The War Zone.

The U.S. Navy is not yet ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, but it will happen. This is the synopsis provided by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in an interview with CNBC. The development comes as Iran continues to pummel international shipping in and around the critical channel, which the new Iranian supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vows to keep closed.

“It’ll happen relatively soon, but it can’t happen now,” Wright said, of the planned naval escort mission. “We’re simply not ready. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities.” Wright added that the Navy should be able to escort tankers through the strait by the end of this month.

The War Zone.

KC-135 Stratotanker that was taking part in Operation Epic Fury has crashed in Iraq, U.S. Central Command announced.

“U.S. Central Command is aware of the loss of a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft,” the command stated Thursday afternoon in a media release. “The incident occurred in friendly airspace during Operation Epic Fury, and rescue efforts are ongoing. Two aircraft were involved in the incident. One of the aircraft went down in western Iraq, and the second landed safely.”

“This was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” the CENTCOM statement added. “More information will be made available as the situation develops. We ask for continued patience to gather additional details and provide clarity for the families of service members.”

I’m wondering how much this may be due to the different methods used by the Navy and Air Force in airborne refueling operations.

The War Zone.

The U.S. Navy has conducted at least one new round of live-fire tests of its prototype electromagnetic railgun at the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico. The service had shelved its railgun effort in the early 2020s, at least publicly, after work that had shown promise ran into technical hurdles. A railgun is now set to be a key feature on the future Trump class “battleships.”

A brief mention of the new railgun testing is included in a document highlighting achievements by the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) in 2025. NSWC PHD, which is part of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), primarily operates from Port Hueneme in California, but it also maintains a detachment at White Sands. The U.S. Army manages the WSMR, which other branches of the U.S. military also use for a wide variety of research and development and test and evaluation activities.

The “WSD [White Sands Detachment] tested a railgun to collect critical information about high-velocity firing during a three-day campaign at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico,” the year-in-review document says. “The testing in February [2025] was a joint effort between WSD and NSWC Dahlgren Division in Virginia and conducted for Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA)’s Joint Hypersonics Transition Office.”

The present situation of using million-dollar missiles to try to take out thousand-dollar drones puts this, and directed-energy weapons, back on the front burner.

Perhaps we actually need a state of constant war to ensure that our military services can periodically rid themselves of the creeping rot of bureaucracy and political fashion that seem to grow like black mold during periods of peace.

Watch it.

ESysman of the Yacht Report lays it out for you.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Read it.

The IRS already has your W-2s, your 1099s, your brokerage statements. It knows the tax rules. For most Americans, the government could calculate their tax bill, send them a pre-filled return, and let them approve or dispute the result. This is how it works in the UK, Japan, Germany, and dozens of other countries. The reason it doesn’t work that way here is that Intuit and H&R Block have spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars ensuring it doesn’t. Their business model depends on tax filing being a problem Americans need help solving. So they lobby against pre-filled returns, against Direct File, against anything that would make their products unnecessary. They have succeeded. Americans collectively spend around 6 billion hours per year on tax compliance. TurboTax is a solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist.

The IRS already offers a partial service: If you fill out all of the forms except for the computation of tax and just leave that section of the return blank, they will figure out how much tax they think you owe and send you a bill. At the very least, this is a way to postpone when you have to pay and ensures they won’t be second-guessing your own computation.

Read it.

In humans, prolonged contraction of the ciliary and medial rectus muscles during close reading may result in eye strain. On the other hand, eye strain is not likely to occur if the ciliary and medial rectus muscles do not contract during close reading.

The Near-Eye Display (NED)[1] augmented reality smart glasses (AR glasses) sit approximately 2 cm in front of the eye and project computer generated images/information (CGIs) directly onto the retina, thus providing a passive way for the eyes to acquire information.

ScienceAlert.

Most people know only two things about the appendix: You don’t need it – and if it bursts, you need surgery fast.

