That is an incredible book.

We wouldn't have a 250th birthday to celebrate if Gen. Washington hadn't mandated the smallpox vaccine for the Continental Army ("Should the disorder infect the Army...and rage with its usual Virulence, we should have more to dread from it than from the sword of the enemy"), but okay sure

If I think about it too hard I get afraid I’ll open a wormhole and zap back to April 2020: an infant on my lap who’s losing weight, a lactation consultant on Zoom who can’t help, family who can’t come, and the walls of an apartment closing in. Six years later and I’m still digging out of that hole.

Make the old iPods again but make them synch wirelessly and charge via UPC. I want to give my kid access to his music without giving Boy my old crappy iPhone and thereby populating my iTunes with his playlists such as “Poop Pee Throwup”

8% of Japan’s oil imports come from Kuwait, so 8% of what Japan is expecting will not show up. Were this a war based on a clear and present danger, this critical American ally may be more pain tolerant. As it stands, it’s another pointless kick in the teeth that will come back to haunt us.

"The problem is not that regulation hampers innovation. The problem is that innovation without purpose is a dead end. "

This is spot on, and exactly why I wrote my piece comparing AI to plastics last month.

www.newsweek.com/stop-asking-...

This thread is a masterclass of informed critique.

“Verification gets reduced to selective fact-display. Deliberation runs as theatre while the questions that matter are ruled out of order. Accountability gets pointed at critics while leadership is left untouched. This is VDA as simulation.”

From the Revolution to Korea, my grandfathers wore the uniform; not wearing it too is my one true regret. And I probably should have been braver, but the Academies then didn’t seem like a …constructively stressful place for a 17 y/o female so I didn’t go for it.
I think about that decision a lot.

Most times the internet is awful. Other times you find out that a direct-line ancestor, who'd fought under Gen. Washington in the Revolutionary War, was MURDERED in the riverside tavern his son owned and that the killer ESCAPED by SWIMMING DOWN THE MONONGAHELA.

Such a coin toss, the internet.

Just so we’re tracking — Pharisees were Jews; the Bible says Jesus criticized in Matthew 23:13 - “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men.” The Pharisee Press is not a typo.

“I have seen them in the sonars of the DDGs they sent (since the sweepers that we used to have we swapped for those instead);
I have watched with some alarm as Ford got pulled from retirement;
Our maint’nance bill is long”

I have seen them in the sonars of the DDGs they sent (since the sweepers that we used to have we swapped for those instead);
I have watched with some alarm as Ford got pulled from retirement;
Our maint’nance bill is long…

🔥🔥🔥

Oh my day is shot now

“Mine threat in parts of Hormuz was not fully understood;
Trump can’t easily conclude this war that few believed was good.
Now our Navy’s stuck inside the Strait with sailors eating wood.
Our foibles stumble on.”

My husband has been trying to talk to me for five minutes as I wrote my own

“Mine threat in parts of Hormuz was not fully understood;
Trump can’t easily conclude this war that few believed was good.
Now our Navy’s stuck inside the Strait with sailors eating wood.
Our foibles stumble on.”

Incidentally, you can sing this headline to the Battle Hymn of the Republic if you insert the missing “was,” which I’m sure will please @rpg-volley.bsky.social as much as me.

Congrats on “opening” a strait that was open six weeks ago, and all it cost was at least 13 dead service members, thousands of dead Iranian civilians, tens of billions in taxpayer dollars, our loss in global standing, and the Iranian regime’s increase in power. Phenomenal work.

Very niche question -- does anyone have a website recommendation for making a challenge coin?

Exclusive: US to delay weapons deliveries to some European countries due to Iran war, sources say U.S. officials have informed some ​European counterparts that some previously contracted weapons deliveries are likely to be delayed as the Iran war ‌continues to draw on weapons stocks, five sources ...

“US to delay delivery of weapons to several European countries - including the Nordics and the Baltics, because of Iran war.”

But next week the White House will be outraged again when Europe attempts to strengthen its own production base, rather than buy US weapons.

www.reuters.com/world/middle...

100%.

And exhorting him to “unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy” as very normal people do.

It’s also why Hegseth’s focus on lethality is so laughable. If you really care about lethality, then take to the podium to talk about commissaries and childcare for dual-military couples.

When Secretary Austin made people his first priority, it wasn’t for some sort of namby-pamby normative good. It was because people win wars. People man ships. People manage blockades. If people can’t do that, the blockades, ships, and wars fail. We lose.

Stone-cold accurate.

*stares in Houthis*

Having just concluded a TV interview (my first!) after two weeks of 12hr days and feeling like an absolute wreck, I can confirm the fighter pilot’s prayer soothes the nerves: “Dear Lord, please don’t let me f*** up.”

Any excuse to post my third-favorite graphic of all time.

Allbirds announces stunning pivot from shoes to AI, stock explodes more than 300% Allbirds announced a deal with American Exchange Group to sell its intellectual property and other assets for $39 million in March.

I can't think of a single other example where a company pivoted between two vastly different things. It's like if Boeing went from making airplanes to making perfume. The siren song of AI is just boggling.

www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/a...