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Daily Tech News 1 April 2026 Tuesday Overnight Open Thread - March 31, 2026 [Doof] Tuesday Cafe Quick Hits Supreme Court Rules That Free Speech Still Exists; Ketanji Brown Jackson Doesn't Understand Kristi Noem's Husband Is a Not-So-Secret Crossdresser Who Adorns Himself With Ridiculous Fake Breasts Woe Canada: Canada Now Running Benetton-Style Fashion Ads Urging Its Sick Citizens to Present Themselves Before the Suicide Booths for a Quick and Easy (and Cheap for the Canadian Welfare State) Exit from This Life Trump To Cowardly Countries Complaining They Can't Get Their Oil Through the Strait of Hormuz: If You Want Your Oil, Send In Your Navy and Take It Yourselves, Tough-Guys Providence Mayor Calls Mural Showing Face of Slaughtered Iryna Zarutska "Divisive," Wants It Taken Down Absent Friends
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August 05, 2005
Some Iraq PostsSome interesting stuff out there. Thanks to NickS, IraqNow lists some interesting stats about Iraq, most positive, some not so much. Saudi Arabia contributes more jihadi warriors than its closest rival, Syria, by a factor of five. I think that's why Saudi security forces fight Al Qaeda so much. The object isn't to capture or kill them, so much as convince them that life is easier in Iraq. Of course, once the United States eventually leaves Iraq, these foreign fighters are going to head right back to Saudi Arabia, and be a problem for them all over again. Another interesting tidbit: Next time some uninformed yobsucker kvetches to you that coalition forces haven't been able to restore electricity to Baghdad, point out that currently, nationwide electricity production is actually 15 percent higher than prewar levels. (4541 Mw in July 05 compared to 3958 before the war.) Baghdad hasn't quite caught up to its prewar levels yet (I can hear Riverbend complaining from here), but you must remember that Saddam's government diverted power to Baghdad from all over the Euphrates River Valley and to loyal cities and areas, at the expense of the outlying towns. Actually, it's all interesting. Cake or Death, a pro-war conservative, is meanwhile beginning to fear we could actually lose the war, largely due to a failure of morale on the homefront. Bill Roggio suggests the uptick in our boys' deaths is due to the high-impact "River War" strategy, in which our troops are pushing the insurgents into a smaller and smaller safe zone. Not sure what it means, but anti-war liberal Democrat VonK sent me that last bit (he also sent the IraqNow link, as did NickS.). Pointed Out By Dave From Garfield Ridge: Wolf Blitzer says an "armored-up Humvee" could have survived a massive shaped-charge bomb. Apparently clueless that the bomb in question flipped over a thirty-one ton armored LAV. But an armored jeep? That would have withstood the blast. posted by Ace at 12:18 PM
CommentsRe the quoted story's line, "nationwide electricity production is actually 15 percent higher than prewar levels. (4541 Mw in July 05 compared to 3958 before the war.)": Megawatts is a measure of capacity, not production, which would be measured in megawatt-hours. It's the difference bwtween knowing the magazine capacity of your Lee-Enfield rifle and knowing how many shots you've fired. Of course, both electric capacity and output in Iraq could be up, but the numbers given don't speak to output. Posted by: Axel Kassel on August 5, 2005 12:30 PM
Good post by Steenwyk, but did you perchance see this other one, right below it? Man, Wolf. . . Wolf. Dude, really. Of course, this is one of Jason Von Steenwyk's long-running pet peeves, one that I happen to strongly share. If the press can't be bothered to learn the difference between a soldier and a Marine, a battalion and a brigade, and a Humvee and an AAV, how can anyone trust their analysis on the larger issues? To anyone who thinks this is irrelevant minutiae, may I remind them that the media holds sports reporters to a higher standard than it does journalists on the military beat. After all, no one would care what a reporter had to say about the Super Bowl if they couldn't explain a first down to you. So tell me why the same standard doesn't apply to military matters, matters literally of life & death? F'ing amateurs. Cheers, Posted by: Dave at Garfield Ridge on August 5, 2005 12:31 PM
Belmont Club is analyzing as well: http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/ Posted by: Steve in Houston on August 5, 2005 12:57 PM
"So tell me why the same standard doesn't apply to military matters, matters literally of life & death" Because the facts are irrelevant when the intent is not to report but to support policy positions. Fake but accurate as they say. Posted by: BrewFan on August 5, 2005 01:04 PM
Oh the humvee could easily "survive" in a manner of speaking - like an elevator car free falling 30 stories can "survive". This doesn't mean you won't be sponging out the contents of said humvee though. Posted by: on August 5, 2005 03:14 PM
A shaped charge needn't penetrate an armored vehicle to do damage, either. Some are intended to cause "spalling", where the interior armor is actually superheated and liquefied, which then flies around the interior of the vehicle and kills people that way. HEAT (High Energy Anti Tank) rounds do this. But a correctly-designed shaped charge can penetrate several inches of armor plating -- the Israelis lost a Merkava tank a year or two ago to a shaped charge placed in a roadway. The charge opened that tank like a tuna can. Posted by: Monty on August 5, 2005 03:26 PM
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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. 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]
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]
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.”
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] Recent Comments
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