That basic story traces back at least to Charles Darwin, the English naturalist who developed the theory of natural selection. In The Descent of Man, he described the appendix as a vestige: a leftover from plant-eating ancestors with larger digestive organs.

For more than a century, that interpretation shaped both textbook and casual medical wisdom.

But the evolutionary story of the appendix turns out to be much more complicated.

The Telegraph (UK).

Bill Clinton said there was “credible evidence” that Gerry Adams was involved at “the highest level” in the IRA in the 1990s, the High Court has heard.

As US president, Mr Clinton supported a decision to block Mr Adams from visiting America in 1993, after the FBI and US state department concluded he had “engaged in terrorist activity”.

But the following year, Mr Clinton allowed Mr Adams a 48-hour visa to the US.

Who doesn’t know that Gerry Adams was a terrorist?

The Telegraph (UK).

Undercover US agents bought a weapon from a Russian criminal gang to carry out tests on the cause of Havana Syndrome, it has been claimed.

Officials from the US department of homeland security spent millions of dollars on the device that produces “pulsed radio waves”.

The US then covered up the findings after successful tests on rats and sheep, an anonymous official has claimed in an interview with 60 Minutes.

The Telegraph (UK).

The fate of one of Iran’s most powerful military figures remains unknown after he became the focus of rumours that he was an Israeli spy.

Gen Esmail Qaani, a brigadier general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), is said to have aroused suspicion after emerging unscathed from the air strike at the start of the war that killed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s former supreme leader, as well as numerous top aides.

Speculation is rife in the Middle East that he is under house arrest or has been executed.

Ain’t nobody got time for dat.

Gizmoco.

In 1962, researchers hypothesized that diamond’s known form—a mostly cubic crystal—wasn’t the coveted mineral at its greatest hardness. Ever since, researchers have strived to recreate a hexagonal diamond, claimed to be roughly 50% harder than a regular diamond. But a new finding by Chinese researchers may finally bring this race to an end.

A Nature paper published yesterday describes the synthesis of a “millimeter-sized, phase-pure hexagonal diamond,” made with a highly specific method of compressing graphite at elevated temperatures. The resulting diamond, roughly 0.04 inches (1 millimeter) in size, was slightly harder, stiffer, and more resistant to oxidation compared to cubic diamonds.

What’s more, the team scrutinized their product with X-rays and atomic-scale microscopes, confirming that the crystal’s structure was hexagonal with minimum defects. Overall, this result may provide the strongest evidence thus far that hexagonal diamonds can exist, the team says.

Lucky us.

The Economist.

eaverton is home to a thriving colony of the furry, wood-chewing creatures. The mayor, however, doesn’t give a dam: he decides their forest habitat should be dislodged to make room for a freeway. Mabel, a teenage environmental activist, is outraged by these plans but faces apathy from the locals. After she discovers an experimental science project—one that allows her to “hop” her consciousness from her body into that of a robotic beaver—she befriends the animals and galvanises them to fight tooth and claw.

This is the zany premise of “Hoppers”, a new film (pictured), which is released on March 6th. It is one of a string of highly anticipated animated movies coming soon to cinemas: indeed, an unlikely coalition of beasts, toys and Italian plumbers may make 2026 the genre’s best-ever year. This summer there will be new instalments in the lucrative “Despicable Me” and “Paw Patrol” franchises, not to mention “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and “Toy Story 5” (both of which are expected to exceed $1bn in ticket sales). “goat”, which imagines what would happen if various hoofed animals were allowed to play professional sport, has made $130m since its release in February, making it the second-highest-grossing film of the year so far.

Animated films are typically aimed at small children, but they are mighty popular with audiences of all ages. In 1995 animated films made up just 2.8% of the film market in America and Canada; in 2024 they accounted for 23.9% (see chart). That year “Inside Out 2” became the highest-grossing animated film of all time, taking $1.7bn at the global box office. In early 2025 it was eclipsed by “Ne Zha 2”, a Chinese animated fantasy which has now earned over $2bn. (Only six other films have surpassed the $2bn mark.) “Ne Zha 2” may soon be beaten by “Zootopia 2”, released in November, which has made $1.9bn. How did animation become such a draw?

