Wednesday Overnight Open Thread - December 17, 2025 [North Pole Rex]

Good evening Horde. The time has come for mid-week shenanigans of the post-cafe overnight variety.

Welcome to the Wednesday night ONT which means another edition of random overnight fun and games. Pull up a chair and sit a spell. Good will offerings of amusing puns are happily accepted. Pants are optional. Be nice to your fellow commenters and AoS contributors. Santa knows who is naughty and who is nice.

"No matter the ailment, the Wednesday ONT is the cure and sure to make you feel better."

"Wasn't this in ONT Christmas season content last year?"

Damn right, it was.

Hat tip to a Moron but no idea which one. If it was you, thank you!

Got yer tree yet?

Would be a good white elephant gift:

Not all heroes wear capes:

ONT Department of Military Long Form Reading Material

Apologies if this has already been posted somewhere on Ace of Spades, but posting to make sure you see. Mandatory reading (since this is a semi-serious military blog at times).

A Week In The Pentagon - Chaos, Complexity and Hope

Many pull quotes but this one is a good example:

And here's the truth no one outside the building understands: often Trump himself doesn't know the decision in advance - and that is by design.

In the old model, a policy chief like Colby - if he wasn't drowned out entirely by the bureaucratic circus - would brief the President only after the internal machinery had already decided which ideas were "viable." By the time anything reached the Oval Office, the cake was half-baked.

Colby doesn't play that game. He encourages his team to present the President with multiple strategic pathways that share one overarching objective: put America first. Not metaphorically-literally. Then Trump chooses.

And once the President selects a strategy, everything changes.

In previous administrations, the moment a plan left the Oval Office, think tanks, senators, lobbyists, foreign service officials, intel chiefs, and a whole menagerie of Beltway fauna would descend on the National Security Council to tug at the plan, dilute it, reshape it, or kill it entirely. Every actor demanded their piece, their clause, their carve-out, their exception. Strategy, once released into the wild, rarely survived the stampede.

That era is over.

Trump doesn't ignore these players - he's altered significant strategies to accommodate strong objections from Congress and foreign allies - but he no longer allows them to hijack the core plan. They may comment. They may object. They may warn. They may advise. But they are no longer permitted to quietly amputate or rewrite the strategic heart before it beats.

The wonks are in charge again - but not the conference-circuit wonks with PhDs, hotel per diems, and NATO summit panels funded by NGOs with agendas buried in their footnotes. Not the pseudo-experts who present PowerPoints about imaginary futures.

The wonks in charge now are the ones who can take the boundless complexity of geopolitics and distill it down to America's core interests - those who can see the world not as a chessboard or a cocktail party but as a dynamic system requiring clarity, courage, and constant recalibration.

And for the first time in decades, the Pentagon is beginning to operate according to that principle.

Obscure South Park Christmas special reference:

ONT Department of Lego Construction

Anyone build their own Lego piece sorter? I didn't know this, but there is an entire sub-genre on YouTube of people making videos about making Lego piece sorters. I will admit, as a general rule, I am endlessly fascinated seeing many different solutions attempting to solve the same problem. (But I am also easily amused, so there is that...)

ONT Department of Military History

Last Wednesday's ONT included the story of the Vietnam-era toilet bomb. But wait, there's more!

From The War Zone:

CWO3 Wayne Toth, a member of VFA-25, who shared his photos with us for this article, also gave us a little background on how the toilet-bomb was brought back to life:

"I am the Gunner in now VFA-25. We had a change of command and decided to replicate it. This time on a brand new BLOCK III Super Hornet.

One of my AO3s (AO3 Meagan Rickets) picked up a toilet from [the] marketplace, and I cut the steel, used Mk 76 lugs, made the tail assembly out of multiple dryer exhausts, and our Corrosion Control made the stickers."

The change of command ceremony occurred on September 16 at Naval Air Station Lemoore where the historic toilet recreation was so proudly displayed. During the ceremony, Commander Mark "IROC" Tedrow, a former Blue Angel, took over as skipper of VFA-25 from Commander Kristen Hansen. It was a perfect place for a fun callback to the proud history of the squadron.

Bonus answer to the question from last week: Why did the original toilet have an "E" on it?

The "E" seen on the toilet denotes the unit has been awarded the Battle Effectiveness Award.

REMINDER

Saturday's Hobby Thread requires Horde participation. On last Saturday's Hobby Thread, we honored the Christmas ornament. Many among the Horde sent photos of ornaments from their collections to the Hobby Thread email address. It seemed to go well, so we're doing it again this Saturday. That means if you missed it the first time or you have another ornament to submit, you get another chance.

Could be something sentimental, something you made as a child or an adult, something special given to you, something you picked up on your travels, something whimsical or fun, something particularly novel, something really old, something handmade, something intricate or fancy, something irreverent and cheeky, etc.

If there is a story behind your photo, send a brief description. I may edit or inappropriately embellish, so be warned.

If you don't have an ornament, but have some other favorite festive Christmas decoration, send it in. Ornaments get priority but will feature other decorations if there is space.

THANK YOU!

Popcorn anyone?

The Pittsburgh police scanner keeps giving. Thank you people of Pittsburgh!

And the grand finale:

The Brian Setzer Orchestra for the big ONT finish.

Written correspondence can be sent to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Are you lurking ?? Thank you for your attention to this matter.

posted by Open Blogger at 10:00 PM

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