK OTOH DJT is creating openings, through his team and his military (it sure isn’t Obama or Biden military).
Bonus. Iran is indiscriminate on who is getting hit back. UAE and all that money? Seriously?
LikeLike
This article has a pretty good breakdown. TL;DR: “Oh, no, baby, what was Iran thinking???”
https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/operation-epic-fury?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those strikes were so bonehead stupid, it makes me wonder if the people who proposed it were a) so confidant and arrogant that their attacks would start WW3 and push Allah into revealing the “hidden iman”, or b) somebody who really wanted to see the mullahs crash and burn pushed this.
I’m leaning more towards Option A. If B is true, our grandchildren might learn about it.
LikeLike
Late regime psychology gets interesting enough for A.
Seems to have been a day of set backs for the diplomatic standings of the most terrorism favoring regimes in the region.
(Saudi is also offering Pakistan some Air Force support in that conflict with the Taliban.)
LikeLike
One wonders if any regime survivors (those who aren’t already being hunted down in retaliation) are contemplating the wisdom of telling Allah what to do. The equivalence of God to Allah will be left as an exercise for the reader.
LikeLike
Hope they got all the bad guys.
Pray for the innocent. There are always collateral deaths and injuries to the undeserving.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Especially when dealing with enemies who have made the war crime of Perfidy, concealing military assets under civilian locations protected from attack, a central tactic.
LikeLike
I have a theory: John McCain was so unlikeable that his own hawkish views turned people against war.
Now that he’s deceased America has become more willing to accept some military strikes.
LikeLike
Nah, I think it was putting a presence inside the countries that did it. Trump is probably hoping that the Iranian citizens will resolve things themselves once the government has been neutralized. No nation-building needed, and no need for a physical presence inside the country (other than our re-opened embassy, of course).
LikeLike
He’d likely hate it because it’s Trump doing it, sadly.
Also, McCain probably would have wanted to nation build afterwards. I suspect part of the reason Trump is going so far in on this is because he believes boots on the ground won’t be needed. Instead, the hope is that the Iranians themselves (possibly led by the Shan, possibly not) can get their country up and running without requiring a physical US presence in its borders.
LikeLike
100%
Trump’s point is “We cleared out the trash. Now it is your turn. Do not get us wrong. We will take out the trash as many times as we must. We’d prefer one and done. Do not make us come back. You’re Welcome.”
LikeLike
The “one clever trick” that makes this a nonevent in the oil markets compared to what it would have been under Maverick is the ramp in U.S. oil production, even with the pause and decline during the Autopen Interregnum. Note, however, that while oils is sorta fungible, exports from the U.S. to the Middle Kingdom to replace what they were getting through Kharg are not exactly likely.
LikeLike
I was waiting to see if anyone posted that song. :D
LikeLike
First thing that came to mind. ‘Sides, I rather like “Barbara Ann”. ‘Twas all over Top 40 radio in the day. Kind of fun to see old hits turned into memes.
(Hmm, I’m not great [Narrator voice–make that not good] at song parody, but I’d like to borrow Jan and Dean’s “Dead Man’s Curve” and see what I can do.)
LikeLike
Fun fact: “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb! Bomb, Bomb Iran!” was first performed in ~1979 by the satirical group “The Capitol Steps” — aired by (and IIRC affiliated with)…
National Public Radio!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pretty sure Gummi worms are from the Dune universe.
LikeLiked by 2 people
How spicy are they?
LikeLike
I figure they’re from the Doon universe. (“Doon, the Dessert Planet” in the National Lampoon parody of Dune.)
LikeLike
A pest in the Bonny Doon vineyards? Alert Randall Grahm!
No, don’t – that’s the late Bonny Doon, sold off piecemeal over some years. The Popelouchum effort is smaller.
But we used to quite like the Day of the Doon parties at the Santa Cruz location; all our Cigare Volant has long been happily consumed.
LikeLike
California apparently requires age verification for creating accounts on operating systems.
I wonder if we are about two years out from Preston Byrne representing Linux From Scratch, and getting a federal shield law passed that lets people sue the Californian legislature for infringing speech.