Read it.

Short answer: because math. Longer answer: because prime numbers don’t divide into each other evenly.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

Daily Record (UK).

One woman believes she holds the answer to cracking the biggest aviation enigma of recent times.

Katherine Tee, a British sailor, claims she witnessed part of the missing Malaysia Airlines aircraft on fire when it went down 12 years ago.

On March 8 2014, 227 passengers and 12 crew members disappeared after boarding the Boeing 777-200ER in Kuala Lumpur bound for Beijing, China. Just 40 minutes into the journey, the plane vanished from radar tracking, never to be spotted again.

Tee is convinced the “bright orange” glow and the “trail of black smoke” she observed over the Indian Ocean was the Boeing aircraft engulfed in flames.

Read it.

Mexican cartels are increasingly avoiding direct attacks on Americans in Mexico as President Donald Trump threatens military action against traffickers and pushes a tougher regional crackdown that U.S. officials say is meant to raise the cost of cartel violence.

Cartels have long sought to protect business interests and limit actions that could trigger a major government backlash.

Some analysts believe that calculus includes avoiding the deliberate targeting of American tourists and citizens in Mexico, Fox News reported.

That broader pressure campaign is being articulated openly by the administration and its allies.

The question you need to ask yourself is, “Am I feeling lucky?”.

The Times (UK).

MPs are demanding the Foreign Office postpone the King’s state visit to America because of President Trump’s “disrespectful” attacks on the UK.

Wouldn’t want him to catch Trump Cooties.

Labour backbenchers have said they believe ministers should send a message to the United States that “words matter” when it comes to the special relationship.

What special relationship? Britain hasn’t acted as if it had a ‘special relationship’ with the U.S. for decades.

The Times (UK).

It is frequently said that President Trump is a transactional politician. Yet Sir Keir Starmer is the prime minister who has readily set aside his own politics to pursue what he deems the long-term reward in having close, if improbable, ties with his American counterpart.

He illustrated the prize in the most performative terms available to him last May, when, shortly after brokering a deal to cut tariffs with the United States, he headed to Jaguar Land Rover’s factory in Solihull to meet workers. Standing before a gleaming red vehicle on the factory floor, Starmer proudly declared: “We are the first country to secure such a deal with the United States. In an era of global insecurity and instability, that is so important.”

To those on the left and right who had doubted his courtship with Trump, culminating in a hand-delivered invitation from the King for a second state visit, there came the rejoinder. Cars. Jobs. Exports.

The question after Trump’s latest intervention — in which he condemned Starmer for initially failing to support his intervention in Iran, saying: “We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!” — is whether the old calculations any longer apply.

To quote a wise old Gunnery Sergeant: “If your friend pulls a gun on you, he is no longer your friend—he’s a threat, and must be dealt with accordingly.”

The Times (UK).

An architect of Iran’s assassination plots in Britain and elsewhere in the West has been killed in the bombardment of Tehran.

Yahya Hosseini Panjaki, an intelligence chief involved in co-ordinating overseas attacks, died in the first wave of Israeli airstrikes that also killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

MI5 has tracked nearly 50 Tehran-backed plots in the UK. On Friday armed counterterrorism officers arrested four men on suspicion of helping Iran’s intelligence services to spy on the Jewish community in London. Their arrests may have been expedited amid concerns that the US and Israeli military action against Iran could prompt supporters of the regime overseas to launch retaliatory attacks.

“Today I settle all family business.” — Michael Corleone

ATQUE: How long will we let Israel and the US fight our battles for us? (The Telegraph [UK])

Watch it.

Everything you want to know about the oil business.

Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

For more than a century, U.S. military chaplains have worn insignia identifying their faith — a cross for Christians and tablets with a Star of David for Jews. Now Jewish chaplaincy groups are asking the Pentagon to intervene after chaplains from Messianic Judaism, a Christian movement that blends Jewish practices with belief in Jesus, began wearing the Jewish symbol.

The effort is being led by the Aleph Institute, a Chabad-affiliated organization that endorses Jewish chaplains for the U.S. military.

Aleph asked the military to investigate the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, which endorses Messianic chaplains, and to revoke its endorsement authority if it continues allowing clergy to wear Jewish insignia traditionally reserved for Jewish chaplains.

“It is clear that [the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregation] is acting in a manner incompatible with the interfaith cooperation and respect that has defined 150 years of U.S. military chaplaincy,” Aleph wrote in a letter to the Armed Forces Chaplains Board.

In a view shared by many Jews, Aleph suspects that the Messianic movement is a facade — a deceitful tactic aimed at proselytization.

Read it.

For years, of course, we have tracked the fundamental drivers which impact the gold price (from DXY debates, inflation signals, and de-dollarization headlines to COMEX outflows).

All of these complex signals and themes ultimately boil down to a simple realization: Gold rises as debt-trapped nations debase their currencies to monetize their increasingly unloved IOUs.

This is pure fundamentalist thinking, and it works. Gold’s direction is easy, because the fall of paper currencies is now obvious.

In short, real money (gold and silver) historically gets the last say over paper money (USD), paper metals (COMEX) and paper promises (USTs).

Or stated even more simply: Rock openly beats paper.

Read it.

In a stunning display of hypocrisy, neocon warmonger Bill Kristol is now trashing the Trump administration’s strikes on Iran—dubbed “Epic Fury”—despite agitating for military action against the regime for the past 25 years.

Kristol has spent years pushing to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and was even still doing so in January, only to pivot into full sabotage mode now that Trump has pulled the trigger.

Whether you’re for or against this military action, or waiting to see how it all pans out, we can all agree that Kristol is the most odious TDS-infected worm of a man.

Concur.

Cardio is a good way to get a heart attack.

Read it.

Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced a referendum for October 19. It will ask Albertans a slate of policy and constitutional questions. Independence, she said the next day, will be added to the ballot if the requisite number of signatures is met in the petition drive, which is likely.

Albertans will get their chance to say if they want to leave Canada.

But Canadian federalists can relax. The Alberta premier is one of them.

The referendum is the fix to defeat Alberta independence.

It will undermine the separatist cause and split the independence vote.

Read it. Really—read it.

Welcome to the “Rhythms” home page, a blogvel of sorts in several parts. The author’s attempt was to reveal elements of life aboard an aircraft carrier on the line. He had no idea it would take so long, and leave so very much untold.

This was my life for four and a half years aboard the USS John F. Kennedy (CVA-67). Even after fifty years, I can still hear the sounds, smell the smells, and appreciate how that life formed my character, for better or worse. (My wife still rolls her eyes when I insist on folding my underwear.)

The Times (UK).

British fighter jets shooting down cheap Iranian drones with expensive air-to-air missiles is akin to “firing golden bullets at plastic targets”, weapons experts have said.

RAF Typhoons and F-35s have been scrambled from airbases across the Middle East to intercept waves of slow-flying kamikaze drones launched by Iran.

On Sunday a Typhoon pilot blasted a one-way suicide drone out of the sky with a high-tech missile as it headed towards Qatar.

Well, that’s always the problem with asymmetric warfare, isn’it? You’d have thought that The Lesson of Ukraine would have gotten home by now. Time to get hot on developing lasers and other directed energy weapons.

Read it.

Our new poll finds question wording can swing opinion by 20-60 points on immigration, the budget, and transgender rights. That’s a problem for people who use polls to tell politicians what voters want.

