Happy birthday, Laura!
Three cheers for Lazarus! Also, excellent name for a company that recovers files from dead computers.
I just can’t with the Iran news. It seems like we’ve been beefing with them since the Carter administration.
And almost sixty-five percent of that was actual compliment. Is that a personal best?
Xander ,'End of Days'
Natter 78: I might need to watch some Buffy for inspiration
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, butt kicking, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Calli - Feb 22, 2026 3:10:31 pm PST #11673 of 11674
I must obey the inscrutable exhortations of my soul—Calvin and Hobbs
DavidS - Feb 22, 2026 4:10:53 pm PST #11674 of 11674
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."
I just can’t with the Iran news. It seems like we’ve been beefing with them since the Carter administration.
From what I can glean from all the YouTube videos on the subject, this is going hand in hand with the diplomatic approach getting Iran to stop its nuclear program.
They are bringing a big stick to the negotiations and essentially saying, "Comply or we strike."
Unlike Desert Storm there's no massing of troops to go in on the ground. Trump's team wants to essentially do what they did in Venezuela which is take out the autocrat at the top, put in someone more compliant, and keep most of the current structure in place.
I don't think they can do that in Iran without taking out the Iran Revolutionary Guard, which is not going to comply with any diplomatic demands. Further, even though Khemeni sounds (even looks a bit like) Khomeni, he's mostly a figurehead instead of a deep thinking leader. So taking out Khemeni (who is 80) isn't like taking out Maduro.
That said, you don't just line up two air craft carriers off the coast for show. It's staging for the attack.
But it will probably be: attack and then push them back to the table. If they're defiant, attack harder. Back to the table, etc.
tl;dr: Trump wants a compliant Iran (no nukes, stop using proxies to attack Israel and other terrorist groups), but doesn't want to get stuck being responsible for running the country.
So it's a little like old school American colonialism, where we install a compliant puppet government. That said - it would probably still be good for the Iranian people to take out the current power structure.
Oh yeah, that's also part of the US plan: to do strikes and then support an uprising from below.
Anyway, something will probably happen within the next two weeks.