I think the honor system should be sufficient for ensuring compliance with this sort of legislative dictate. I think if a California boy can show me that he can obtain a mail in ballot for the name of Twink McBogusface, that is sufficient for me to consider him an adult with that name for this specific and narrow task. Anyway, it would be sufficient to have a checkbox that indicates ‘if I am a californian, I have used the post office to confirm my age’.
LikeLike
Linked this article on another thread. Colorado is apparently considering a similar law, and is also stupid enough to pass it in the end.
https://www.pcgamer.com/software/operating-systems/a-new-california-law-says-all-operating-systems-including-linux-need-to-have-some-form-of-age-verification-at-account-setup/
LikeLike
Not quite – California will require age verification at the start of next year.
It’s absurd any way you look at it, but it’s not in effect quite yet.
LikeLike
I think it would be funny to roll out an age verification service for hundreds of years old vampires who are california voters.
LikeLike
The psychopathic meddlers that go into government will always treat people like property, and fail to recognize people’s rights to their own property and to use it as they please, without permission from the would-be ruling elite.
I really, really hope that Fedora/Red Hat does not cave to this codswallop, but if they do, there are many, many distros out there to choose from.
LikeLike
SFBS!
LikeLike
I can neither confirm nor deny that this Steve has been in meetings like that one….. 8-)
LikeLiked by 1 person
When they name a rule after you … Or two employee generations later, they still answer questions with, “Let me tell you about Steve, and why we don’t have …”
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Reader once had an internal accounting rule named after him. After the meeting with Accounting, where the Reader was suitably chastised, the Reader’s boss left the meeting with him and said ‘good job’.
LikeLike
Long before I started working at the Concord Pavilion, headliner Whitney Houston cancelled her show, the day of.
We had a radio call, “Code Whitney” for such events. Our radios did not use earpieces, so all communications were audible to nearby patrons.
Similarly, when we had snakes in the restrooms, the radio call was for ‘puppies’. One of our supervisors had been a vet tech, and knew how to handle them.
LikeLike
I identified strongly with the owl in the second meme, but thank you for all the laughs.
LikeLike
For the second on “if nobody could lie,” I would put “journalism” as a potential first collapsing industry as well.
Incidentally, for “what superpower would you like?” I have the simple but complicated-sounding “Making people incapable of deception towards or about those to whom they have no empathy.” You can lie with the truth. And if you have empathy towards someone, a little kind deception can go a long way. (“You got this!” when said person is a trembling nervous wreck, for example.)
Most people say “but that’s so boring!” and it’s really, really not. Imagine the press conferences.
LikeLike
Wait, they blamed that on Steve? That’s otterly ridiculous!
High voltage: Wires? I don’t need no steenkin’ wires!
Green Army man isn’t chatting up his GF, he’s calling in a tactical nuke airstrike . . .
Mediocrates: My mentor!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I SAID HOLD STILL
The perfect response
LikeLiked by 2 people
I read that one in pure unadulterated Southern good old boy voice. Complete with the extra syllables and all. “Ah SAaAid Hol’ Sti-ihl!”
LikeLike
LikeLiked by 1 person
That one about introverts hurts, man. I want to help (and I write things down as I learn them,) and so somehow I’ve been shanghaied into being the instructor for my martial arts class (my Sensei just got out of the hospital – and he almost didn’t make it). Now, I guess I’M the Sensei. Bleah. Indeed, I could be described as ‘introvirtuous’.
LikeLike
You already knew this, but you never realize how much you don’t know until you try to teach something to someone else.
So, you go back and think about it in new ways – good for your own development.
LikeLike
LikeLiked by 3 people
LikeLiked by 1 person
Look at Hitlery, yanking on Epstein’s tie and laughing. 🤣
LikeLike
That “How the F did I get this scratch” looks like a cat scratch. 😧
LikeLike
I’ve found scratches like that with no contact with cats.
LikeLike
It looks like cat scratches I’ve gotten.
———————————
At my house, the ‘things that go bump in the night’ are cats.
LikeLike