You can be sure that proglodytes, Democrats, and the Narrative Media know that very well, and take advantage of it to deceive low-information voters and moron politicians.

Read it.

Amid the chaos of a deadly mass shooting that rocked Austin in the early morning hours of Sunday, March 1, a self-driving vehicle company is facing scrutiny after one of its cars got caught up in the aftermath. Waymo, the self-driving cars that recently launched in San Antonio, have made their presence known in Austin over the past few years, notoriously causing traffic jams whenever the robots get confused. Such was the case on Sunday in the wake of the traumatic mass shooting.

The shooting occurred around 2 a.m. Sunday at Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden on West Sixth Street in Austin. The incident left three dead, including the gunman, and dozens more injured. But as first responders rushed to the scene and patrons fled to safety, a Waymo went viral after blocking an Austin-Travis County EMS ambulance as the self-driving car attempted a U-turn and proceeded to get stuck in Austin traffic.

The moment was caught on video by Austin realtor Matthew Turnage, whose video has since been viewed over 250,000 times. In the video the Waymo is shown in the middle of an Austin street, apparently unable to complete the U-turn as the ATC EMS ambulance inches closer. The Waymo slightly moves up but freezes at the most inopportune time.

Still not ready for prime time. Police ought to be given an override code so that they can take control of such vehicles and get them out of the way.

Read it.

The Golden Dome for America (GDA) initiative has drawn criticism for not publicly releasing a detailed architecture, cost breakdown, or long-range budget projections. Think tanks, major media outlets, and some lawmakers argue that without public transparency the program risks becoming an expensive, open-ended undertaking.

Those concerns deserve to be taken seriously. But they often treat public disclosure as an unquestioned virtue. Revealing how the system works would give our adversaries the information they need to blunt it.

We don’t disclose budget information or performance characteristics for nuclear submarines, the F-35 and other sensitive air vehicles, or spy satellites developed by [the National Reconnaissance Office]. Demanding public disclosure of GDA is akin to asking the United States to publish a playbook for defeating it.

This reality is not theoretical. China and Russia have already criticized Golden Dome as destabilizing and driving an arms race. In this environment, withholding key details is not only prudent—it is imperative.

As they do….

Read it.

Iran is most often discussed as a nonproliferation problem, a sponsor of terrorism, a regional spoiler. Each of these framings captures a real problem, but none captures what matters most. The nuclear file, the militia archipelago stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, the question of Gulf security architecture: these only acquire their full meaning when read against the backdrop of Chinese grand strategy.

Beijing has spent years and billions of dollars building Iran into a structural asset. Everything that follows in the Middle East flows from this fact. Which is why Operation Epic Fury is the first American military campaign that threatens to sever that asset. By striking Iran directly, the Trump administration is dismantling, whether by design or by consequence, a pillar of China’s regional architecture.

The urgency of saying so plainly has never been greater. In June 2025, Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, a 12-day campaign of precision strikes that destroyed Iranian enrichment facilities, killed over 30 senior commanders and a dozen nuclear scientists, and drew the United States into direct strikes on 3 nuclear sites. The Islamic Republic’s deterrent mythology, cultivated over four decades, collapsed within a fortnight. In late December, the largest protests since 1979 erupted across all 31 provinces, fueled by economic freefall and a population that no longer believed in the regime’s strength. The government responded in January 2026 with massacres that killed thousands, prompting the European Union to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization and further increasing the isolation of the regime.

By any conventional measure, the Islamic Republic is weaker than at any point in its history. Yet China was moving to put it back together. This week, it was reported that Tehran was close to finalizing a deal for Chinese-made supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, weapons capable of threatening American carriers now massing in the Persian Gulf. Earlier, Chinese suppliers shipped over 1,000 tons of sodium perchlorate, a key missile propellant ingredient, to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas, enough to rebuild a substantial portion of the ballistic missile stockpile that Israel had just spent 12 days destroying.

