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What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker
Batman tries to fire Superman
Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please
I'm even on knees
Makin' love to whoever I please
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all

Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

TJM gives you a brief tour of his movie collection.

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine

US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.

Robert Mueller, Former Special Counsel Who Probed Trump, Dies

“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”

TJM has thoughts on Superheros and Iconography

Canadian School Designates Cafeteria And Lunchroom As "No Food Zones" For Ramadan
Canada and the UK are neck and neck in the race to become the first western country to fall to Islam [CBD]

Chuck Norris, Action Icon and 'Walker Texas Ranger' Star, Dies at 86

Podcast: Sefton and CBD have a short chat about Iran, the disgusting SAVE Act theater, Mamdani's politicizing of St. Patrick's Day, and more!

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Is there a city in this entire nation where an obviously ill person would be denied a properly dosed shot of penicillin at a trauma center or emergency room? The idea that Burkett lacked access to one of the most common antibiotics in existence administered by a competent doctor for lack of the military's authorization defies belief.

How crazy is this guy?

Ok, I'll bite. Are there any Drs out there that can tell us all what happens when a person takes three times the correct amount of penicillin? And, are antibiotics specially formulated for cattle (unusual additives, etc.)?

Lockhart was Clinton's Press Secretary, meaning he is an adept liar. The notion that Burkett would demand to talk to a senior Democrat claiming he had "valuable advice", and that advice was about getting out the Baird vote, Kerry talking more about assault gun bans, or jobs - is flat out ridiculous.

Lockart's only defense is that Burkett is so crazy he forgot to talk to Lockart about the obvious "I have these explosive documents showing Bush refused a direct order, his CO hated him...and it's running on 60 Minutes II Sept 9th. Are you guys ready to run "Favorite Son" and coordinate all the speeches and Moveon, Texans for the Truth ads right after me and Ben Barnes trash Bush's Guard service???"

Yep, Lockart can look you right in the eye and say, "Nothing about any documents! I'm shocked, shocked! Shocked about those documents, as I am sure Sen. Kerry and every senior Democratic official is. Mr. Burkett, as I recollect, merely passed on some windsurfing tips, told us we should push gay marriage more, and that someone needed to change Max Clelands diapers more frequently".

The antibiotic is probably Com-biotic, a kind of shotgun of penecillin and a couple of other formulas that is pretty common for use in cattle. Every cowboy I know has doctored himself and his kids with it, with no ill effects. Well, other than they all seem to be a little crazy. I've used it on my dog, and come to think of it he's pretty crazy too: Every time he goes outside he rolls in cow crap. Hey, every time Burkett opens his mouth he STEPS in cow crap. Maybe there is a connection!

Even normal amounts of penicillin will kill a lot of the microbes in your gut that help you digest food. A huge dose like that would about have you passing whole and recognizable chunks of your dinner, no? That would probably make a guy flip out some, wouldn't it?

I'm not a doctor, though that may not be terribly obvious, so take this with a grain of salt. Like you would sweet corn.

Kurtz quotes Joe Lockhart as saying he's "99.9 percent sure" that Burkett didn't bring up Bush's military service when they spoke on the phone.

Lockhart may actually *not* be lying about his conversation with Burkett. There really was no reason for Lockhart and Burkett to discuss the real reason for the call; the fact that Mapes arranged the call *itself* told Lockhart all that he needed to know. So, Lockhart gives Burkett his 3 minutes and gets on to the real business at hand: finish setting up the various DNC hit pieces to coincide with a soon-to-be-aired expose of Bush's deficient TANG service. He wouldn't have known the exact timing of the 60 Minutes II report because Mapes wouldn't have been stupid enough to give him information of that precision. But he would certainly have been able to set up the dominoes so that the CBS hit piece would start them all tumbling.

Why hasn't anyone pointed this out yet???

This whole Lockhart business doesn't seem to gibe with the Max Cleland phone calls.

If Burkett had already spoken with Cleland, surely it raises questions over whether he needed CBS to broker a phone call or whether is just false mis-direction?

What is kind of interesting is that CBS could broker a call between a crazy and a member of the kerry campaign. I think that is an issue that reinforces the collusion meme.

Another Smokin' Update from the Creator of All Wisdom