Understanding why Beijing would do this and what it means for the United States requires looking beyond Iran and toward the broader contest in which Iran plays a role.

Dean  Ball.

Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology under Trump

At some point during my lifetime—I am not sure when—the American republic as we know it began to die. Like most natural deaths, the causes are numerous and interwoven. No one incident, emergency, attack, president, political party, law, idea, person, corporation, technology, mistake, betrayal, failure, misconception, or foreign adversary “caused” death to begin, though all those things and more contributed. I don’t know where we are in the death process, but I know we are in the hospice room. I’ve known it for a while, though I have sometimes been in denial, as all mourners are wont to do. I don’t like to talk about it; I am at the stage where talking about it usually only inflicts pain.

Unfortunately, however, I cannot carry out my job as a writer today with the level of analytic rigor you expect from me without acknowledging that we are sitting in hospice. It is increasingly difficult to honestly discuss the developments of frontier AI, and what kind of futures we should aim to build, without acknowledging our place at the deathbed of the republic as we know it. Except there is no convenient machine to decide for us that the patient has died. We just have to sit and watch.

Our republic has died and been reborn again more than once in America’s history. America has had multiple “foundings.” Perhaps we are on the verge of another rebirth of the American republic, another chapter in America’s continual reinvention of itself. I hope so. But it may be that we have no more virtue or wisdom to fuel such a founding, and that it is better to think of ourselves as transitioning gradually into an era of post-republic American statecraft and policymaking. I do not pretend to know.

The Times (UK).

Reports of crimes against MPs have hit record-breaking levels, with cases doubling in two years to nearly 1,000 annually, driven by a surge in abuse and threats to kill.

Harassment cases have increased almost fivefold and reports of threats to kill have tripled since 2019, according to data obtained via a freedom of information (FOI) request to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

Female MPs told The Times that threats to life had become “standard” and that the surge in cases was “sadly not surprising”.

You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.

Alma Boykin.

Chicago style – the filling is under the cheese (foot notes)

APA style – stuffed crust (parenthetical citations)

Read it.

Shortly after meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping in late October, President Donald Trump said China would never attack Taiwan while he is president because Chinese officials “know the consequences.” While support from the United States is welcome news for Taiwan, Trump’s words raise a real question: Does Xi actually know the cost of invading Taiwan?

Much of the analysis of a potential Beijing attempt to seize Taiwan by force has centered on the Chinese military’s capabilities and Taiwan’s defenses, especially if supported by the United States. Many assessments conclude that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is not currently capable of defeating the U.S. military in a direct conflict.

However, analysts still warn of a worst-case scenario in which Xi, seeking to cement his legacy, launches a premature strike. Xi has tied his legitimacy to the “China Dream” of national rejuvenation by 2049 and has framed unifying Taiwan with the mainland as essential to achieving that goal.

I know the feeling.

Daily Record (UK).

A clinical and forensic psychologist has put forward the extraordinary suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein could still be alive, following her examination of a crucial element within the Epstein files. Published by the Justice Department, the archives contains millions of documents, images, videos, and emails chronicling the activities of the convicted paedophile.

Numerous files also illuminate his connections to public figures, politicians, and celebrities – although nobody named has faced charges or prosecution for any offence. Dr Leslie Dobson, who maintains she’s collaborating directly with the United States Congress on the files, argues that some of the bombshell discoveries represent merely the tip of the iceberg.

“A lot of the names are redacted, so it could have been other people,” she stated, referencing certain emails. Addressing the extensive correspondence to and from Epstein, Leslie continued: “They’re corresponding back and forth and that’s in writing. Imagine what they’re talking about on the phone?”.

Whilst a substantial portion of the files remains heavily redacted, Leslie asserts that she and cyber hackers have succeeded in uncovering some hidden information, reports the Mirror.

UPDATE: Hillary Clinton Says She Only Recalls Meeting Epstein That One Time When She Murdered Him (Babylon Bee)